Book of Believers

4 | The Visible Church

As Solomon stands before the new temple, he asks the question we all do at one time or another: "Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood?" (1 Kings 8:27, msg).

Solomon is assaulted by this skepticism, but he prays anyway. He prays that God will hear the people when they come to this house and offer their prayers, that God will be attentive to their needs night and day, and that when he hears them he will forgive.

The doubts have been repeated with variations from Solomon down to us. But we, like Solomon, have gone ahead and prayed anyway. The commonsense objection to God dwelling on earth in a house of prayer, to God meeting us in a place of worship, has not been able to survive the evidence of experience and faith. After all, common sense is one of the least reliable tests of reality. The cynical question "Can it be?" is answered by a deeper reason, a wider experience, and a realistic faith that says, "Yes, indeed!"

In Solomon's prayer in this passage, we can see three areas in which the visible is a conduit for the invisible, and they are areas that we are still involved in today. The first has to do with history. Solomon brings into play the memory of the great encounters with God in the past. A poor memory is a threat to our prayers.

The second has to do with forgiveness. All too often we approach our prayers as ways in which we can get God working on our side. But the visible church is a check against that. Forgiveness is the turning point in prayer, the transition from seeking our own way from God to yielding our lives to him so that he may perform his will in it.

The third area is mentioned by Solomon in the word foreigner, which can also be translated "stranger." When our interest is exclusively on ourselves, our families, and small circles of acquaintances, we lose all sensitivity to the vast church of Christ and the world Christ is seeking to bring into fellowship with him.

Solomon's three lessons in prayer can be summarized in three words: history (God's work in the past), forgiveness (a turning point from self to God's will), and others (or strangers). Pray in light of the word that speaks most personally to you right now.

  Readings: ‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭8:22-43‬ ‭CEB‬‬

"Solomon stood before the LORD's altar in front of the entire Israelite assembly and, spreading out his hands toward the sky, he said: LORD God of Israel, there's no god like you in heaven above or on earth below. You keep the covenant and show loyalty to your servants who walk before you with all their heart. This is the covenant you kept with your servant David, my father, which you promised him. Today, you have fulfilled what you promised. So now, LORD, Israel's God, keep what you promised my father David, your servant, when you said to him, "You will never fail to have a successor sitting on Israel's throne as long as your descendants carefully walk before me just as you walked before me." So now, God of Israel, may your promise to your servant David, my father, come true. But how could God possibly live on earth? If heaven, even the highest heaven, can't contain you, how can this temple that I've built contain you? LORD my God, listen to your servant's prayer and request, and hear the cry and prayer that your servant prays to you today. Constantly watch over this temple, the place about which you said, "My name will be there," and listen to the prayer that your servant is praying toward this place. Listen to the request of your servant and your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Listen from your heavenly dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive! If someone wrongs another and must make a solemn pledge asserting innocence before your altar in this temple, then listen from heaven, act, and decide which of your servants is right. Condemn the guilty party, repaying them for their conduct, but justify the innocent person, repaying them for their righteousness. If your people Israel are defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, but then they change their hearts and lives, give thanks to your name, and ask for mercy before you at this temple, then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel. Return them to the land you gave their ancestors. When the sky holds back its rain because Israel has sinned against you, but they then pray toward this place, give thanks to your name, and turn away from their sin because you have punished them for it, then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the best way for them to follow, and send rain on your land that you gave to your people as an inheritance. Whenever there is a famine or plague in the land; or whenever there is blight, mildew, locust, or grasshopper; or whenever someone's enemy attacks them in their cities; or any plague or illness comes; whatever prayer or petition is made by any individual or by all of your people Israel—because people will recognize their own pain and spread out their hands toward this temple— then listen from heaven where you live. Forgive, act, and repay each person according to all their conduct, because you know their hearts. You alone know the human heart. Do this so that they may revere you all the days they live on the land that you gave to our ancestors. Listen also to the immigrant who isn't from your people Israel but who comes from a distant country because of your reputation— because they will hear of your great reputation, your great power, and your outstretched arm. When the immigrant comes and prays toward this temple, then listen from heaven, where you live, and do everything the immigrant asks. Do this so that all the people of the earth may know your reputation and revere you, as your people Israel do, and recognize that this temple I have built bears your name."