A House of Prayer for all Nations
What does it mean for a
local church today to become a House of prayer for All Nations? Isaiah 56 holds
the key to understanding how this phrase can be applied.
Isaiah 56:1-8 NLT
This is what the Lord says: “Be just and fair to
all. Do what is right and good, for I am coming soon to rescue you and to display my
righteousness among you. 2 Blessed are all those who are careful to do this. Blessed
are those who honour my Sabbath days of rest and keep themselves from
doing wrong. 3 “Don’t let foreigners who commit
themselves to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will never let me be part of
his people.’ And don’t let the eunuchs say,‘I’m a dried-up tree with no
children and no future.’4 For this is what the Lord says: I will bless those
eunuchs who keep my Sabbath days holy and who choose to do what pleases me and commit their lives to
me.5 I will give them—within the walls of my house a memorial and a name far greater than sons and
daughters could give. For the name I give them is an everlasting one. It will never disappear! 6 “I
will also bless the foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord, who serve him and love his name, who
worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest, and who hold fast to
my covenant.7 I will bring them to my holy mountain of
Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house
of prayer.I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, (on my altar) because my Temple will be
called a house of prayer for all nations.8 For the
Sovereign Lord, who brings back the outcasts
of Israel, says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel.”
The importance of the
end of v 7 “My temple (house) will be
called a house of prayer for all nations” is emphasised by the fact that Jesus
quotes these very words as recorded in Mark and Luke’s gospel. But what might
this verse mean for today for a church that feels called to be a House of
prayer for all nations? What should a house of prayer for all nations look
like?
There is a danger
verses can come to mean whatever seems good in our own eyes but let us look at
Isaiah 56 to see what this phrase first meant. It comes within a context. We
see in this passage:
God has always been
concerned for the outcasts, the outsiders, the oppressed minorities of this
world.
a)
V1 be
just and fair to all
b) V3 the
foreigners who commit themselves to
the Lord should be included as
members of God’s people.
c)
V4 I
will bless eunuchs with an eternal
inheritance, eunuchs were marginalised in society and looked down on as
they could not receive the blessing of ‘normal’ family life and the inheritance
of children. An eternal inheritance from God really is full acceptance.
d)
V6 & 7 I will bless foreigners with joy in my house of prayer, this is surely a
sign that they were totally accepted by God.
e)
V7 My
temple will be called a house of prayer for
all nations.
f) V8 I will bring back the outcastes of Israel, ...I will bring
others too besides my people Israel. Just in case you missed it in v1,3,6,7 the
point is repeated in verse 8. God is particularly concerned about the those who
are different.
God
wants us to share his concern for the
marginalised.
a) He
commands his people to: BE just and
fair...DO what is right and good...Blessed are all those who are careful to do this. What? Giving justice to those
whom society rejects.
But what does v7 means
when it says “I will bring them (foreigners) to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and
will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt
offerings and sacrifices, because my temple will be called a house of prayer
for all nations?
In the OT the temple and
the tabernacle before it was thought of and named as the –place to meet God, in
fact the before the temple the tabernacle was called the place of meeting! The physical temple in Jerusalem no longer
exists. Jesus identified himself with the temple (John 2:19 Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”) Jesus did replace
the temple, we don’t need buildings to meet with God. We can meet him anywhere.
However this is not to say the church is irrelevant. Jesus is the head of the
church. And we meet Jesus supremely with others within the Christian community.
We don’t need a church building to meet God but it helps to have a Christian
community to join.
God has promised to be with his people (the
church) in a special way as it says in Matthew 18:20 For where two or three gather
in my name, there am I with them. His church worldwide is the place people
can meet with God. We should not now think of a church building as being a house of prayer but
more biblically of a local community of
believers being a ‘house’ of prayer. This means that having different local church
groups representing different ethnicities in the same building is not what God
is talking about in this passage. Theologically to call a church building
the house of God or house of prayer is wrong. We as a community of God’s people
are the house of God. Getting different nationalities into the same building
but meeting separately is close to meaningless in itself. However if we as a group
of believers want to be a ‘house of prayer’ for all nations we must incorporate
‘foreigners’ to use the language of Isaiah and outsiders into our community.
V7 a House of prayer... The word prayer
in the passage incorporates the whole of what we would understand as corporate
worship not just the act of praying. It is not enough simply to intercede for
the nations to qualify a Christian community as a House of Prayer for all
nations. To truly be a house of prayer FOR the nations we must warmly embrace
different ethnic groups as they join our community.
Isaiah 56 teaches that All are one, all are equal, all are welcome to be full, participating members
of God’s people. The text in verse 7 talking about the house of prayer for
ALL nations is the key to the whole passage.
BUT what might it mean
if we really do welcome as equal partners those of different cultures?
Their preferred style
of worship, their way of learning, their way or relating may be quite different
from ours. Would we be willing to adapt and change the way we do things to
accommodate Asians, Africans, East Europeans
or South Americans? If we are not
willing to change we are not treating others as equal. We are not truly
respecting the other.
God has called us to share the blessings
of being his people with others. Let us do so by truly loving our neighbours
and integrating them in our community.
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