The Christian Life

  Lesson 4.

The Church

Now that I am child of God – a Christian – a member of Christ’s church, I have a great concern and interest in the church that Jesus built. The Bible says:

Read:  Ephesians 5:25-27

As a Christian following Christ, I love what He loved, and Christ loved the church so much that He died for it. The church is important to me because it meant so much to Jesus. I am a part of the church-a member – “For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office: so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another” (Romans 12:4-5) As a member of the church, I am much concerned with the church.

Read:  Ephesians 1:22-23

As a child of God, I need to understand that Christ has all power over the church, because He is its head. I need to know how and when the church started, and just what the church is, so that I can serve my Lord in the church.

The church began in the city of Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost in the year that Jesus arose from the dead and went back to heaven. In Acts 2, I read how the apostles of Christ waited on Pentecost in Jerusalem, as Jesus had told them to do, until they received Jesus the power from on high (Luke 24:49). The apostle Peter, along with the eleven, preached to people, telling them of Jesus crucified, buried, and resurrected from the dead.

Read:  Acts 2:23, 33, 36

Some who heard Peter preach were convicted of sin and asked the apostles, “Brethern, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). Peter replied: “Repent ye, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

Read:  Acts 2:41, 47

This is the beginning of the church of Christ in Jerusalem, on the Pentecost Day following the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

The church of Christ is not like those large religious denominations that are in the world today. These religious bodies came along after the church of Christ began. In the church of Christ, there are no great, powerful religious leaders like present day bishops and cardinals who rule over the people in the churches, but each member of the church stands on a equal place with other members of the church.

Read:  Matt 23:8-11

As the local congregations-churches of Christ-grew, God saw fit to place some men in the churches to take the oversight, who were called elders, or bishops (Acts 20:28). Paul the apostle, in the New Testament, tells us what kind of men they were and are to be. As he writes to the preacher Timothy in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and the preacher Titus in Titus 1:5-9; these men are not to be lords over the other people in the church, but they are mature men in faith of Christ, who guide by their example; by the way they live and talk.

Read:  1 Peter 5:1-4

To assist these men in their work, a group of men (more than one) called deacons were to be recognized in each congregation. The kind of men these deacons were, and are, is found in 1 Timothy 3:3-8. The word deacon means servant and deacons are to be the servants of the church. The deacons work and serve; they do not exercise power over the other members of the church of Christ.

Nothing in the New Testament shows, even hints that any congregation or any men had any power or control over local churches or other members. Each local church was complete in itself under the oversight of its own elders and served by its own deacons.

In the church of Christ, the preachers were not the pastors of the Church; they did not rule the church as lords either. Their work was to preach the Gospel and teach the people the Word of Christ, because that Word of Christ is the authority in all things in the church of Christ. Preachers – evangelists – guide and direct churches, as well as elders and deacons, by preaching and teaching the Word of Christ, but preachers are not lords.

Read:   2 Timothy 4:2

As a child of God- a Christian- a member of the church, I love the church because I am in the church and it is Christ’s body, and I love the church because I want to love what Christ loved, and He loved the church so He “gave himself up for it.” (Ephesians 5:25).

Read:  Matt 20:25-26

I am a child of God, and I have the privilege of serving God, Christ and the church. Let me pray that God will make me a great servant.