Ecclesiology?
The Foundations of Church • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Big word of the week alert!
Big word of the week alert!
Ecclesiology… This word might sound familiar you might be thinking… is that a book of the Bible? No, but it’s very close the book of Ecclesiastes does sound very similar. It’s in fact a related Greek word. Ecclesiology is the ology - or study of - Ecclesia, which is a Greek word that is most often translated in the Bible to church. It’s general meaning is an assembly, a congregation, or a gathering. Ecclesiastes means the gatherer, or the one that assembles the implication is for teaching. Well the word that means the same thing as church but in Hebrew shows up first in Deut 4.10 for the whole picture here I’ll read you Deut 4.9-14 Moses is preaching to the people of Israel and he says
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children— how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.
Ah! you didn’t think Church showed up in the Old Testament did you!? We see that God has gathered his people to hear His words, fear Him, and pass on that knowledge. All those gatherings and assemblies you see in the Old Testament of God’s people are this word that we usually translate to Church when it shows up in the New Testament.
What the New Testament church is and how it functions is the answer to the question : What is ecclesiology?
What the New Testament church is and how it functions is the answer to the question : What is ecclesiology?
Let’s see where Jesus is telling us about church.
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Yes, there is a pun here in Greek. You may have heard this before but, Peter and rock are nearly the same word. The name for Peter is a Greek word that means a fragment of a rock… and this word for rock really means something more like giant boulder. In the classical Greek work the Odyssey, Homer describes Polyphemus the cyclopes as placing a huge ‘rock’ at the door of his cavern and 22 wagons couldn’t move it. So it’s big. But the personhood of this rock-headed man Peter is not what Christ is building His church upon. Christ builds it upon Peter, the Apostle who testifies of Jesus as the Christ, the son of the living God. The church is not built upon it’s confessions but it’s confessors that believe the confessions. The church is people to whom God the Father has revealed the person and work of Jesus Christ! Who more is first in line to be built upon but the Apostles? Christ we notice does the building when He says “I will build my church.” Later Peter himself tells us in a letter 1 Pet 2:4-5
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Now, here Peter uses a different word, stone, I think so that no one would confuse this with the original pun Christ used with Peters name as being about Peter personally. Jesus is the living stone rejected by men. Church members (to whom Peter is writing in this letter) are living stones built up as a spiritual house.
We see Paul says something similar in Eph 2:19-22
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
What is the church? It’s people who believe the prophets (the Bible) and stand firmly in what the apostles taught. We know what they taught through the Bible as the inerrant Word of God.
You might be new here, you might be someone who’s attended here longer than I have, you might be a Christian, you might be an atheist who was curious this morning, you might be angry at God. You’re here in a building gathered with us. But if you aren’t standing firm on what we read from the prophets and the apostles, you aren’t part of the church. No matter how often you attend, no matter how many friends you might have in this room. If God has not gathered you in to hear his promises on which you believe, you aren’t part of the church. The basic foundation that the apostles proclaimed and that Christ the cornerstone built His church upon is this. We were born spiritually dead as descendants of Adam. We have all failed to live up to perfection as God is perfection. In that failure we sinned and deserve death. We cannot do anything to get back to God. So God sent his only begotten son to be sin for us. He was beaten and bruised for our iniquity. He was made a curse on our behalf and nailed to a cross shedding His blood as payment for our wrongs. Just like the prophets foretold. He died and was buried but on the third day rose again. Just as the scriptures said. Then he was seen by the Apostles and hundreds more before ascending to heaven. Those Apostles preached and taught about what Jesus did, who He was, and that we may know him. We as the church carry on in that work. The church is the people who believe the promises of God.
We’re launching Crossroads Church Tell City on July 31st. Until that point we are a congregation that is a part of Hawesville Baptist Church. When we launch as our own church we want to take extra care that people who become members of this Church are people who trust in the promises of God. Most baptist churches have some kind of process for this, HBC does if you became a member of HBC while here, you might remember having a conversation/interview with one of the pastors before they recommended you for membership. That will not stop when we are launched as our own church. We might end up with a different process but the point of membership is that the church affirms your profession of faith and baptism as credible. The church in response promises to give oversight of your discipleship. We want to have, what pastor Mark has said many times, a meaningful membership. We don’t want a member who is unknown by the body, we certainly don’t want a wolf among the sheep, but we also don’t want someone that is not commited to Christ. This means that after joining as a member I cannot remain where I started. The church is the gathering so we have Gather as our first of four points in our mission statement. The second point in that mission statement is Grow. We expect our members to Grow in their faith. The third we just recently added was Give. Oh no don’t talk about money in church that seems so icky. Yes give is about money because money pays bills, it affords us a pastor who does not have to spend time in another job so he can focus on the Word and prayer for our church. But Give is much more than just money. Give includes your abilities. We’ve got some wonderfully talented people that offer that talent to the church, whether it’s playing music, caring for our children, administratively organizing things, and the list goes on. Offering our abilities to the church is also giving. Volunteering time is giving. We’ve had some VBS meetings for volunteers and had a packed basement for those meetings. As members we give our time to the church, whether it’s cleaning this building, mowing the grass, helping at VBS, or any other number of projects that have happened at the church. Give is all of the above not one or the other. The last is Go. As members of the church we are called to Go to the world, even if the world is next door, your work neighbor, the guy sitting at the table next to you in Arby’s or wherever you are. Tell people about Jesus, like the apostles we will tell people about the need for salvation and how God has accomplished that salvation through Jesus Christ. Gather. Grow. Give. Go.
So if that’s what a church is then how does a church function? It has three parts. Members which we talked about, Deacons, and Elders.
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
Deacons:
Deacons are the servants of the church. We can see an example of the need for deacons, though they were not yet an ‘office’ in the early church here in Acts 6:1-4
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Deacons are held to a higher standard of character. There’s a list in 1 Tim 3:8-13. But their first purpose was actually to end strife by serving the church. Through service they facilitate ministry being done. They make sure that we have the grass mowed, functioning lights and plumbing all the things needed to facilitate ministry of the church.
Our main take away for deacons is that they get things done for the church that are appointed to them. They also model the godly character traits to others.
Elders:
The next you may not realize we have but we do and it’s the office of Elder. Now at the moment we only have one. Mark. The Pastor of a church is an elder. Another term for elders used in the bible is overseers or shepherds. We have our own perception of what a pastor is and we will continue to make a distinction with a title of Pastor just be aware they are all in the office of Elder. What’s the difference between the elders and the deacons? We get the qualification list from 1 Tim 3:1-7 for elders. First we should recognize the standard of character is not different. The difference is gifting and calling. Elders must be able to teach. They are expected to manage the church. 1 Tim 5:17
Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
From this verse we see that elder is one who rules, or manages and that some preach and teach. Though all elders must be able to teach it doesn’t mean that the primary role of an elder is to preach in a service or teach a class.
In addition to rightly teaching the word of God they also need to be able to rebuke those who contradict it.
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
It’s a different kind of person who is able to confront people with something they are wrong about. It’s the much rarer person who is able to do that in love, but this is a part of the calling for an elder.
They should shepherd the flock and watch over them. Among other things Paul tells the elders in Ephesus this in
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
There is a higher accountability that comes with this office.
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
We can see the main purpose of elders summarized in Eph 4:12-13
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
A motto for elders might be in mirroring Paul's words in Col 1:28-29
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Elders are the leadership of a church. I feel compelled to say that leadership can often be misunderstood as well as abused. Leaders do not drag people along with them. Leaders are out front going the right way and people follow them. When issues arise in a church to the point the elders need to be involve they don’t go punish people. Lennox and I were talking a few nights ago about the role of elders and the conversation had migrated to being dads and how our children view us. Part of that conversation made me think of something I was going to say this morning about eldership. It was this. Elders are not parents. As a parent there are times where we have to stop everything and intervene in our child’s life arbitrarily for their own good. We punish them to make sure they don’t continue to do wrong. But elders aren’t parents. They’re more like a spouse. You don’t, or… goodness I hope you don’t grab your spouse by the hand walk them into the other room sit them down and tell them they’re grounded for 3 days because they did something wrong. The elders may take a case of discipline where someone has committed a public sin. I’ll use this example because as far as I know it hasn’t happened here, but it did happen in the Bible. Say a member has openly started having an affair with his step mom. This would be brought to the attention of elders who go and speak with the man but he hasn’t repented and wasn’t planning on stopping this behavior. That matter ultimately gets brought back to the church to decide if he should be removed from membership. The elders don’t make that decision, they make that recommendation.
We can see it was expected that churches would have multiple elders, not just one elder as the pastor.
And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.
Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.
On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed:
A plurality of elders is the expectation of a biblical church.
We have realized that we need to align our bylaws to make this church structure clear in our church.
In addition to the Pastors (paid elders on staff) there will also be lay elders (unpaid elders)
This spreads responsibility and creates better accountability and alleviates the stress of just one guy the lead pastor being the one who deals with church discipline, modeling holiness, teaching and discipling members, and charting the direction.
So let’s recap the church is, baptized people who gather together and believe the promises of God. The church functions through it’s members who Gather, Grow, Give, and Go. The ministries of the church are enabled to work smoothly by the deacons who serve the church. Deacons are also models of godliness in their character to all who see them. Likewise elders also model a godly character. The elders teach, whether one on one, in a class, or during a service to grow the church’s members. They lead the church and point the church where they should go. The members are the final authority to affirm this direction. Elders also very importantly devote themselves to prayer over the church.
Now, you’re all qualified on our big word of the week! You can answer someone who asks what is ecclesiology?