Is the church just a building | Frank Viola

The building complex

The contemporary Christian is in love with brick and cement. The building complex is so deeply rooted in our thinking that if a group of believers begins to gather, their first thoughts are aimed at getting a building. For how can a group of Christians pretend to be a church legitimately without a building? (This is the way of thinking.)
The church building is so related to the idea of church that we unconsciously equate it. Just listen to today's average Christian vocabulary: "Wow, honey! Did you see that beautiful church we just passed? " Gee! That's the biggest church I've ever seen! I wonder how much they'll pay for the electricity to work. " "Our church is too small. He's giving Me claustrophobia. We need to widen the balcony. "
"The church is freezing today; I'm freezing here! " We went to church every Sunday last year except when the microwave dropped on Aunt Yolanda's toe. "

What about the typical pastor terminology? "Isn't it wonderful to be in God's House today?" "We must show reverence when we enter the sanctuary of the Lord." And the mother who tells her happy daughter (low): "Take that smile off your face. You're in church now! You have to behave well in God's house! " Frankly, none of these thoughts have anything to do with the New Testament Christianity. Rather they reflect the thought of other religions; Mainly Judaism and paganism.

Christians are the Temple of God

The early Christians believed that Jesus was the very presence of God. They believed that the body of Christ, the Church, constitutes a temple. When the Lord Jesus was on Earth, he made some radically negative statements about the Jewish temple. The main one was that it would be destroyed!

While Jesus pointed to the temple that existed in the architectural sense, he actually talked about his body. Jesus said that after the temple was destroyed, he would raise it in three days.

Significantly, he referred to the true Temple — the church — that he raised in himself on the third day.

Since Christ Rose, we Christians have become the Temple of God. For this reason the New Testament always reserves the word "Church" (Ekklesia) for the people of God. He never uses this word to refer to a building of any kind. Jesus ' act of clearing the temple meant that the "temple cult" of Judaism was being replaced by himself. With his arrival, the father would no longer be worshipped in a mountain or in a temple. Instead, he would be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
When Christianity was born, it was the only religion on Earth that did not have sacred objects, holy people, or hallowed spaces. Although surrounded by Jewish synagogues and pagan temples, the first Christians were the only religious people on Earth who did not erected sacred temples for their worship. The Christian faith was born in homes, in courtyards, along roads and in living rooms.

Just like that. This makes you once again reconsider the power you have, if you let it move at will, the spirit of religiosity. Here's what we call diabolical subtlety, something that seems even good if you don't understand it, but it's really nefarious.

The early Christians believed that the church, the community of believers, was the temple. And that worship was not spatially located or far from the whole of life. Therefore, in their minds there was no idea of a "holy place." The "holy place" of Christians is as omnipresent as their ascended Lord! Worship is not something that happens in a certain place at one time. It's a lifestyle.

During the first three centuries, Christians had no special building. As one scholar said, "Christianity that conquered the Roman Empire was essentially a household-centric movement." Some have argued that this was by force. But it's not true. It was a conscious choice on the part of them. By growing the size of the congregations, they began to remodel their homes to accommodate a greater number of people.
One of the most outstanding discoveries of archaeology is the house of Dura Europos, in what is now Syria. This is the oldest Christian meeting place identifiable.

It was simply a private home remodeled as a Christian meeting place around the year 232 A.D. The House of Duran Europos was, essentially, a house where the wall had been removed between two bedrooms to create a large living room. With this modification, the house could accommodate some seventy people. The remodeled houses, like that of Dura Europos, cannot be correctly classified as "church buildings".
They were simply revamped houses to accommodate larger congregations. In addition, these houses were never called "temples", the term they used both pagan and Jewish for their sacred places. Christians did not begin to call their buildings "temples" until the 15th century!

It should be noted that Christians sometimes used existing buildings for special and temporary purposes. The Portico of Solomon and the School of Tiranno are examples (Acts 5:12; 19:9). However, their usual church meetings were always held in a private home.

The house in Dura Europos was destroyed in 256 A.D. According to Frank Senn, "The Christians of the first centuries lacked the publicity of the pagan cults. They had No shrines, temples, statues or sacrifices. They did not perform festivals, dances, spectacles or public pilgrimages. His main rite involved a meal that had an origin and a home environment inherited from Judaism.

By the way, Christians in the first three centuries used to meet in private residences that had been converted into meeting spaces suitable for the Christian community... This indicates that the ritual austerity of the early Christian cults should not be taken as a sign of primitiveness, but rather as a way of emphasizing the spiritual character of Christian worship. " These restructured houses were called Domus Ecclesiae.

Some have argued that Christians before Constantine were poor and could not own property. But this is not true. Under the persecution of Emperor Valeriano (253-260), for example, all the properties of Christians were confiscated.