What Does the Bible Say About Church?

There are a lot of different churches in the world; so many that the word "church" means just about anything in our language. But when Jesus said He was going to build a church (Matt 16:18-20), He did not mean the confusion that is called denominationalism, or the "Do As You Please" religion of today. Instead, He sought to establish a church that would be His own people, called to be Saints (Rom 1:7), and would be the Kingdom of God (I Tim 6:13-16). Jesus told Pilate that he was here to "bear witness" (DIE) to establish His Kingdom (John 18:37). The Kingdom Jesus built when He arose from the grave (Matt 28:18) and when His apostles opened the doors of it (Acts 2) is here on earth today in the form of His church (Col 1:12-13) . It is also more figuratively called Mount Zion, the City of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22-23) and the Bride of Christ (Eph 5:31, Rev 21:9-10)

The word Church means "a called out body" in Greek, the language the Bible was written in. The church is the Body of Christ (Eph 5:30-32), so we who are In Christ (Gal 3:27) are now the Body of Christ (I Cor 12:27), hence this is why we are called the Church of Christ (Rom 16:16)

The Church was not designed as entertainment or a social club, but, purchased with Christ's blood, it is meant to serve God. When David ordered his son Solomon to build God's Temple in the Old Testament, he reminded him that the Temple is for God, not for man (I Chron 29:1). Too often today church's pattern themselves around pleasing men, not God.

The Church has four duties to perform: Worship of God, Edification of the Saints, Benevolence of the Saints, and Evangelism of the Lost (Eph 4:12). These last three are typically described as the work of the Church. The Church was not designed to be any more than this or less than this. Therefore, we support no human institutions that attempt to do the work of the church; we also do not build any associations outside of the local congregation. The Church Jesus built 2000 years ago (Matt 16:16) is still capable of doing everything God intended to accomplish.

The only source of authority for the Church that Jesus Built is in the Bible that God gave us. II Tim 3:16-17 tells us that the Bible contains everything we need to be right with God. Rev 22:18-19 tells us that adding to or taking away from God's Word is error. God's revelation was finished with the Bible (Jude 3), and nothing new is from God. It is the New Testament that has the authority for today; the Old Testament was "nailed to the cross" (Col 2:14).