Shalom from Zenica

 

While we commonly refer to a Jewish house of worship as a synagogue, actually the Greek word simply means a ‘meeting or assembly’. It is not the number of stones that make up the walls of the building, but the number of hearts beating with life and faith that assemble for the purpose of worshipping God that defines what is a ‘synagogue’. During my only visit (so far) to Jerusalem, I witnessed a ‘synagogue’ being formed right before my eyes. As I sat on a bench watching people in the small town square in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, Jewish men from all walks of life suddenly began assembling together in one corner of the square. They quickly pulled men, who were walking by, until they had a circle of ten men (the quorum needed) and then proceeded to recite the Scriptures and to pray. That was the most basic, foundational expression of a ‘synagogue’. The Hebrew term for synagogue is Beit Knesset (House of Assembly) or Beit Tefila (House of Prayer).

Like everything else in life, we build upon the foundation. God is not against us building and developing on top of the foundation; in fact, He takes pleasure in our creativity of expressing His glory. However, we must always be connected to the foundation, lest what we build falls apart when tested.

A little over a 100 years ago, the Synagogue in Zenica was built. At that time there were more than ten Jewish men in Zenica who constituted a ‘synagogue’ without a building, yet they invested in constructing a building to give exspression to their spiritual community, their faith, their identity. Today the beautiful building serves as a museum operated by the city; there is no ‘synagogue’ to gather inside the Synagogue.

The concept of the ‘synagogue’ was a fore-runner of the ‘church’, which means ‘called out’. We refer to a building as being a ‘church’ in the same way we refer to a building being a ‘synagogue’. Yet the significance of neither is in the physical structure, but in the spiritual strength of faith that believers live out together every day of the week.

1 Corinthians 3:10-17 reads:

“According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”

Picture from the early 1900′s