Let's Restore The New Testament Church

Introduction:

I got this outline from Brother Ed Bousman who has gone on to be with the Lord.

Let’s restore the New Testament Church. Perhaps a better way to put it would be, let us restore the people to the church of the New Testament. The New Testament Church has been here since the Day of Pentecost, when the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of jesus was first proclaimed, and 3,000 people were baptized.

A question often asked is, “Which one of the New Testament Churches do we want to restore?” How about the one at Sardis, it was dead? How about the one at Laodicea, it was lukewarm? How about the one at Ephesus, it had left its first love? How about the churches in Galatia, they were legalistic? How about the one at Corinth, it was full of division? Which one of the New Testament Churches should we restore?

It is hard to see the entire Church from looking at one of the New Testament congregations, but if we take a look at several of them, it will give us an idea of what a New Testament church should look and act like.

Let’s not think we have arrived. There are a lot of things left to be restored.

Thesis: Let’s look at several of the NT churches and see what we need to restore from them.

For instances:

Let’s restore the name that was familiar to the church at Rome.

If we would go to Rome in the first century and inquired for the location of any denomination, either Protestant or Catholic, the Christians would have been confused. They would not know what we were talking about.

If we had said the church, they would be familiar with that. That is all that was needed in the NT times. It is unfortunate that today we have to add more to it than that.

Now if we would have said the Church of Christ that would have been a very familiar name to the Romans, because Paul had written to the Roman church and said in Romans 16:16: All the churches of Christ send greetings.

Now to be fair there are other names that are biblical. Church of God is mentioned in several places of the NT. Some go by Christian church, this is a Biblical description of the individual people of the church as talked about in Acts 11:26- first called Christians. Any name found in Scripture is a scriptural name. Restoration slogan: Call Bible things by Bible names.

Many denominational names cause division because they are not in the Bible.

I know of a church that is called the church of the firstborn- Hebrews 12:23. This would take some explaining. Is this just for the firstborn’s? No, this is talking about Jesus Christ. Why not make it easier and just call it the church of Christ?

Let’s restore the Lord’s Supper of the Church at Troas

Acts 20:7 tells us that this church met together on the first day of the week to break bread. Paul stayed at Troas for 7 days. He waited for Sunday so that he could meet with the church.

Jesus arose from the dead on Sunday. He made many of His appearances after the resurrection on Sunday. The first gospel sermon was preached on Sunday. The first converts were immersed on Sunday. The disciples at Troas gathered together on Sunday for the purpose of the Lord’s Supper.

Let’s restore the baptism of the Colossian church

Colossians 2:12: having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

Die to the old life and rise to the new life. Immersion.

On these first 3 for the most part we have done a lot of work. However, there are a lot of things left to be restored than just these 3.

Let’s restore the preaching of the church at Thessalonica

In Acts 17 we are told how Paul started the Church at Thessalonica. Vs. 2-3: As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ, ” he said.

1 Thessalonians 1:5: our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.

Preaching is not that important today.

Let’s restore the Bible study of the church at Berea

Acts 17:11: Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.