When thinking about the formation of the New Testament Church, it’s helpful to get our minds around the context the disciples were coming from as it relates to the gatherings of the synagogue and the Temple in their day.

The synagogue system was developed after the destruction of Solomon’s temple (586 B.C.) while the Jews were in exile in Babylon. While in captivity, the Jews needed a mechanism to carry on the public reading and teaching of the Torah as well as a way to maintain their cultural identity. The synagogue provided the answer. The synagogue offered the people an opportunity for religious and cultural continuation even though they were in captivity. Synagogues were different from the Temple in that God did not specifically ordain the formation of the synagogue. The most significant difference between the synagogue and the Temple was that the glory of God was not dwelling in the midst of the people in the synagogue as it had been in Moses’ and David’s Tabernacle and in Solomon’s Temple.

In contrast to the synagogue, the Temple was the center of worship and sacrifice for the entire nation. The Temple combined the worship of David’s Tabernacle with the sacrificial system of Moses’ tabernacle in one centralized worship environment. What made the Temple unique was the fact that the divine presence was dwelling in the Holy of Holies above the mercy seat. The Temple system included systematic teaching of the Word by the Levitesbut what differentiated the Temple was that the people were gathered for the express purpose of ministering to the Lord. The Temple gave the nation a governmental, religious, and cultural plumbline around the glory of God. With three daily times of prayer in the Temple, everything in the nation flowed from that place of continual encounter. This daily culture of prayer provided the backdrop and context from which the New Testament church was born. When Jesus told the disciples to wait (in prayer) in Jerusalem until the outpouring of the Spirit it would have seemed a very normal ask. Today if we told our churches to pray for ten days straight, it would seem excessive. In that day, it was a cultural norm for the disciples.

In the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion He prophesied to the disciples that the Temple would be destroyed (Mat 24:1). He was seeding the context for the new way the Church would gather and connect with God. The old gathering place was passing away, what would be the new? He was also teaching them during this time about continuous abiding prayer and the truths of the indwelling Spirit (John 14-15). In doing so, He was setting up the concepts that God would now dwell in believers as the new Temple. The Church would be the dwelling place of the Glory - not in a specific building but in and upon the community of the redeemed.

When the fire fell on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost, the birth of the New Testament Church, it was reminiscent of the fire that fell on Solomon’s Temple. Just as God put His glory in the temple in the past, He was now putting His glory in the New Testament church. Instead of a building, His people were now the place where His glory would dwell, the gathering of the redeemed (the church) would be the new Temple.

The New Testament church was a new Temple or Tabernacle of David (Remember it was the Tabernacle of David along with the Tabernacle of Moses that comprised Solomon’s Temple worship) The people of God had now become the “Temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 3:16-17, 2 Cor 6:16, Eph 2:21).

After the day of Pentecost, we find that the disciples were still daily coming to the temple at the hours of prayer and utilizing these gatherings to share the gospel with the Jews. In addition, they were meeting from house to house, giving themselves to prayer, worship, fellowship, and to the word (Acts 2:42, 46).

By Acts chapter 5 we find that the glory of God was so powerfully resting among the people of God that in one instance a husband and wife (Ananias and Sapphira) were struck down for lying to the congregation. They met the same fate as Uzzah, falling dead because he didn’t rightly esteem the glory of God.

At the same time, incredible signs and wonders were taking place among the apostles in Solomon’s porch. The glory of God was resting on the disciples and the gathering of the saints regardless of where they were. Until this moment, Jesus was the only one carrying the glory with Him, now the glory was resting on the gathering. The glory of God that once only dwelt in a stationary temple was once again dwelling in the temple but now the temple was people.

Daily prayer was the norm for the disciples. In fact, church historians recognize that the church in the first few centuries met daily for prayer and worship. This practice only began to shift when Constantine introduced Sunday as a day of rest and ceasing from labor in 321AD.

These truths stir up so many questions for us today: If the Apostles, who birthed the church, felt daily worship and prayer was important for the church, why would we imagine it to be any different for us? Since they lived in the identity of being the temple of God, i.e. “built together as a dwelling place for God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:22), why would we see the church as a building we gather in or a once a week service, instead of the church being a people living in continuous encounter centered around the presence of God? Why have we largely individualized the idea of being the Lord’s Temple when the Apostles emphasized our corporate identity as the Temple of the Holy Spirit?

In our next blog we are going to look more deeply at the New Testament Church, especially in Antioch as a model for how the Church functioned together as an instruction and prescription for us today.