hello again, i'm mike mazzalongo, your instructor for this series entitled, "christianity for beginners." this is the sixth lesson in this series. today we're going to talk about the church, and more specifically what the bible says the church should be. now before we look at what the bible says about the church, i'd like to review several popular misconceptions that people have about
the christian church. one misconception is that the church is simply a building. this is the most common idea about the church, that it's simply a structure. people say, "i go to church on main street" or "where is your church located?" they see the church as a thing, a place, a type of architecture devoted to some sort of religious function. another misconception is the church as simply a human organization.
this is called denominationalism, in other words, the church is a group of people that are identified by a certain brand name: catholic church or protestant church, or baptist, or pentecostal church. each group has its characteristics and traditions, they even have their different style of architecture for their buildings that identify and distinguish them from other church groups. another misconception is that all churches are the same. this idea is based on the notion that one church is as good as the other
church because they're all doing the same thing and they're all serving the same god. it's like mcdonald's and burger king, different names different brands but basically serving the same type of food from restaurant to restaurant. but when we examine what the bible says about the church however we see what the church really is and how inaccurate many of these misconceptions are.
now the surest way to have the correct picture of the church is to consult the bible. after all the one who started the christian church, jesus christ, and the ones who established in the first century, the apostles, are all recorded in the new testament part of the bible. so if we want to know about the church therefore, we need to consult
the sourcebook for information about it and that is the new testament church. so let's deal with the misconceptions first shall we? first of all, the church building is only a building used by the church. although most of the public worship of the church takes place in a building, even one that has you know perhaps special type of architecture, the building itself is not
the church the church building is only a building used by people who are christians. second misconception, the church is a human organization well although the church is organized, it is not like a human organization. it has structure but is not identified like other groups that have certain names and compete with other groups for position and for power. so it's not merely a human
organization. and then that other misconception, all churches are the same. this misconception presupposes that there are many types of churches and that they basically all fulfill the same purpose, but the bible however teaches that there is really only one church and it doesn't compete or divide over itself. now the simplest way to describe
the church is to identify what the original word for church actually referred to. we know that the new testament was originally written in the greek language and the greek word translated into the english word "church" was the greek word "ekklesia." now the greek word "ekklesia" actually was a combination of two words. it meant to
call and it meant to call out of, so the word literally meant those who are called out or those who are gathered. among the greeks, it referred to a body of citizens who were gathered together, they were called out and gathered together to discuss the affairs of a city or a state, so actually it was a kind of a political body at
first. it has also been translated into the english words "assembly" and "congregation." now jesus first uses the word church or ekklesia in matthew chapter 16 verse 18 when he says, "i will build my church." now when jesus begins using this word he's referring to his disciples, he's not talking about politicians or city elders or anything like that, he's talking about some that he has
called out and gathered for a specific purpose. and so he will call out the disciples and he will build his assembly with these disciples and he will build his congregation with those who are called out by the gospel. so from the very beginning, the church always referred to people, not buildings or organizations. of course the church was not just any
assembly or any gathering or any congregation of people, the church was the assembly of people who were disciples of jesus christ or you could say it in another way, the church is the gathering of all those who are saved by faith in jesus christ. we talked about this in our last lesson: how we are saved, we are saved by faith in christ, we believe that he's the
son of god, we express that faith in repentance and baptism. well, all those people who have done that, when they are gathered together they are the church, they're the ekklesia, they're the called out. so the key thing to understand therefore is that the church is made up of people who have been saved and follow jesus christ as lord. now in the book of acts,
the apostle luke describes this process when he recounts how peter was preaching about jesus and his death and resurrection and he was encouraging people to believe. i want you to observe how luke describes the formation of the church in this process. and so we begin reading, "'so let everyone in israel know for certain that god has
made this jesus, whom you crucified, to be both lord and messiah!' peter's words pierced their hearts and they said to him and to the other apostles, 'brothers, what should we do?' and peter replied, 'each of you must repent of your sins and turn to god, and be baptized in the name of jesus christ for the forgiveness of your sins. then you will receive the gift of the
holy spirit. this promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the gentiles --- all who have been called by the lord our god.' then peter continued preaching for a long time strongly urging his all his listeners, 'save yourselves from this crooked generation!' those who believed what peter said were baptized and added to the church that day --- about 3,000 in all.
did you notice what was going on here? note how people became members of the church. first, peter was preaching the gospel, he was telling them the story of jesus and encouraging them to believe. then those who believed repented and they are baptized, they're saved just as jesus said they would be in mark 16:16, "those who believe and are baptized will
be saved." so the people that were listening to peter, 3,000 of them, acknowledge their faith in jesus christ and were baptized, and then did you notice what happened? they are added, they are joined, to the existing assembly or church, who have already been saved. so the church is not a building, it's not an organization that you can join, it's not one of many, but it's a
group of people who have been called out of disbelief to believe in jesus christ and then assembled together as one group. now this group exists on a worldwide basis as all those in history here on earth who have become christians, those people are the church, and on a smaller scale christians who gather in local congregations in various places
throughout the city, your city, my city, for worship and service they are also the church. one church is the church universal, if you wish, all the christians all over the world and then you have the local church, the christians that meet at this particular place, this particular time. at its most basic level however, the church
in the bible refers to those who are saved by faith in jesus christ andobey his word as faithful disciples. it doesn't really matter where they meet, they can meet in a house, they can meet outdoors, they can meet under a tent, or in some great cathedral. the important part is that they believe in jesus christ and they have obeyed the gospel. and this is the church, as i say, even if
you meet in an elaborate church building or in someone's home, you are equally the church. they call themselves by a specific brand name, they don't use it doesn't matter if they call themselves "we're disciples of jesus" or "we're in fellowship with jesus" or "we're members of jesus's body", it doesn't matter what you call yourself, all those people
belong to the called out, to the saved, to the ekklesia. so if you're a faithful follower of jesus you've been automatically added to his church, his assembly and his congregation. now even though the basic concept of the church is simple, how it functions and the role it plays in god's plan is complex and quite exalted. in the new testament there are literally dozens of metaphors used
to describe the church and how god sees its position and its attributes in the spiritual realm. now i've chosen only 20, there are many more, but i've only chosen 20 of these metaphors to highlight the value and the beauty god accords to the assembly, to the congregation, to the church. alright, let's take a look at these. i've put them in order that they
appear in the bible or in the new testament, so all different images of the same thing. all of these terms describe the church, the ekklesia. so, kingdom of heaven, matthew 3:2. kingdom of god, matthew 6:33. church of god, acts 20:28. church of christ, romans 16:16. god's field, 1 corinthians 3:9. now remember, all i'm doing is reading the various metaphors, the various images,
that various writers in the new testament used to describe the church. all different terms, all described the same thing. let's have some more, god's building, 1st corinthians 3:9. heavenly jerusalem, galatians 4:26. israel of god, galatians 6:16. body of christ, ephesians 1:22-23. holy temple, ephesians 2:21. dwelling where god lives, ephesians 2:22.
household of god, 1st timothy 3:15. pillar and ground of the truth, 1 timothy 3:15. mount zion, hebrews 12:22. city of the living god. and the final group, church of the firstborn hebrews, 12:23. flock of god, 1 peter 5:2. golden lampstand, revelation 1:21. new jerusalem, revelation 21:2 and bride and wife of the lamb, revelation 21:9. so you see at its most basic level the church is
the gathering of all those who are saved by christ but god also has an exalted view and function for the church which reflects its importance and key role in accomplishing god's will. so i want you to note that these images are not meant to be brand names, we don't want to have a group with a sign in front that's calls themselves "flock of god" and there's another group
over here and they call themselves the "golden lampstands" and then another group over here they call, you know god doesn't use these names so that we use them as as brand names for different denominations but rather they are images, ways, to describe the many facets of the church's character and the spiritual role that the church plays in god's plan.
so all these names are really different ways that the church functions in god's economy. so i could go on for a long time describing the significance of each of these names and references but suffice to say that they demonstrate the unique and spiritual character shared by each individual who makes up the church that jesus built. now if you were to drive down any major street in any city you
would soon notice that contrary to what the bible teaches, because the bible teachs there's only one church, contrary to what the bible teaches there are many types of churches, not just one church as the scriptures teach us. there are several reasons for this phenomenon. people always ask, "why there's so many different churches?" well here are a couple of
reasons why there's so many different churches. first of all, unbiblical foundations. the bible determines what the church is, how it should function, and how it needs to be organized. the bible is the authoritative text for these ideas. ok, now since jesus and the apostles left all the information about the church in the bible and nowhere else, the bible is the only legitimate
blueprint or guidebook to establish and grow the church. there are differenttypes of churches because people insist on adding human ideas and human traditions and human teachings in the place of the bible or in addition to the bible. so every time you do this, you create a variation of the original and with many changes and additions over the centuries there have also been a
multiplication of the types of churches that come in to being. let me explain to you using a very simple idea how the multiplication of types of churches occurs. now of course i'm a man, i don't sew, my wife does sew and i just want to show you a pattern here. see this pattern, this is a basic pattern for a little simple dress
here and if a woman is going to sew and make this dress she will take this pattern out and she'll be able to design it and cut out the pattern and sew it according to the instructionsm according to the pattern that she has in this package here. now the thing is, she could make one dress for herself and she follows the same pattern, she'll make the same dress for her daughter or for her sister
with the same pattern, using the same pattern, she could make ten, a thousand, a million dresses, they would all look the same. why? because she has followed the pattern for this particular dress given to her in this package. now what would happen if she said, "you know what? i'm tired of this style of dress, i think i'll add a shoulder, i'll add sleeves to the dress (because if
you noticed in the picture there no sleeves), so i'm going to add sleeves to the dress." is it a dress? well yes, it'll still be a dress with sleeves, but will it be the dress in the pattern? no. no, it'll be a variation of the dress in the pattern. well in the same way the bible is the pattern for the church. if you follow the bible's instructions on how to create
and organize and function as a church, you'll be able to create that pattern in every generation, every place, every time. you'll always have the same church because you have followed the same pattern. now some things may change, language and culture, those type of things change, but the actual church itself, how its organized, how it runs, what it believes,
what it does, what it teaches will always be the same because you followed the pattern that's in the new testament. well one thing that has happened since the church was originally established is that people began adding human teachings, human ideas, human traditions to the original pattern of the church. what did they get? well they mayhave a church, but they don't have the church of the original
pattern. and so this is how new and different churches evolve, they don't follow the basic pattern that is laid down in the new testament for the church. another reason that there are so many types is that many people don't agree on the meaning of the bible. it's not something that christians like to admit but there is often disagreement about the meaning and the application ofcertain texts in the bible.
unfortunately when two groups cannot agree on how to interpret or put into practice a certain teaching or a passage of scripture, they form different groups in order to promote their point of view. now this doesn't happen all the time,but as far as why do different churches kind of spring up? one of the reasons is this here, they don't agree on how to interpret something in the
bible and so they they form different groups in order to champion their various viewpoints. so these separate groups often grow into separate churches with different identities and different traditions that have little to do with each other and many times little to do with the original pattern that's in the new testament. this is why you have hundreds
of different types of groups all claiming to be the church but having different practices and points of view on a variety of issues. i believe that jesus knew enough about human nature to know that this type of thing would happen in the church that he was creating during his time here. he knew man, he knew what would happen
with man. this is why at the very beginning of the formation of the church as he was calling out the very first disciples, his prayer for unity among his followers was the following in john chapter 17 he said, "holy father you have given me your name; now protect them [them meaning the apostles and all the others who would be saved by the gospel down to
this very day] now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are." so according to the bible the church is united in its love, its beliefs, its organization, its practice, its worship and its service. why? because jesus prayed for this. this is what he wanted the church to be. paul the apostle explained it in this way in the letter to the ephesians church, "make every
effort to keep yourselves united in the spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. for there is one body and one spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. there is one lord, one faith, one baptism, and one god and father, who is over all and in all and through all." ephesians 4:3-6. so the pressure of division
was already being felt in the first century church, but paul holds forth the ideal of the church given to him by god. so this idea of the church dividing in different groups, forming under different names, that's not like something that just happened in the 20th century, in the 21st century, that started to happen in the first century, that's why paul was writing
these very words. so there is only one church and it is perfectly united and created according to god's plan and purpose and paul was encouraging the early church to make sure they stuck to that model. the pattern for that true church is in the new testament and god calls on every christian in every generation to follow his pattern in the
task of establishing and building his church. alright, one of the things that i'm asked most often as a minister is, "well what kind of church is the church of christ?" i serve a congregation of the church of christ, and so people are invariably curious and anxious to figure out what type or what denomination i and my church fit into. people, they need to put you in a category. of course, this is normal
considering what i've explained about churches in this particular lesson. so someone watching this lesson'll say, "well what about your church? what are you?" well, i tell people that the church of christ is a new testament church. this means that our goal is to follow the pattern for what the church is contained in the new testament as carefully as we can so we
can resemble that church. we look at the new testament we notice there there's a pattern for how the church should be organized, how it should function, how it responds tovarious things, and we try to copy that pattern in order to reproduce in our generation the same new testament church that was produced in the first century. and this is important because
jesus said, "i will build my church" in matthew chapter 16 verse 18 and then in the rest of the new testament the writers describe what that church did and how it was organized and how it functions, so it's important, we need to be careful to follow the church that jesus designed and gave instruction for through his apostles. we want to be that church, we don't want to be more than that, but we don't want to be
less than that either. of course, i'm not saying we're alone in this, there are tens of thousands of other churches around the world striving for the very same thing and all i'm saying that we're one of those one of those churches. now here's a disclaimer that i need to make having said that, have we achieved our goal of
being that perfect model of that new testament church? well, the answer to that is, no not yet. someone may ask, "well why?" well, we don't understand everything in the scripture yet perfectly, we don't know perfectly how to apply every principle there, all of us don't have all the perfect virtues that are talked about in the new testament. we don't
always agree with our brothers and sisters on every single thing, every single issue. and of course, there's the problem of sin. we're all sinners, were imperfect people who don't always do the things that we do understand. one of the things that we say at the church of christ is that sinners are welcome at the church of christ because that's all we are,
that's all we have, a building full of people who are sinners who have been saved by the blood of christ. and so imagine if you take a hundred or three hundred 500 sinners and you put them all together in a kind of a church family, there's bound to be problems from time to time. but here's the motivation and here's the encouragement to keep on going,
we believe that this is the right target to shoot for as far as church is concerned. using only god's word to produce god's church, this is what a new testament church does and this is how it is different. so when you visit a church of christ, and i hope that you will, realize that you are in an assembly that tries to support all of its teachings
and all of its practices with the teachings and the practices of the church found in the new testament. we purposefully try not to add anything that is not in the new testament concerning the church and of course we also make sure that we don't leave anything out as well, we try to follow that pattern as closely as we can. we believe that this is the only way to
accomplish the three main goals that the church has been given to accomplish. goal number one, of course, is to reach and to save the lost, matthew 28 verses 18 and 20. those are the marching orders of the church, right? to preach the gospel to everyone in the world in any way we can and then to baptize those who believe and repent and then integrate
them into the body of christ, integrate them into the church, integrate them into the church of christ in the way that christ has taught us. our second goal of course, is to build up christ's church, matthew 16:18. when i say build-up, help people mature as christians, teaching them the scriptures and hopefully helping them to apply the scriptures
in their lives, in their own personal spiritual life, and also in their relationships with other people. and then the third goal, of course, is to create and maintain unity as jesus has asked of us to do in john chapter 17 and other places in the new testament. and it's not easy, there's always a pressure to break apart, to divide, to argue, so on and so forth, but with patience and
with love and kindness and understanding, we try to maintain that unity of the spirit in the bond of peace as paul tells us in ephesians. so if you are not in the church, then i encourage you, of course, to believe in jesus christ, repent of your sins, to be baptized and in doing that you will be added to his church and then i encourage you to find, if you
don't know, find the church of christ which is closest to you and allow them to continue to teach you and encourage you in your faith. well that's our lesson on the church for this time. our next lesson will be our last in this series and we'll be talking about the christian lifestyle, well thank you for joining us for this lesson pray that god blesses you and
that you'll be back for the last session.
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