Quote:
Originally Posted by NeitherFirstnorLast
Anyway, I have to agree with Mike on this one. Scripture seems to point to the fact that God is about relationships - individual relationships. Enoch walked with God, and then was not. Abraham talked with God, and was counted His friend. Jacob wrestled with God. Moses saw God face to face. The prophets spoke with Him, the disciples followed Him, and Saul met Him on the road to Damascus, receiving a commission to preach to the Gentiles. Is the church being built by God? Absolutely, He says He's building it - but it's a church we can't see and touch and it isn't unified. It never was. Each of the 12 disciples were called to a different ministry, in a different place (church history outlines the areas minstered to by each, and the ends they met in their different callings - and the ways each were used uniquely and individually by He who called them). Each "church" in Scripture is different, and each has a different "messenger" or angel and each receives a different commendation or admonition. Each church has overcomers, to whom Christ wrote as individuals. What does this mean?
It means the conclusions Lee drew from his initial hypothesis, that "The Church (big "C") is God's primary dwelling place" were proven wrong. The "Church" isn't even a word in the Bible. The word we translate as "Church" is the Koine Greek "Ekklesia", or the Old Testament Hebrew "kahal". These words mean "assembly of called-out ones" - "ones" being a key-word. The emphasis is on the individuals*, and the English word "Church" never even appeared once in the original English translations of the Bible (which used the word "assembly" - A group of individual people gathered together in one place for a common purpose - for the ekklesia. Understanding this, and seeing that the facts disprove Lee's hypothesis (hermeneutic) shouldn't Lee's hermeneutic be abandoned? If it isn't, then what does that leave you with?
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Let me answer this as best as time allows.
When I say Church, I simply mean God's people. In this age we are called they Church, but I'm not using the term Church in the sense of age-specifics, but as a general term for God's collective people.
I'm not talking about when they meet in a specific place or anything like that. I'm just talking about them as people and on the essential fact that people relate, i.e. have relationships.
God has a relationship with each of us individually. This relationship is so complete in potential that he is actually "in" us. He "dwells" in us. But it's all about relationship. He dwells in us to have a more complete relationship with us.
Now, God just doesn't want to dwell and relate to me and you separately. He also wants to dwell in us as we relate to each other. That is, he wants to dwell in our relationships.
So I think we are talking about two different connotations of the word dwell.
Our common meaning of dwelling is where someone dwells
physically. And even though we know God isn't physical we still think of him dwelling in heaven as a kind of physical equivalent, as a kind of specific spacial location where God lives, even though when pressed we can't explain how a non-physical being can be in any specific physical locale. This tendency to view the spiritual idea of "dwell" in physical terms carries over to God being "in" us.
But what I'm talking about is more where God dwells
emotionally. That is where his heart resides. I believe that is in us and our relationships with him and each other (not to mention with his Son). When Jesus said "in that day you will know that I'm in my Father and you in me and I in you" he was making an emotional, relational statement.
To me it just doesn't make sense that a non-physical being would be primarily concerned with where he dwells physically. I think we have to think about what it means to be a spiritual being. It means you have no physical needs for one thing. And so that would seem to indicate that your primary needs are going to be emotional, that is deeper needs of the soul/spirit, at the forefront of which is having meaningful and rewarding relationships. A spiritual being would not be concerned where he dwells physically, but where he dwells emotionally/spiritually. And those are not about being in a place, but about being in a condition.
OBW offered the, to me, weak idea that God may have never intended to live in people spiritually in the first place. I can't prove that is wrong, but then again most things can't be proved, but we choose not to believe them anyway. I.e. we engage in induction. We make sensible generalizations based upon our view of specifics.
The specific I see all over the Bible is that God is interested in relationships above all, and that his dwelling in us is for relationships. Therefore, to me, his people are his primary dwelling. An analogy might be that I do indeed dwell in my house, but my primary dwelling is with, indeed in a sense in, my family. If I was a non-physical being then the physical house would mean little to me, except that it was the place my family lived.