DO WE EVEN NEED THE CHURCH ANYMORE?
Each spring, our high school schedules a concentrated time of spiritual emphasis called Renovation Week. During these sessions, the students of Wilmington Christian Academy are instructed and challenged in a particular area of Christian doctrine or practice. This year’s theme focused on the Christian’s response to institutions, such as government, business, family, and church. During the breakout sessions, I was given the privilege of teaching about the importance of the local church; the title of my workshop was Do We Even Need the Church Anymore? Let me answer this question up front for you. Absolutely! Yes! We still need the church. In this time of moral insanity, we desperately need biblically sound, doctrinally rich local churches that are committed to the gospel. Now is not the time for the church to lose its zeal or courage. Undoubtedly, given the dark times experienced in human history, the church has always been needed; therefore, I will refrain from saying that we need the church now more than ever. While I do not believe that would be an accurate statement, I will say that we definitely do not need the church any less than we have in previous generations.
With an increasing number of professing Christians wondering if they need to be involved in a local church anymore, I decided to take the next two months of newsletter articles to address the reasons why believers still desperately need the church. In this article, I will answer the question, what is the church? In next month’s edition of At Grace I will answer the more pointed question, why do we need the church? As always, there is much more that could be said than space allows, but this article will provide some rudimentary information for your consideration. So for now, let’s focus our attention on five New Testament descriptions of the church.
First, the church is not a building. While the vast majority of churches have some type of building, the church is biblically understood as a group of redeemed people who regularly gather together for the purpose of corporate worship, instruction, fellowship, evangelism, and service. People do not enter a church; the church enters a building or a field or a backyard or a tent or a pavilion or a parking lot in order to collectively proclaim the gospel. Notice Paul’s words in Romans 16:5, “Greet also the church in their house.” In this example, the church, the people of God, was meeting in the home of Prisca and Aquila. The meeting place was not the church, but the church did consistently gather in a particular location at a specific time, for the biblical purpose of corporate worship, instruction, fellowship, evangelism, and service.
Second, the church is pictured in Scripture as a family. Recently, I was listening to a podcast that was discussing the increasing number of people who feel disconnected and uncertain as to where they fit in the world. It was a helpful discussion, but one particular point really caught my attention. According to the podcast, the more fragmented and unstable families have become, the more isolated and detached people feel. I absolutely believe that to be a true statement. Admittedly, there are likely other factors at play as well, but I would suggest that there is certainly correlation if not causation to the fact that American families are increasingly dysfunctional and failing to meet what the Bible describes as a stable and functional home. With more and more families splintering, it stands to reason that this instability would bleed over into the church. God’s family, composed of all gospel-believing Christians, are called to sacrificially love one another and serve one another. The church is meant to be a place of community centered on our common relationship with Christ, not on our commonality of preferences. In the first part of 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul writes, “You may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.” There is no perfect biological family. Nor is there a church family that is spotless, and without conflict and challenges. Nonetheless, Christians–those who have been adopted into the family of God–are called to be faithful members of God’s family by being active in a local church.
Third, the church is pictured in Scripture as an embassy. Politically speaking, an embassy is the base for a country’s diplomatic mission in a foreign nation. Embassies are the official headquarters of a nation’s ambassador. The United States of America has embassies all over the world, serving our nation’s interests. Likewise, local churches are designed to serve as an embassy, a representative of God’s kingdom, in this world. As ambassadors of Christ and His kingdom, we are called to faithfully proclaim the glorious gospel to all nations (see 2 Corinthians 5:20). Whenever churches lose sight of their mission and choose to promote the culturally popular message of this fallen world rather than the gospel, they are no longer faithfully proclaiming the kingdom of God to this world. Such congregations are no longer fulfilling the responsibility Jesus has entrusted to His church. In the final phrase of 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul refers to the church as “a pillar and buttress (i.e., foundation) of the truth.” The moment the church wanders from the truth of Scripture, it ceases to be a church and is reduced to nothing more than a community organization that has no gospel impact on the world.
Fourth, the church is pictured in Scripture as the bride of Christ. This imagery is seen in passages such as Ephesians 5:25 where Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Unfortunately, this verse is typically narrowly applied to marriage, which is certainly an accurate application, but the main point of Jesus’s relationship to the church is regrettably overlooked. Like a husband is called to sacrificially love his wife, Jesus loves the church and sacrificed Himself on the cross of Calvary to redeem all who believe in Him. To those who are currently neglecting the bride of Christ, I would like to remind you that Jesus loves His bride so much He gave His life for her. If Jesus sacrificed His own life for us, certainly we can sacrifice for Him and serve His bride. When we rebuff Christ’s bride we are, in fact, rejecting Him. Those who claim to be followers of Christ while rejecting His bride are misguided, and not living obediently to the Bible they claim to believe.
Fifth, the church is pictured in Scripture as the body of Christ. Of all of the pictures used in the New Testament to describe the church, this one is my personal favorite. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.” I love those verses. Think about the wonders of the human body; it truly is an amazing creation. In every person’s body, there are millions of cells, all perfectly organized to craft the various organs that make our bodies function as God intended. Each part of our bodies has been assigned a particular function, and serves a particular purpose. Each one plays a role in our survival, and helps optimize our existence. For fun, try tying your shoes with your ear sometime. Or try writing your name with your eye. Here is a simple truth: eyes see, ears hear, fingers tie shoes. These three body parts are incapable of changing jobs because, well, they can’t. Likewise, the body of Christ is comprised of individual members that have specific functions and are placed in the church for a particular function. What makes the church so fabulous is not that we are all the same, but that we are profoundly different. We have one faith, but many different gifts and functions, all of which are to be fitted together to comprise one local body of Christians.
Based on these five descriptions, we must conclude that the church is absolutely necessary today, and that each Christian is expected to be a faith member of a local congregation. Each and every member is expected to sacrificially use their giftedness for the purpose of gospel ministry, always to the glory of God. The New Testament church is not a building, it is not a meeting you attend, or a social club that you belong to. The local church is a congregation of faithful Jesus- followers who are staunchly committed to using his or her giftedness for the purpose of building God’s glorious kingdom one person at a time. If you are a Christian, and you are not actively involved in a local church, it is time to find a place to serve. You need a church community, and there is a local church out there that needs you.
Copyright © 2023 by Jay Knolls
All rights reserved.