Scripture Passage
Scripture Focus
But who can really build him a worthy home? Not even the highest heavens can contain him! So who am I to consider building a Temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices to him?
(2 Chronicles 2:6 NLT)
Observation
Solomon’s Temple (as it’s commonly known) was a remarkable and beautiful piece of architecture. If you’ve never seen a detailed illustration of it, you can find one example by clicking here. Incredible craftsmanship, opulent detailing, remarkable beauty!
I think, sometimes, we superimpose our notions of “church building” over the Biblical description of the temple Solomon built, and imagine it as a building where people gathered for worship. Certainly the “address” was a place where people gathered for worship, but access to the building itself was restricted to priests on duty, and the heart of the building—the Holy of Holies—was completely off limits to everyone except the High Priest, and then accessible to him only one day a year.
There’s something I like about that—something about a building so “small” that everyone knows it’s only “representative”…only symbolic…only illustrative of the majestic God in whose honor it stands. Oh, that our notion of God would be bigger—so much inexpressively bigger—than the buildings we build in order that we might gather for worship! Oh, that we would know as Solomon knew—
Not even the highest heavens can contain him! (2 Chronicles 2:6 NLT)
—and yet, wonder of wonders, He’s chosen to take up residence in me. It’s inexpressively remarkable!
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