God's House? Really?

1 Corinthians 3:16 – Don’t you realize that you yourselves are God’s temple?

“Welcome to the house of the Lord!”

“It’s so good to be in God’s house today!”

Every Sunday at church I hear some variation on this phrase – usually more than once. It’s so much a part of Christian vocabulary and it flows from our mouths so naturally that we don’t even think about it. Why do Christians speak as if God’s house were a building? Not only is it unscriptural, but it also has some important and damaging implications.

In the Old Testament, the tabernacle (in the wilderness and the early years of Israel’s independence) and later the temple (during the monarchy) was God’s house. Of course, this is no longer true. When Jesus came both he and the New Testament authors recognized that God lived in Jesus much more fully than He had lived in the temple (John 2:21, Colossians 2:9). When Jesus left Earth he promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would come to live in them, thus making the community of believers the house of God (1 Corinthians 3:16, Hebrews 3:6) and also making each believer an individual house of God (John 14:23, 1 Corinthians 6:19).

So the New Testament is clear that God has three houses: (1) Jesus, (2) the community of believers, and (3) individual Christians. But every Sunday millions of Christians speak as if the church building was God’s house.

Of course, Christians don’t believe that the church building is God’s literal house; they just use that term in a figurative way to mean that the building has been dedicated to the worship of God. But there are still several problems.

First, the Bible uses the idea of “God’s House” in a specific, well-defined, and limited way. Why do Christians take Biblical language and misuse it? Language is important and words mean something – especially God’s Word! Why do Christians take the phrase “God’s House” and redefine it to mean something that’s inconsistent with its clear meaning in the Bible?

Second, when we refer to the church building as God’s house, we imply that God is more present with us at church on Sundays than other times. This leads to the all-too-common view that life is divided into two parts: the Christian part and the non-Christian part. This is why many Christians are model believers on Sundays while disgracing the name of Christ during the week at work or at school. This is why some Christians treat each other at church better than they treat their own families at home.

For example, I remember once when a Bible teacher asked the class, “Do we act kind and loving with our families at home, or only at church?” And his wife answered, for all to hear, “You are loving only at church – not at home!” In hindsight it’s funny but at the time it was quite awkward and embarrassing! The Bible teacher answered, “Save it for when we get home, woman!” And the class continued as if nothing had happened.

Third, church leaders who refer to the church building as God’s house invariably end up manipulating their congregation into using their tithes for a fancy building rather than for God’s kingdom. One church I'm familiar with ;) is investing $400,000 in remodeling. No doubt the members who contribute to the remodeling fund view their donations as part of their tithe. But their donations are not going to the Lord’s work – their donations are being used to make themselves more comfortable. Their donations are not going to the kingdom of God – their donations are going to new carpet. They are not giving to the Lord – they are tithing to themselves, and they are using their tithes to feed their materialism!

But church leaders use phrases like, “The Lord’s house deserves a better carpet. The Lord’s house deserves a nicer foyer. The Lord’s house deserves a nicer sound system.” And so the congregation is manipulated into giving their money for a fancy building to stroke the egos of the church members and their leaders and to look respectable to the world. “Look at our nice building! Look at how the Lord is blessing us!”

Fourth, while everything I’ve discussed above is happening, the kingdom of God suffers. The average Christian donates 1.7% of their income to Christian causes, but only 0.1% to foreign missions, and only 0.001% to mission work among the 3 billion people in the world who have never heard the Gospel. The world starves for the Gospel while American Christians use their money to buy better padding for their pews.

You might say, “We can do both! We can build churches here in America while also giving to foreign missions!” Right – and you can serve God and money too, right? Jesus said you can’t serve both, but you’re going to prove him wrong. “It’s okay, Jesus, no one’s right all the time!”

The numbers don’t add up. If a church uses $400,000 for remodeling, that’s $400,000 that’s not going to foreign missions or domestic outreach. Once when I was in Brazil I visited a pastor who was working among impoverished people in a small town. They met in a church with a dirt floor – not unusual in Brazil. I gave him $100 and he literally cried. He used the $100 to buy tile and install a floor in his church! Meanwhile, the average Christian gives $5 to foreign missions for every $100 that they donate to causes in the US (like church remodeling).

If you believe that God’s house is his people, then you will invest yourself in praying for others and helping others and encouraging others, and when you see a believer in need you will help them just as if you were meeting the needs of Jesus himself. If you believe that God’s house is your body, then you will exercise, eat right, stop pouring chemicals and preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup down your throat, and start using your physical body in ways that please God, even when no one is watching. If you believe that God’s house is the church building, then you will live as if God is more present with you on Sundays than the rest of the week, you will compartmentalize your life into a schizophrenic version of Biblical Christianity, and you will tithe to yourself by furnishing a nice building for your own comfort rather than tithing to the Lord’s work by contributing to the spread of the Gospel.

So what’s the solution? Should we just ignore the physical structure of our churches and let them fall apart? We have to spend some money on the church building, don’t we? That’s the crux of the matter. The church building itself is not scriptural. There's nothing inherently wrong with church buildings in and of themselves, but they are wrong when they siphon resources away from the Gospel. Here’s a simple but profound truth: if we want to get back to the heart of the Gospel, we need to focus on the Gospel rather than church buildings. We need to meet in homes, build community, and focus on apostolic priorities rather than 21st-century American priorities. For more details you can read my blog A Vision for the Modern Church. There are many others who have a similar vision and I think they’re on the right track. Where your money is, that’s where your heart is (Matthew 6:21). Are you giving your money to a building or to the Gospel? Are you using your money to construct an edifice or to build the kingdom of God? Are you using your resources to build a structure that will someday turn to dust or to build a kingdom that will last forever?

Someday I will stand before my Lord and he will ask me, “How did you use the resources that I gave you?” I don’t want to answer, “Well, I helped pay for a new parking lot, and I helped pay for fancy chandeliers in the sanctuary …” Instead I want to answer, “I lived as simply as I could so that I could give as much money as possible to missions and the spread of the good news of Jesus.”