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THE SANCTUARY Some have had concerns about my recent comments that calling a church auditorium a "sanctuary" is not a good idea. It seems that many of God's people subscribe to the notion that there must be a special holy place in a church building, so calling such a place "the sanctuary" would be the next logical step. Just one problem with that: it ain't in the Book. Or not in the New Testament anyway. The word "sanctuary" is found 137 times in the Bible, and EVERY occurrence has reference to the Old Testament where God's tabernacle or temple is also called a sanctuary. The New Testament uses the word only four times, all in Hebrews, and none of those occurrences refer to a church building. You know, it really looks like maybe God has taken on a different approach to religious buildings and holy places since religious devils turned HIS house into THEIR house and into a den of thieves (Mat. 21:13 with Mat. 23:38). Today the Christian's BODY is God's temple (I Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19-20), and it's also called a tabernacle (II Cor. 5:1-4; II Pet. 1:13-14), so I suppose one could also call their body a "sanctuary," but no building or part of a building in the church age is called such. God knows something that a great many people do NOT know: Holy PLACES allow hellish people to feel respectable. Just ask Joab (I Kgs. 2:28). That's why Jesus told the woman at the well that God desires to be worshiped in spirit and in truth, not at a particular PLACE (John 4:21-24), and that's why about forty years later He had their holy place destroyed (Mark 13:2). No, I'm not suggesting that church buildings are wrong. Believers met in buildings in the New Testament, usually in homes, but these meeting places were never called temples, tabernacles or sanctuaries. Anytime man gets to "sanctify" outward things he will neglect the inward things. God knows this very well, having dealt with religious people for thousands of years, so He was very careful to not have church "sanctuaries" in the New Testament. As for using the name "auditorium," if that sounds too casual, then call it what you want, but calling it a sanctuary definitely sends the wrong message.