“Going To Church”

It’s fairly common to hear people talk about “going to church” or about something that happened “at church” as if the church was confined to a specific place or time, rather than being the community of Jesus’ followers who have been saved by His blood.

Apparently though, this is not a recent problem. Hippolytus, a Church Father from Rome who lived in the third century, writes:

“It is not a place that is called church, not a house made of stones and earth…It is the holy assembly of those who live in righteousness.”

In a sense, it’s comforting to realize that, just as Ecclesiastes asserts, there really is nothing new under the sun.