Olson: deeper significance

Sunday, September 20, 2009
    Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871
Meditation:
    Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
    The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”
    But the temple he had spoken of was his body
    —John 2:19-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    But the word ‘temple’ took on a deeper significance when Jesus referred to His own body as ‘this temple.’ He thus definitely declared Himself to be the personal embodiment of the living God. Later the Apostle Paul applied this term to Christians... “Ye are God’s building... Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” And again, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and that ye are not your own?” Paul taught that it is God’s people who constitute the true church of God, and wherever they have fellowship in the Gospel, God is there. Moreover, he emphasized that as members of this true church it is our privilege to be “laborers together with God.” It is our privilege to build upon the one foundati! on, Jesus Christ, with gold, silver, precious stones—the kind of Christian service which abides for recognition at the judgment seat of Christ. Again, it is our responsibility to be consecrated for holy living and faithful service, “for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; so we must shun evil, and, since we have been bought with a price, we must glorify God in body and spirit.
    ... Milford C. Olson
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, cleanse this temple.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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