Jezebel -- why we should know who she is.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Drake

The basic sin of Jeroboam is that he established a worship center that was not in the place appointed by God. This opened the door to all the other sins.

God prescribed the place, time, and methods for worshipping God. Jeroboam set up a his own place and method. God said in this way, and Jeroboam said, that way will do just as well. He disregarded God's prescription of worship for one of his own preference.

Drake

God's prescription for worship in the NT is "in spirit and in truth." Nothing more, nothing less.

Worship in spirit and truth is thus the proper NT "place," and thus corresponds to the OT temple. The temple is the house of God, which is now the church. Thus, worshiping in spirit and truth implies the church is there, especially when two or three are gathered. Thus no need for "the local ground" to have church.

Since Jesus made it clear the proper place of worship is only "in spirit and truth," insisting on the local ground could be viewed as actually setting up a different place of worship than Jesus prescribed, and thus could be viewed as a sin like Jeroboam's. But clearly the temple was not the only place of worship. The Jews established synagogues, which Jesus attended reverently. Thus the strict idea that the temple was the only proper place of worship is an error.

So leveraging the "proper place of worship" as a pretext to pushing the local ground is both invalid and self-nullifying.

If you insist the temple was the only proper place of worship, then it must be that "in spirit and truth" implies that the temple, thus the church, is present and the local ground is unneeded.

If you don't insist the temple was the only proper place of worship then that weakens the local ground argument as well.