One of the common accusations directed at Paul and Christ concerned the temple. Tertullus told governor Felix that Paul tried to “profane the temple.” Two witnesses told Caiaphas that Christ said He would “destroy the temple” (and rebuild it in three days).

I notice a great deal of irony in these accusations, if we pause to consider the nature of “the temple of God” under the new covenant. I Corinthians 3:16 asks, don’t you know that “you (plural) are the temple of God?” We, God’s people, are His temple under the new covenant – the place where God’s presence dwells.

The irony? Paul was in Jerusalem to bring Jewish believers a gift from the Gentiles, which I think was so important to him because it represented the unity of the early church. Paul was attempting to unify, build up, and strengthen the “temple of God,” the church of God. Yet for those who could only see the physical temple, Paul was a “profaner” of the temple, (for they assumed he had brought Trophimus, the Gentile, into the Jew’s temple).

And Christ: In receiving the sentence of execution for the “blasphemy” of wanting to “destroy the (physical) temple,” the ironic twist is that at that very moment, Christ laid the foundation for and began to build the temple not made with hands. See I Peter 2, for explanations of Christ, the chief cornerstone, and we, the living stones who comprise this holy house of God.

Both Paul and Jesus were accused of threatening the (physical) temple. Both found themselves in that situation only out of a desire to build up the (new) temple. In the midst of irony, God shows us His “foolishness” that is wiser than man’s wisdom.