A PEOPLE OF Prayer

Bishop Tim McCaleb, general presbyter for Asia, Australia, and Oceania, became a licensed minister in the COGOP in 1980. He held pastoral positions throughout Tennessee and Illinois before his appointment as state overseer of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Texas. During that time, he also participated in Assembly committees such as the Bible Doctrine and Polity committee and was Servant Partners Director for the International Offices. He holds a Master of Theological Studies from Vanderbilt University and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Houston Graduate School of Theology. He is married to Sheena and they have four children and many grandchildren.

- DR. TIM MCCALEB

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, it is recorded that Jesus went into the temple and drove out the money changers, as well as those buying and selling in the temple. He was indignant because the temple was being used as a place to extort people rather than a place for them to encounter God. Consequently, He declared, “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13). It is important not to gloss over His statement too quickly nor to assume that Jesus was only referencing the Jewish temple or a church building of brick and mortar. As we shall see, on a deeper spiritual level, Jesus was calling His people the true temple of God and calling them to be a people of prayer.

Several passages in the New Testament confirm that His house is a living house made up of His people, and He, Jesus, is the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). A few Scriptures that confirm this truth are:

But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end (Hebrews 3:6).

For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building… Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:9, 16).

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2: 4, 5).