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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.