What is the Church? An Introduction

Main Idea: Tonight we want to introduce the conversation and thoughts that often involve how we understand or misunderstand what the Bible teaches about the church.

Matthew 16:18 NASB95

“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

Matthew

Why study the Church? A proper understanding of the church helps us:

To love our church more

To serve our church more

To commit to our church more

Historical developments that have misled us.

Enlightenment: The Church is primarily a religious organization (Aquinas)

Romanticism: The Church is an emotional haven (Schleiermacher)

Postmodernism: The Church is a community of identification

Neo-evangelicalism: The Church is a loosely organized political/cultural caucus

How does the Bible use the word ‘church’?

Ekklesia = ek (out) + kaleo (call)

114 times in the New Testament

3 references to secular assembly (Acts)

2 references to the Old Testament people of God

109 references to the churches that belong to Christ, usually in reference to a local church.

Appears three times in the gospels

Twice in

Primary meaning is a gathering or an assembly

Some Common Misunderstandings

Church as a Place vs. A Gathering of People

Universal Church vs. Local Church

Visible Church vs. Invisible Church

Militant Church vs. Triumphant Church

Mixed Church (believer and unbeliever) vs. Pure Church (believers only)

Hierarchical Church vs. People’s Church

Territorial Church vs. Denominational (Confessional) Church

Ecumenical Church vs. Evangelical Church

[W]e are very painfully aware of the sheerly human nature of the Church. This talk about God gathering the Church sounds pretty unrealistic, a fanciful evasion of the fact that the Church is an all-too-human bit of the world. Indeed, it may even sound like a way of cloaking the scandals of the Church by pretending that the Church is a divine society. But the point of talking about God gathering the Church is not to deny that the Church is human, still less to ignore the Church’s very evident sinfulness. It is, rather, to say that in all its worldliness, in all its sheer humanness, the Church is a place where God is at work, and at work in God’s own way. [Webster, John. Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian. Edited by Daniel Bush and Brannon Ellis. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014].

"In the heart of London’s financial district, dwarfed by the soaring towers of the city, nestles St Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate. How did this ancient church survive the bombs of Hitler, of the Irish Republican Army, and the bulldozers of progress? Sheer glass walls surround it, the faceless centres of banking and business. A programmer peering down at the quaint church from his thirtieth-floor office smiles over his coffee at this lonely monument to an implausible faith.

Christianity, of course, has never lacked prophets of its demise: among the more recent Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Marx, Gide and Sartre.1 Yet since the Second World War the culture of the West, profoundly influenced by Christianity, has been undercut, not so much by the processes of urbanization and globalization, as by a ‘systematic dismemberment, a “trashing” of our culture’.2 Leaders in education, in the media, and increasingly in government, have attacked Christian faith and values, claiming that they oppose both individual liberty and global unity." And yet we continue to stand strong.

Clowney, Edmund P. The Church. Edited by Gerald Bray. Contours of Christian Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995.