For millennia, god-seekers would go to special places better to communicate with a particular god. Often they would go to a special building dedicated or consecrated to the worship or service of the god.
It was not only dedicated to the particular god but also was considered the principal place for the public and private worship of that god in the neighborhood, town, province, or country.
It was often referred to as the house of the god, as though the god lived in that place—or at least that a believer could especially get in touch with the god there.
And, there was a tendency to presume that if the special building, the temple, was bigger and more beautiful than most others, access to the god would be easier and better.
According to the Bible, a god got in touch with Abraham, and Abraham dutifully did what the god asked of him. His immediate descendants worshiped that same god as their family god, known first as the God of Abraham, then the God of Abraham and Isaac, then the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
Moses encountered this god of the Israelites, first in the experience of the burning bush and then later on the mountain. This god of their ancestors made a covenant with them to be their god and they, in turn, to be his people.
He promised to lead them through Sinai to a promised land of plenty and instructed them how to worship him.
At first it was on the mountain, then later where the ark, the portable precious container for the stone tablets of the covenant, was kept.
Hundreds of years later, the Israelites now living in the promised land, it fell to Solomon to build a temple to house the ark, the privileged place of communication with their god, and to provide a place for sacrificial worship of him.
Although one of the commands of the covenant was not to have any other gods before the God of Israel, many years later prophets began to teach that not only should the Israelites not worship any other god but also that no other god really exists!
That temple of Solomon, destroyed, then later rebuilt, and still later expanded, was finally and definitively destroyed by the Romans.
The faithful descendants of the early Israelites, then known as Jews, never had a temple again—but they assembled for learning and praying in local buildings, called synagogues, thereafter.
The early Jesus-followers, initially Jews all, followed this same tradition, assembling for learning and praying, for “the breaking of the bread,” in local gathering places, later known as churches.
Hundreds of years later, when Christianity was established as the official religion of the Roman Empire, churches began to be considered more like temples, in the sense of a special building for worshiping a god.
For us, is a church the only place to get in touch with God? No, the church is a special, assembly place, but individual worshipers can get in touch with God anywhere his presence can be discerned or manifested.
Since the one God is the creator of all things and people, that actually means everywhere, in everything, and through everyone. God can be found and seen in all his works, in all the wonder of his creations and creatures.
It’s challenging to realize that everyone and anyone, no matter how unlikely they may seem, may manifest something of God to us and that we may be able to get in touch with God through them.
19 December 2021