[smvoice]

You seem very confident in your wit. After all what could be worse than studying God's word in a garage, or a living room, or a bench in a park? Or a ditch in a war zone? It isn't very pretty and it doesn't cause one to "feel" holy, and pious, does it? It's the surroundings that God truly appreciates. He DOES love a beautiful cathedral..after all, He would not look upon the plain, or the simple, or the lackluster. It would simply be beneath Him.

"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as as a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." Isaiah 53:2.

That must be talking about Satan, It could not POSSIBLY be describing our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ...

"Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabretsand of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created." Ez. 28:13. Ah, this is more like it! The beauty! The pomp and circumstance! The desires of men! To worship the beauty that is Christ. Uh, no, SATAN.

Continue to be impressed by the surroundings, and the beauty of the outward appearances. Peter was a fisherman. I'm sure he smelled great. Christ preached not only in the Temple, but in the wilderness, in boats, on dirt roads, and He smelled the smell of the rotted flesh of leprosy.

If both Christ and Satan appeared in person today, which would impress you more? I already know the answer, it's in all your posts.

[D-fendr]

That’s quite a long post to be completely off the point.

It’s not about the surroundings, it’s about the pride of The Church of Me.

And what a small, fragmented Body of Christ that would be with all the lonely Churches of Me.

It’s too sad not to joke about.

[CynicalBear]

Wow, what a comparison, and so true. I’ll stick with the few of us around the living room or kitchen table.

[TexConfederate1861]

Pull out your own mote of “smugness” before criticizing mine.
The building is not the issue. It is that every Protestant seems to have the Puritan/John Calvin Disease of thinking they have the right to interpret the scripture for themselves.
Not only is that unscriptural, but contrary to the traditions and teachings of the Holy Church, from the very beginning. God never intended scripture to be apart from his Church, because that evil is why there are myriad sects, each believing their own interpretation. Hence the Jim Jones, David Koresh, Moonies, etc.