His Church
'This is the church and here is its steeple, open the doors and here are the people.' Those were the words to a little hand game I was taught as a preschooler in Sunday school. Clever and fun as it was, it shows that from an early age I was being taught wrong about the Church. Church seemed designed to torture me. First there were the clothes tight shoes, scratchy pants, stiff shirt collar, choking tie and the stern admonition to not play in my church clothes. Then there were the constant 'sit stills' and shushing every time I wiggled or felt like talking. Windy prayers and droning sermons couldn't hold a candle to Bugs Bunny in terms of keeping my attention. I doubt I'm alone when I say that going to church had about as much appeal as going to the dentist (and sometimes still does!).
What do you mean by 'church'?
What images, thoughts, and feelings come to your mind when you hear the word 'church'? I think it is one of the most misunderstood, misused, and abused Bible words. My dictionary says it primarily means 'an edifice [building] for Christian worship.' My New International Version of the Bible uses the English word church 114 times. The Greek word it is based on, ekklesia (ekk-lay-see-uh), is actually used 147 times. But whether in the original Greek or today’s English, never once does the Bible use the word in reference to a building!
- Acts 5:11 'Great fear seized the whole church,' buildings don’t experience fear.
- Acts 12:5 'So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.' Buildings don’t pray for people.
- 1 Cor. 11:18 Paul writes, 'When you come together as a church,' not to a church, but as a church. See verse 20 for what Paul means: coming together in one place. Church is not a'what' or a 'where' but a 'who' believers who have gathered together in one place.
- 1 Cor. 16:19 'Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house.' It wasn’t a building that met at Priscilla’s house, it was a gathering of believers.
Ekklesia/church means 'a gathering together, an assembly.' Never in the Bible does the word 'church' refer to a building. The word means a gathering of believers.
Often I encounter people who tell me that they go off by themselves in the woods and that’s their church. I can appreciate that. I tend to feel closer to God and more aware of his presence when I’m out in the midst of his creation rather than sitting in a building. But my God and I alone in the woods is not 'church'.
- Col. 1:24 ' Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.'
Here and elsewhere the Lord’s church is described as a body. Of that church/body we read, 'Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.' {Rom. 12:4-5} Nowhere does the Bible use 'church' to refer to an individual believer. One, the word refers to a gathering together, and by myself I am not an assembly. Two, the individual is not the body of Christ, but only a member, or part of the body. Just as my arm cannot be said to be my body, a single Christian cannot be said to be the church/body of Christ. Only when the many parts come together do we form a church, the body of Christ. We were designed to serve the Lord together, not lone wolf it.
Implications:
The Bible never uses church for a building or for an individual, it refers to a gathering of believers working together to serve the Lord. First Corinthians 12:13 says that when we were baptized, we were baptized into the body of Christ. Without the rest of the body, I’m incomplete. For the church/body to be healthy and whole, it needs the involvement and participation of every member. Involvement doesn't mean warm a seat. It means using our God given abilities and strengths to benefit each another. It means looking out for each other.
So when I get that feeling about going to church that I get about going to the dentist, what I'm actually saying is that I dread being with God’s gathered people. It's not the building that I’m putting down, but the people Christ died for, the people Christ has saved. Do I really want to send God the signal that being with and working with his blood bought people, the body of Christ, is unpleasant to me? I think that when we have a more biblical view of what the church is it puts the subject in a whole new light and motivates me to work on my attitude. Jesus didn’t die for a building. He didn’t die for just one person. He died to bring us all together on common ground our mutual need of a Savior and to serve others in his name.