The Importance of the Place of Worship in Deuteronomy 12

    In the Bible how God's people worship is not left up to their own opinion or preference.  This is seen clearly for the first time in Deuteronomy 12, then later in chapters 16, and 26. The Israelites were a great nation of around two million people.  For the previous 40 years the 12 tribes of Israel had camped in array around the tabernacle. And witness Lee points out in the Life-Study of Deuteronomy this had kept the Israelites in oneness. 

Ebey Prairie

    So now that they're about to enter Canaan what's going to happen to the Israelites?  According to the Israeli embassy their country today is 290 miles long and 85 miles wide at the widest point.  There's a big distance between the tribes in the  north and the tribes in the south. How will God maintain the oneness of His people in this new land? 

    Deuteronomy 12 opens with God telling Moses that He wanted the Israelites  to destroy all of the Canaanites' idols and places of worship.  Then in Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14, 18, 21, and 26 God goes on to tell His people that He is going to be the one to choose both the place and way for them to worship Him in the land of Canaan.

But to the place which Jehovah your God will choose out of all your tribes to put His name, to His habitation, shall you seek, and there shall you go.  Deuteronomy 12:5

And you shall sacrifice the Passover to Jehovah your God, from the flock and from the herd, in the place where Jehovah will choose to cause His name to dwell. Deuteronomy 16:2

And you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you shall bring from your land...and you shall put it in a basket, and go to the place where Jehovah your God will choose to cause His name to dwell.  Deuteronomy 26:2

Why did God care about this so much?  I like Witness Lee's explanation on page 77 in chapter 11  because it parallels God's desire for  how His believers meet today:

Why was Moses so definite in chapter 12 abut the requirement to come to the place of God's choice?  Moses was definite in this matter because it was related to the keeping of the oneness of God's people.  If there had not been such a definite ground for the worship of God, the children of Israel would have been divided.  Suppose each of the twelve tribes had had the freedom to choose a place of worship.  Surely each tribe would have chosen a place within its own territory, and spontaneously there would have been twelve divisions.  This was the reason that the children of Israel were strictly forbidden from making their own choice concerning the place for the worship of God.  Moses told them repeatedly that they had to come to the place which God had chosen and worship Him there (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Deuteronomy. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1991, Print).

      It's really important to see that God picked the place, and we know from the Bible this place was Jerusalem. Witness Lee has shared many times that we can see this same principle in the New Testament. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord told His disciples that He would build His church. And then later in the book of Acts  soon after Pentecost we read in chapter 8 that all the believers in Jerusalem were simply called the church in Jerusalem. 

      After Paul's conversion, he and Barnabas traveled to many different countries, and when believers were saved they were simply called the church in their city. Once again we can see God' making the choice for how His believers worship. Him. Just like in the Old Testament God has chosen this way in order to maintain the oneness of His people.

    The Epistles are written to church in a certain city like Romans is to  the church in Rome, and Ephesians is to the church in Ephesus.  To them I guess it was a no brainer. The church in Jerusalem actually had thousands of believers, and we can see from Acts 2:46 that they mostly met in their homes. But they were still called the church in Jerusalem, not the churches in Jerusalem.

   The New Testament is very consistent with this principle, you'll only find the word churches if it's referring to churches in a region like the churches in Asia. Check out Revelation 1:11--The Lord tells John to write a letter and send it to seven churches, and then He goes on to give the names of seven cities!!  I think there's something here.   Pretty incredible, and I'm so thankful that Watchman Nee and Witness Lee made this matter so clear in their writings.  In our personal library we have the following books that are a complete study on this matter:  The Glorious Church, The Orthodoxy of the Church, The Normal Christian Church Life,  The Practical Expression of the Church,  and The Vision of the Church.

You can listen to excerpts of Witness Lee's speaking the Life-Study of Deuteronomy on Life Study of the Bible  with Witness Lee.   You can also read the online Life-Studies of Deuteronomy and check out other resources available to enhance your study of the Bible on Living Stream Ministry's website.

Other Posts on Deuteronomy:

What's the book of Deuteronomy about?
The Importance of the Place of Worship in Deuteronomy 12