The institutional church model is designed very much like the Jewish synagogue. Allow me to explain:
1) After Solomon built the temple, Israel had a physical building to go to, to offer their sacrifices and worship God. When the church was birthed, it met in homes, but later after it was institutionalized and a hierarchical system was installed, it became a building for people to go to, to offer their sacrifices to priests and worship God.
2) When Judaism was developed sometime during the intertestamental period, the Jews went to a synagogue to listen to the teachings from the Talmud by a rabbi who was believed to be the mediator between God and man.
Today, people go to church to listen to a message given by a pastor or priest, who many believe is the mediator between God and man. Many believe that the pastor has the ability to hear from God, but the average Christian doesn’t. However, Jesus is the Mediator between God and man, and because of His death and resurrection, those who have faith in Him have been reconciled to God and therefore have access to God through Jesus. Access to God or hearing from Him is not limited to one particular person in the local assembly, but all who have faith in Christ are the royal priesthood who can access God on behalf of those who do not know Him or have faith in Him. Furthermore, all Christians have the Holy Spirit living in them, who teaches them, and they are to teach others (disciple them) to equip them for ministry, and to build them up. Christians are to disciple the nations.
Jesus and the apostles went to and taught in the synagogues, not to listen to the teachings of the rabbis, or to use as a model of a church gathering, but because that is where the lost sheep of Israel were. They used the synagogues to bring the lost sheep to the Shepherd. The apostles met in the temple courtyard daily, and the church multiplied. The church gathering was not used as evangelical outreach as it is today. The church is the people of God and the church gathering was intended for Christians to gather together.
3) As previously mentioned, Israel and the Jews offered their sacrifices at the temple by giving them to a priest to offer them to God on their behalf .
Today, Christians bring their tithe to the church as an offering by giving it to the “priest”, to offer it to God on their behalf. Christians are not commanded to give a tithe under the new covenant, nor to offer their sacrifices at the temple.
Christians are commanded to give whatever the Lord would have them give, because it all belongs to Him anyways. It might be a tithe, or it might be more or less. Christians are commanded to give in ways which help the church (the Body, not the building), the Kingdom, and those in need. They are to give out of their plenty to those who have less. They do not need to do this at a church building or have the “priest” offer it on their behalf because they have been authorized by Him who has all authority to do it themselves.
Jesus is the High Priest who offered Himself as the once for all sacrifice, therefore there is no need for Christians to have a priest or to offer sacrifices on their behalf.
The Church is the temple made up of living stones that is being built-up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, and Jesus is the Chief Cornerstone on which the Temple is being built.
The old is gone and obsolete, the new has come. Because of Jesus, there is no longer any need for temples, priests, or the sacrificial system. The church was not intended by Jesus to follow the model of the old covenant temple or the synagogue of Judaism. This is evident where we see examples of the church in Scripture. The church is not under the old covenant sacrificial system, and the church and Judaism are different entities. Therefore the church should not follow their models, but the model that Jesus and the apostles set forth in the Bible.
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