I grew up in the small Arkansas town of Russell. In this town we were lucky enough to have a school house. It was bigger than most old red one room school houses that you see portrayed on T.V. it was actually 3 or 4,000 square feet so the only reason I can find to justify calling it a school house is because that is what all the adults who went to the school house called it.
This functioned as the school for our community until the early 60’s when it was absorbed into the greater Bald Knob Metropolitan School District.
The point I want you to see is that it was called a school house because of what went on inside its walls. Until I started studying to write this article it never occurred as strange that my grandmother would say when we were going to church lets go to the church house. She said this because that is what she thought went on inside the building was church. There may be some that still refer to their church building as the Church house, and I know the church I attend started literally in a house.
I want to focus in this article and a couple of follow-ups not on the church house but on the church. In case you don’t already know the Greek term for church used in the Bible is Ekklesia. It means literally “called out ones” In Greece these were the people called out to an assembly. For us as Christians we are called out of the world by Christ, into Christ. It does not have anything to do with a building.
In his book “Pagan Christianity” Frank Viola puts it this way, ”If your were to ask a first century Christian where they went to church they would have no idea what you were talking about.” They would probably look at you like you had 3 eyes. They were the church they did not have to go to where they were. They knew what their identity was in Christ. They understood what it meant to be called out of the world they were living in. This meaning is lost today by a lot of attenders. They believe that once a week they go to church and the other six and a half days the church sits empty. They have no idea what the church really is.
Today there are generally two ways of looking at who the Ekklesia are. First each local assembly is an ekklesia unto itself. Your home church is an ekklesia. That congregation whether a house church or a mega church is a local part of the body of Christ. Second the whole body of believers around the world is the ekklesia making up the body of Christ. This is also known as the “holy catholic church” with a small “c” meaning universal church. This is the belief of my denomination the Church of God (Anderson, IN).
Quoting Form the Church of God Beliefs on the website:
“The message of unity is that all God’s people are one (John 17) and are called to recognize that unity, to relate to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and to coordinate their efforts in mission to the world.”
Frank viola says later in his book that The first use of the phrase “go to church” that we are aware of came in a letter written around the year 190 from Clement of Alexandria and other than converted houses and catacombs there were no actual church buildings until Constantine began to build them over cemeteries where the bodies of their martyrs were buried.
The church is the body of Christ.
We know that and it seems like a no-brainer. But if you are going to “church” instead of being the ekklesia you probably do not understand, nor do you care, that you have a part to play just as each part of the body does. He puts each one of us who choose to accept him as Lord into a local body where we can be of use.
1 Corinthians 12:11-13 says:
11All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Skip down to verse 27
27Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.
The church is the Body of Christ and he has given each of us a task to do in the body. We each are called to do something. No matter how small the task if you are a part of the body you have a function. If you are just showing up on a weekly basis to get fed then return to your non-church life of work and leisure you are drastically missing the reason for even going to the building on a weekly basis.
Yes you can do something, from holding a baby in the nursery to holding a hand at the side of a hospital bed. You can do something.
The Church should function as one
Ephesians 4:1-3 says
1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
If you have ever set in a church business meeting then you know functioning as one is not always as easy as it sounds. However, if we are to put our focus on Christ and his mission for us here on earth we need to stop focusing on ourselves and what we want church to be. It does not matter if the church is emerging, contemporary, or liturgical if the people in it are focused on what they need and not the mission of Christ then the church is failing.
1cor 12:21-26
21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Look out for each other. That is the bottom line. If you are busy trying to get noticed and get your way then you are not following what Paul is telling the Corinthians here. Be a help not a hindrance to spreading the gospel.
The church is open to all who believe.
In his book Gifts of the Desert Kyriacos Markides quotes a Greek Orthodox Monk saying, “The Church Is like a hospital, it takes fallen, sick, and confused human beings, who suffer from all sorts of destructive passions and sins, and with its very tangible therapeutic methods helps them attain real health.”
In Ephesians 4 14-15 Paul says this:
14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
Many people say that the Christian Church is exclusive But when you step back and look every major religion is exclusive.
But I also want to make it known that it is also inclusive Jesus said in John 3 starting at verse 14 Jesus says this:
“14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Don’t miss the next sentence
17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
People outside the Church spend so much time telling us that we cause hate because we believe that Jesus is the only way to God. God knows who will and who will not accept Christ. We do not need to put human constraints on an all knowing, all seeing, eternal God. If some one does not want to be with him now why would he want to cause them the grief of spending eternity with him.
The world today says the Christian message today is one of exclusivity but I want them to see that Jesus died for everyone and when you take all the world religions today none of them but Christianity have a loving God at there heart who would give his son for our sins. They just don’t.
The church of god (Anderson In) says this: No one person decides that another will or will not be admitted to membership in a local group. Neither congregations nor congregational leaders vote on who shall be received as members. The Church of God believes that when one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, God places that person in the church
Jesus’ prayer in John 17 sums it all up.
20″My prayer is not for them alone (he has just prayed for the disciples). I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24″Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25″Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
If you are not part of the Body of Christ today I’m not going to tell you that you have to go to the front of a church. None of us are here by coincidence or chance we are here for a reason. So if you do not know Jesus all you need to do to start the process is tell him you want to know more about him, ask him to guide you as you read your bible and he will begin to draw you closer to him and reveal himself more and more to you.
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