Opening the doors of Hagia Sophia, the emperor Justinian is said to have cried out that he had outdone Solomon himself, and twenty-one years later an earthquake brought his dome down. That story opens a reflection on a question that only sounds naive: where does God actually live? The sermon looks for the answer in Paul’s prayer from the Letter to the Ephesians (Ephesians 3), a prayer written from prison to a community divided by walls of background and prejudice. Listen if you want to see why every temple built by human hands sooner or later comes to an end.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Ephesians 3:14-21 Paul, though a prisoner, does not pray for his own release but for the readers of his letter. What exactly does he ask for them, and what does that reveal about his priorities?
- Paul calls God the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. What might this have meant to a community divided between Jewish and Gentile believers?
- The sermon says we truly come to know Christ's love only when He dwells in our hearts, just as we really know someone only by living with them. How would you describe the difference between knowing about Christ and living with Him?
- According to the sermon, the inner person is the one who longs for God even while we keep failing outwardly. How do you experience that tension, and what does it mean to you that the Spirit strengthens this inner person?
- Hagia Sophia and other great churches collapsed, were torn down or taken over, yet God dwells in a community of imperfect saints. How does this change the way you see the church and the people in it?
- What walls, whether political, ethnic, historical or theological, separate you from other believers, and what one step can you take this week to let God tear them down?
