God's House
Excerpt from Acts 7:44-53
"It was Solomon who built a house for God. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands; as the prophet says, 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord?'"
Reflection by William C. Green
The oldest known house of worship in the world was located on top of a hill in what is now eastern Turkey. It was part of a religious complex named for its location, Gobeckli Tepe (pot-bellied hill). Far older than the stone monoliths at Stonehenge or on Easter Island, thousands of years older than the pyramids, this is where many have long thought civilization began about 10,000 BCE. The urge for the divine, worshipped in special places, has been part of what it means to be human since ancient days.
So what kind of house do we build for the Lord? The proper worship of God in the Bible moves from a tent, to a tabernacle (an elaborate tent), to a temple—to a text, the Torah, taught in small synagogues. The heart of the matter became the Bible and the vision it inspires. It’s not that earlier houses of worship were inherently wrong but that, in the view of the early church, they stole the show. Although the Bible, too, can be idolized, its message points beyond itself to a God as wide as the heavens and as broad as the earth.
You can see a hundred miles in any direction from the top of that pot-bellied hill in Turkey where so much began. Whatever our house of worship today, may it inspire the same breadth of vision.
Prayer
Almighty God, may the houses we build for you lead us to look in all directions, and to know the great embrace of your love ourselves for the sake of others. Amen.
Excerpt from Acts 7:44-53
"It was Solomon who built a house for God. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands; as the prophet says, 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord?'"
Reflection by William C. Green
The oldest known house of worship in the world was located on top of a hill in what is now eastern Turkey. It was part of a religious complex named for its location, Gobeckli Tepe (pot-bellied hill). Far older than the stone monoliths at Stonehenge or on Easter Island, thousands of years older than the pyramids, this is where many have long thought civilization began about 10,000 BCE. The urge for the divine, worshipped in special places, has been part of what it means to be human since ancient days.
So what kind of house do we build for the Lord? The proper worship of God in the Bible moves from a tent, to a tabernacle (an elaborate tent), to a temple—to a text, the Torah, taught in small synagogues. The heart of the matter became the Bible and the vision it inspires. It’s not that earlier houses of worship were inherently wrong but that, in the view of the early church, they stole the show. Although the Bible, too, can be idolized, its message points beyond itself to a God as wide as the heavens and as broad as the earth.
You can see a hundred miles in any direction from the top of that pot-bellied hill in Turkey where so much began. Whatever our house of worship today, may it inspire the same breadth of vision.
Prayer
Almighty God, may the houses we build for you lead us to look in all directions, and to know the great embrace of your love ourselves for the sake of others. Amen.
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