What is Church?

You can walk along a street and see St. Thomas's Church or the Church of St. Agnes or whatever other name is given to a particular building.  And so over the centuries the building has become known as the church.  People talk of going to church when they are going to a building.  It is sometimes known as 'the House of God'.

Let's see what the Bible says about this.  In Acts 7:44-51, Stephen is before the Sanhedrin and he says

                  'However, the Most High God does not live in houses made by men.' 

He goes on to quote from the prophet Isaiah 66:1,2 

                                             

                                    'Heaven is my throne

                                    and the earth is my footstool. 

                                    What kind of house will you build for me? 

                                    Or where will my resting place be?

                                    Has not my hand made all these things?

So right from Old Testament times it is clear that God doesn't live in a building, no matter how big or small.  He allowed the Jews a tabernacle in the desert so that they had a point of focus for the guidance of God on their journey but, as humans throughout the ages have done, when they reached and settled in the Promised Land, they wanted to make what had been a good experience for them into a tradition and institution.  So the Temple in Jerusalem was built so they could come and worship God.  Had they not remembered that God was with them wherever they went on their journey to that place?  Did He then live in one place in a building?  

But on the Friday that Jesus died, the curtain in the Temple separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies where the High Priest was the only person allowed to enter only once a year, was torn from top to bottom.  The Jews believed that God inhabited the Holy of Holies, it was His dwelling place but now it was open not just to the High Priest but to all.  God was demonstrating that He was no longer confined to a building.  Yet it seems we do the same today - we erect buildings and call them God's House or Christians refer to them as 'church'.

Paul in his letters wrote to the church in Corinth about divisions in the church.  He knew that there was more than one group of Christians there and insisted that they were wrong to think of themselves as one group following Apollos, another followers of Paul and others of Cephas and Cristos.  He insisted that there was only one church, one undivided Body of Christ.  Nowadays in the UK there is a week in the year when everyone concentrates on church unity - the week of Christian Unity.  During that week it is customary that each evening Christians go to the building of a different denomination to 'share' together.  I remember on one occasion going to such an event and I was welcomed with the words 'Welcome to our church'.  'Our church'?  I thought, 'they really don't get what church unity really is about.'  At the end of the week everyone goes back to their own group and continues as before.  It reminds me of a chorus we used to sing as children, 'You in your small corner and I in mine'.

So I think that the Bible clearly shows us that there is only one Church and it is not a building.  Jesus said that the Temple of God is within us.  He didn't tell Zacchaeus that he should go to the synagogue on the Sabbath and after the service the rabbis would pray for him.  He went to his house and spent time with him and talked to him about God and about his own relationship with God and about his life.  Then Zacchaeus became a changed man.  When Jesus was about to be ascended to heaven, he spoke to His followers.  He didn't tell them to go to Jerusalem and build a big church and get people to come and worship there.  He never mentioned buildings or meeting in buildings at all.  He told them to go and make disciples.  It is nice to meet other Christians and share together and there is a place for that but the act of going to a building does not in itself make us Christians.  It is about our own individual and personal relationship with God.  We, people, are the Church, His Body on earth, a temple made with living stones.  Wherever followers of Jesus are, there is the Church.