Let me talk to you about what it means to be the Church. Paul in Ephesians 2:20-22 describes the Church as a temple of God made up of people in which a personal God dwells. This is also what Jesus had in mind when in Matthew 18:20 He says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” The Church is not a building. It is a network of relationships in which God is present in His Spirit. Therefore, Paul says that the foundation of this temple or the Church is made up of a network of relationships, of people designated as apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone or the main stone of the building. On this solid foundation of apostles, prophets and Jesus Paul describes the rest of the structure as made up of other Christians, Jews and Gentiles joined together and growing together into a holy temple of God. The English translation joined together simply does not do justice to the type of intimacy or unity Paul is describing here. What the Greek word means is fitted firmly together. You cannot have a safe and solid structure until the bricks are fitted firmly and cemented together. That kind of intimacy is what Paul has in mind when he describes the Church as God’s temple build of Christians.
For Paul you cannot be a Christian and mature as a Christian in isolation. Your growth as a Christian requires that you enter the Church by entering into a network of intimate relationship with other Christians and grow together as a result of it in holiness and purity. Any type of growth requires continuous engagement and relationship with others, because it is relationships that stretch us. You want to grow as a father stay deeply connected to your children. You want to grow as a husband stay deeply connected to your wife. Through ups and downs of your relationships with your children and wife you will be stretched and as result you will grow into a better dad and a better husband. The same is true of the Christian life. You want to grow spiritually as a Christians stay in the Church in an intimate relationship with other Christians. You will learn to let go of your pride and let others carry your burden. You will learn to carry other people’s burden in return. You will learn to forgive as you are offended by one of your Christian brother or sister, and you will learn to repent and ask for forgiveness as you yourself offend someone in the church. You will learn to be other centered rather than being self-centered. There is no growth without intimate relationship. How will you know how to forgive if you always stay away from relationships out of fear of being offended? It is like body building. Unless you pick up a weight that is exerting pressure on your muscle in the opposite direction you will never grow. It is in that struggle, in that stretch and pull that we grow. That is why people who go church hopping because they get offended easily never grow into Christian maturity. The fact is it is in the context of our relationships with our Church people that not only we grow, but also provide others with the opportunity to grow. In essence, as Paul says, we grow together in holiness into a holy temple of God
