In America, there are roughly 300,000 churches. That should be a great thing for any Christian to hear. If there are so many churches within our nation why is America in such turmoil and having such moral issues? The answer is not all churches are biblical churches. With so many people gathering in buildings or streaming online to places that have the name of a church, as well as some that do not apply the name church, the biblical definition of what a church really is has not been discussed in a long time throughout America. Some people may say, “If it has a lot of people there it must be God”. Adolf Hitler had a massive gathering under him, was he led by God? No! He was actually led by an anti-Christ spirit (1 John 4:3; 1 John 2:18). Knowing a place has a title or name does not indicate that is what the place really is. More than a person’s opinion, let’s look at what the Bible has to say about church descriptions. The first description of a church is more than a building. The church is the consecrated, holy people who assemble together to worship God but do so in a holy place to honor God in His house (Hebrews 10:25; John 17:14-16). The second description of a biblical church is found within the missions of the church. The missions for every church should be preaching and teaching, discipleship, fellowship, worship, maturing the believer, and missions and evangelism. A biblical pastor is ordained to lead God’s people in the missions God establishes for the church (Acts 14:23; Acts 20:28; Ephesians 4:11-12). Part of the pastor’s job is to feed, encourage, and rebuke the people with the Word of God through preaching and teaching (2 Timothy 4:2-4). Another part of the pastor’s job in a biblical church is discipleship (Matthew 28:20; 2 Timothy 2:2). Part of discipleship is the hands-on application of what is learned personally from the pastor. Not having access to the pastor is the opposite of discipleship. Listening to sermons from the pulpit is not discipleship. Jesus spoke to the multitude but only had a few true disciples (Matthew 13:10, Matthew 24:3, Mark 4:34, Mark 7:17, Mark 10:10). Fellowship as a mission of the church is not eating on multiple occasions, but creating and reconfirming relationships as a church family by sharing testimonies (Acts 4:33; Acts 14:27-28), having meals together (Acts 2:42,46), and by spending time with one another (Acts 2:47; Hebrews 10:24-25). The worship mission of a biblical church is not having a good band that plays music but worship abounds in everything that is conducted within the church. If God is not worshipped in His own house what is the point of the church? God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth with a heart close to God (John 4:23-24; Matthew 15:7-9; Psalm 138:1-2; Psalm 95:6-7; Psalm 89:7). The next mission of the church is maturing the believer. This may be one area that is creating such a divide among the churches other than preaching and discipleship. Pastors are called to mature the believers (Ephesians 4:11-12) but some do not attempt this for fear of people leaving and taking their money with them. Even when a person gets born again (John 3:3) they still need maturing to leave the sinful nature behind them (Galatians 3:1-3; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Revelation 3:2-3). May there be an increase in biblical churches within our nation and fewer churches compromising to carnality or fleshly desires. For more information about Abundant Grace Church visit agcsparta.org.
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AuthorCaleb Andrews Archives
September 2024
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