Purpose of the church (7)

'Biblically speaking, the church will not be built up by programs and methods, but by the servanthood of believers', I wrote in part 6 of this series.

Interesting, isn't it, to read the words in Ephesians 4:11-13 slowly and compare them with the way we do church today. So far we have seen:

• that Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers (Amen, let's not add or distract anything and acknowledge and appreciate all of them.)
• to equip his people (we are not supposed to stay ignorant or dumb, we should grow and be trained.)
• for works of service (not for what we want to do, but for the works He has prepared for us to do.)
• so that the body of Christ may be built up (now, that is the way to do it).

The Body of Christ, that is: the believers, the church (local and universal), is being built up (grows) when the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers train the believers to serve God. But that is not all there is to it ... Let's continue to read:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God

Ah, there is a higher purpose than just gathering knowledge and being of service. We must stop fighting each other and eventually form a unity! In the Today's English Version it is written: And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God. I should have known, we do not play church simply because we have been doing so for ages, no ... the goal is that we will form a unity and get to know the Son of God well!

The longer I think about the words in Ephesians 4-11-13, the clearer it becomes. The purpose of the church is simple, namely that everyone gets to know Jesus well! Equipping leads to service leads to spiritual growth leads to the knowledge of Jesus which leads to unity .... regardless of our background, upbringing, education or religious denomination.