The Church Explained In Eight Words

The pandemic crisis has drawn the curtain on many things the world and the church have taken for granted for a long time. Not to say that may look like denying the truth. Afterall no saying the coronavirus has affected the church may be a misnomer. Because the most important thing the church needs now is a reset after many years of drifting from the truth of her origin and destination.

Nowadays, it is may not exactly serve the truth to say that seven out of ten believers may not really know what the church is, and why the Lord formed her in the first place. This is enough proof that there is a necessity to re-instruct the true believers of the true meaning of the church. Since the majority has lost the real meaning of what it means to be counted as a living church that is in conformity to the standard truth of the New Testament.

The necessity of discovering the truth of the invisible, heavenly, and the universal church of Christ cannot be overemphasized. This may be difficult to some extent to digest as one of the fruits of the pandemic crisis. As the pandemic crisis of today has introduced a twist so humbling and climatic on the church worldwide. Therefore there is a need for stock-taking of what has gone wrong among the churches that have brought us down to this level, and the believers worldwide.

In line with that many local churches have started to question their core beliefs, practice, and activities according to the standard of God’s word. With the aim of destroying every root of superiority, individualistic, and standalone concept that men have put up to separate brethren. The scale is finally coming down on the existence of the man-made doctrines that call for the doctrinal separation of believers along doctrinal lines and all such that denies the headship of Christ.

If that should be the case then the Galatian church that practiced circumcision should not be a church in any sense. Also, the Corinthian church with her many tongue talkers, divisions, heresies should be denied fellowship with other churches. And the Thessalonian church that was caught in the web of a wrong doctrine concerning the second coming of Christ should be taken off the list. Then perhaps Apostle John should not have fellowship with Diotrephes mentioned in the Third Epistle of John.

In accordance with that, believers are realizing that it is time to do away with the church's cultural habits and traditions that oppose changes in our churches in line with the truth. The majority of believers are beginning to take a second look at the doctrines they have been taught by the church about what a church really stands for. Resulting in so many turning to the study of theology in the desire to improve on what they have received.

However, the study of theology is a good starting point in the training of believers to search the scriptures, while questioning every doctrine offered by the church. In the long run, it patterned to enables believers to grow spiritually to the end of arriving at a workable theological conclusion in all matters of concerns.

The study of theology also fashioned to help believers stay alert and thoughtful about every teaching they hear. It enables the church to proclaim the old truths afresh and new in every generation. In no other area is this imperative than in the doctrine of the church called ecclesiology.

Ecclesiology means the study of the church. Ekklesia is the proper Greek word that means church in English. The Greek word "Ekklesia" means the gathering of the called out, or assembly of called-out ones. Hence the church, the Ekklesia, is the gathering of all people who God has called out of the world.

Today people have many strange ideas, concepts of what the church is, and what it should be. The question then is what is the Church according to the Bible? Is the church a building where believers meet? Or the church meets in a building? Is the church an organization? Or a living organism? These are some of the questions we shall answer in the sermon.

For the church is the place where God calls out, collects, and joins those people together in a proper and harmonious way for his purpose and good pleasure. The church is not a physical building; it is a people called out by God. Besides she is a living organism that has life, growing up to reach the statue of the fullness of Christ. But the Church can only grow when believers are connected or joined with the Head, Christ Jesus, and one another.

Besides, the church is involved in a continuous process of transformation in conformity with true changes to reach the full nature of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Therefore, the visible church does not enjoy the immutable nature of God as the invisible church since changes are going on simultaneously in her as time passes.