The Plague of Church Building Superstition (It Can Affect House Churches Too)

There is no command in the Bible to build buildings called churches. To act like there is is adding to God’s Word. It is to lay aside the commandment of God for the tradition of men.

There is not a physical equivalent in Christianity to the tangible Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple is destroyed and the true God’s worship is scattered throughout the world in assemblies of believers in Jesus Christ which He counts as faithful- wherever these happen to be assembled. We even have precedent in the New Testament of their meetings being held in private houses.

Paul’s epistle to Philemon thus opens in Philemon 1:1-2: “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow-laborer,And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house”

And also in Paul’s salutations late in 1 Corinthians, he writes in 1 Corinthians 16:19: “Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.”

A building which many would label a “church” could never have any use besides accommodating a group more conveniently that couldn’t fit well into a home. If the people and the meeting are not holy by God’s estimation, then putting them into a building called a church will not make them so. The building does not make anything holy. If the people are not truly meeting under Jesus Christ’s authority, then having a building called a church does not put Him in the midst of them.

Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

The venue for this happening couldn’t do more than facilitate the meeting. To eliminate confusion related to this, and to help prevent superstitious scruples related to this, it is better to call a building designated for church meetings a meeting hall- or just call it by its street address or something else that sounds unimpressive.

Also note that not meeting in a building called a church, whether you meet at a house or you rent some backroom of a local business, also does not make the meeting holy or necessarily any better than the compromised churches. The same false doctrines, the same sins, and very many of the empty traditions which frequently prevail in the buildings called churches can (and often do) prevail in meetings which are not held in buildings designated as churches. Often, people even prove their superstition related to church buildings at such meetings. They often do this by thinking they have a license to talk at will (the meetings will even attract people looking for an audience to speak their jargon without hindrance). This might also happen by there being extremely little or no plan at all beforehand regarding what will be done at the meeting and/or who will primarily speak during it.

Another thing which often accompanies such disorder are meetings which don’t have an approximate ending time (and maybe not even a definite start time either). The meetings might go on for three hours or more. This is confusion, disorder, and it puts people in unnecessarily confusing and awkward circumstances as they are made to sit through an aimless meeting and vexed with the decision about whether to leave in the middle of it.

Someone does have to manage the meeting and keep it orderly without quenching things which are edifying. If there is not a competent man involved to at least do that, then don’t even try starting a house meeting or be part of an attempt to start a meeting.

Though the Bible doesn’t command or even suggest meeting in a building called a church, it does give many, many instructions prescribing what ought to be done at Christian meetings while laying down many principles concerning proper order being kept at them.

1 Corinthians 14:33: “For God is not the author of confusion (or, commotion or tumult), but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

“Peace” here obviously means the contrast of confusion, commotion, or tumult. Many house churches are needlessly defined by these things.

1 Corinthians 14:40: “Let all things be done decently and in order (or, an arrangement).”

Eliminating the designated building which is called a church from a church meeting shouldn’t take away order so that the meeting becomes a free for all.