Would Peter and James Recognize Our Churches?
Barna Stats, Consumers, And A Brief Pentecostal Ecclesiology
1 Peter 2:5 (ESV) reads:
“You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
David had a vision for the house of God and called it Zion—and it looked nothing like Moses’ tabernacle. Moses didn’t have musicians or choirs; but David’s entire church structure was built around praise. The story of God—Scripture itself—was sung aloud, led by prophetic musicians. Expression replaced animal sacrifice: lifted hands, clapping, dancing—this was the new offering (Psalm 141:2).
God looked down at Zion—the Tabernacle of David—and made an everlasting covenant with it. He essentially said, “This is where I’m living forever. I love this.”
Psalm 132:13–14 (ESV):
“For the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his dwelling place:
‘This is my resting place forever;
here I will dwell, for I have desired it.’”
Amos ministered in a time when David’s Tabernacle was long gone—the heart and soul of YHWH worship had vanished. What Amos sees in 9:11 is a prophetic vision of spiritual revival: God rebuilding His people in the form of David’s Tabernacle—a return to Presence-centered worship, prophetic leadership, and intimacy over ritual.:
“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old.”
When James is trying to make sense of what the Spirit is doing in the early Church, he connects the inclusion of the Gentiles under the messianic reign of Christ—the House of David—with the practical outworking of a new kind of gathering: the Tabernacle of David. Preaching from Amos 9:11 in Acts 15, James presents this as an eschatological fulfillment on multiple levels.
My point?
According to the author of Hebrews, the New Testament Church is Mount Zion. It’s the spiritual reawakening of David’s tabernacle—marked by a radical priority on Presence, Praise, and Scripture. The writer opens his defense of the New Covenant gathering with a deliberate nod to Zion, speaking to a Jewish audience wrestling with how to serve God without Moses, the temple system, or Levitical priests.
“Through Jesus, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise...” (Hebrews 13:15)
David’s tabernacle is the Church God always intended—the gathering He vowed to inhabit forever. By the Spirit, David prophetically foreshadowed the very form and flow of the New Testament Church: Presence over ritual, praise over performance, access over hierarchy. For the early Jewish believers, this wasn’t a break from the story—it was the fulfillment. David’s tent was always the blueprint. And it was already happening.
Peter will put some bones to the flesh theologically:
We are living bricks
Gathered as a Spiritual House (you are spiritually designed to gather)
To partake in the calling of the priesthood
To offer spiritual sacrifices
Acceptable ones—the ones God has asked for
Through Jesus Christ
But here? Here is the Barna Stat that—for me—makes the Church unrecognizable at times to its own people: