The Zone Gathering

The New Testament gives us several pictures of how Jesus intended the church to look. There are several relational metaphors, including a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Ephesians 5:22-23, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 4:15), the family of God (1 Timothy 3:15, Ephesians 2:19, John 1:12, Galatians 4:6-7), the bride of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:22-32, Revelation 21:9), and a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9, Hebrew 10:19-21). The New Testament also uses agricultural pictures such as branches on a vine (John 15:5), and olive tree (Romans 11:17-24), and a field of crops (1 Corinthians 3:6-9).

Another metaphor that was used by both Peter and Paul was that of a building. For the next three weeks, we are going to look at the building metaphors in the New Testament as found in 1 Peter, Ephesians, and 1 Corinthians.

In each of these passages, followers of Christ are described simultaneously as God’s workmanship and his workmen, and we will explore in these passages what it means to be pliable in his hands and the role we can play in the construction of his Kingdom.

Today, we will begin by looking at 1 Peter 2:5.

And now God is building you, as living stones, into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are God’s holy priests, who offer the spiritual sacrifices that please him because of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5, NLT)

Sarah Owen wrote a great summary of 1 Peter earlier this year. Read here to gain a broader understanding of the book and context.

The first New Testament reference to the church is found in Matthew 16:18 when Jesus said, “I will build my church.” Peter (then called by his name Simon) had just confessed that he believed Jesus to be the Christ, the son of God. Jesus affirmed the faith of this impulsive disciple and characterized that kind of faith as the rock upon which he would build. He wasn’t talking about a physical structure, however. He was talking about a dynamic, living,growing temple of God made of people connected to other people.

When Peter wrote the words that we read in 1 Peter 2:5, he undoubtedly remembered Jesus’s words about building his church and the nickname that Jesus gave to him– Petra or “Peter.”

The Temple
Peter tells us that we are being built into God’s spiritual temple. To fully understand the significance of this verse, we must first grasp the role of the Temple in the life of the Jewish people. Herod’s remodeling of the temple required the work of 10,000 skilled craftsmen. It was huge, costly, and magnificent, and the physical structure towered over the entire Old City of Jerusalem. Because it was the place where God was worshiped and the place where God’s presence resided, it was the center of Jewish social, political, and spiritual life. The temple was where God lived and where people could meet God.

When Peter said that God was building us into his spiritual temple, he was announcing that God was doing something new. He would now reside within people and be worshiped within the context of their gatherings.

Living Stones
We also need to understand the language of this verse. For instance, it’s interesting to look at the Greek words that Peter chose to describe the structural components—“living stones” or “lithoi zontes.” The more common words for stones included “petros,” meaning a loose stone or pebble, and “petra,” meaninig a large solid rock sufficient for construction. Peter’s choice of “lithoi zontes” means “worked stones” that have been cut and shaped by the builder. In other words, we are stones that God has shaped, and polished. He is in the process of removing the rough edges from our lives.

The action of the verse is in present tense, indicating continuous action. In other words, we have not completely arrived. We are living stones that God continues to polish, shape, and form for his purposes.
Finally, we must consider how the stones fit together. God is the master builder of this spiritual temple, and he surely fits his stones together in a way that is tight, neat, and precise. In engineering terms, we would refer to the fit as a “tolerance”—meaning the maximum deviation from a standard value. Or how perfectly two things match. God is forming each of us to perfectly fit together perfectly with others.

Royal Priests
The final part of this verse demonstrates that we are not only God’s workmanship (living stones) but also his fellow workers (God’s holy priests). We do not just sit idly as cold, lifeless bricks in the temple of God. No, we are living stones and we have been given a vital duty to perform—spiritual sacrifices to God. The priests of the old temple were responsible for blood sacrifices. We don’t offer blood sacrifices, but living sacrifices like Paul exhorts the Romans to offer in Romans 12:2, “I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept.”

Building Together
So, what do we do with this information? Here are some questions to consider:

• How closely are you fitting together with the other living stones around you? What is your “tolerance” level when you consider how you relate and fit together with other followers of Christ?

• What kind of responsibilities do we have as God’s royal priesthood? How does it make your feel to think of yourself as a priest?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under Bible Drills, News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.