Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
. . . On the one hand, as a building, it’s the place where the Holy Spirit dwells richly. A church is the physical place of continuous communion with God. . . .
|
While you do continue on to discuss the church as the mystical, spiritual thing that it truly is, these two sentences stand out as a misunderstanding of the importance and/or place of any building. It could be strictly your own slip in terminology. I would hope that it is not some kind of official position of the EO.
The building is nothing in itself. Unlike the Temple in the OT, or the tabernacle that came before it, God's presence on earth has not been bound to physical places in that kind way for the Christian era. Church, as spoken of in the NT, is never a place. It is not a building. Yes, we all make reference to the building down on such and such a corner as a church, yet that is not a church as mentioned in the Bible. There is nothing telling us that the Spirit dwells in such a building. Or that the building is defined as a continual place of communion with God.
If it is true, then the earliest churches had no such place as they too often has no fixed place of meeting outside of someone's house, which means that the place mostly stood as a residence with periodic use as a place to meet. It is even quite possible that those who lived in the particular house were nothing more than participants/members, and would not even have stood as the elders or deacons of the group. In any case, it is likely that it was not available for other members to simply walk into at will for the purpose of finding the presence of the Spirit or having some special communion with God.