Last month we pointed out that worship can be—and has been— changed, but that only God can rightly change worship. Biblical transitions in worship involve significant changes in both the places of God-ordained worship and the manner of God-ordained worship. We first consider the successive changes in the places of biblical worship.

Prior to Moses and during the lives of the patriarchs, worship was performed before God with sacrifices on altars built by the patriarchs, at places seemingly of their choosing. When Abraham entered Canaan, he came to a place “with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 12:8).

When God redeemed Israel and brought the people out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses (Ex. 1–18), He formed them into a covenant community (chaps. 19–24) and also into a worshiping community (chaps. 25–40). God commissioned the building of the tabernacle as a place of worship (25:8). God commanded sacrifices morning and evening in the tabernacle on an altar built specifically for this purpose (Num. 28:3). Thus God formalized the place of sacrifice and consecrated His house of worship. “The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40:35).

Moses then declared that when Israel entered Canaan, God would require the people to make their sacrifices in the place of His choosing (Deut. 12:5).

When God directed a sacrifice on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite to deal with David’s sin of numbering the people, He revealed this chosen location (1 Chron. 21:18). God accepted David’s sacrifice with fire from heaven (v. 26). David responded, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel” (22:1).

“Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite” (2 Chron. 3:1). The place of worship shifted to this more permanent location. God once again consecrated His house of worship (1 Kings 8:11).

Much later, the woman at the well challenged Jesus with regard to the proper place of worship. “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain [the place of Samaritan worship] nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father….An hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth’” (John 4:21, 23). Profound change was again taking place.

The apostle Peter speaks of this change. “Coming to Him as to a living stone,…you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4-5). All the former Old Testament places of worship looked forward to more spiritual worship in living temples, congregations of the New Testament church.

Your places of worship are therefore not Old Testament, temple-like buildings including ceremonies, robes, bells, and smells. God now gives you simpler yet much more profoundly spiritual places of worship: congregations, spiritual houses, gathering around His Word and offering up spiritual sacrifices of praise (Heb. 13:15).