Purpose of the church (8)

Thank you very much for reading this blog series about the purpose of the church and also for your valuable comments.

"The purpose of the church is simple, namely that everyone gets to know Jesus well" I wrote in my previous blog post. Simple maybe, but apparently not so easy to implement. In personal conversations I often discover that people can faithfully go to church for years and years and yet do not know Jesus personally. That is quite tragic and I really hope and pray that we will all experience a refreshing renewal and change in the way we do/are church.

Of course, we can not solely expect that from leadership (sometimes they have no clue either), we are in this together. Let us take a look again at the words in Ephesians 4: 11-13. This time, for the sake of clarity, I used the Good News translation and cut it into pieces because the sentences are very long:

• It was he [Jesus] who “gave gifts to people”; he appointed some to be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, others to be pastors and teachers.
• He did this to prepare all God's people for the work of Christian service
• in order to build up the body of Christ.
• And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God
• we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ's full stature.

Wow, we shall become mature people (a perfect man the NKJV says) attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. What a wonderful purpose. I want that! Even if I have to sit in a pew for a while :)

I suggest that we all compare the above list (the Word of God) with our church setting and customs and ask ourselves some critical questions: Is there a five fold leadership available in my church/congregation to prepare me to serve, so that the church/congregation can grow, and do we get to know Christ better? And finally .... am I on my way to maturity?

I sincerely hope that we will be church, with a purpose!

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.

Purpose of the church (6)

'The equipping must always lead to service', I wrote in my previous blog post. We are being equipped in order to serve God. That sounds pretty cool. Of course, deep down in our heart we all want to do something useful for God. But doing good works .... to what purpose? For sure we do not (and cannot) earn God's love.

Let's go back to our base text (Ephesians 4: 11-13) for this series about the purpose of the church:

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...

The NKJV says it like this:

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ...

So, we do not work in His service for ourselves and weird enough not for God either. He does not need anything from us. In Acts 17:25 we can read: And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. No, we do not serve God in order to become a better person in one way or another. We serve, so that the Church will be built up.

There are many churches and denominations complaining about a decline in growth. This often results in the implementation of all kinds of ideas to make the church services more attractive. But biblically speaking, the church will not be built up by programs and methods, but by the servanthood of believers.

We should not expand the number of seats in a church or congregation, but rather call the people in the seats to take action. Whether there are twenty or two hundred people present. We do not grow by gathering more knowledge (let's be honest, how many sermons can a person hear?) but by doing what we have learned.

Purpose of the church (4)

'The five are called together for a common task ...' I wrote in my previous blog entry. I was referring to the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers as mentioned in Ephesians 4: 11-13. People who are appointed or given by Jesus for a certain task.

For the sake of clarity, let's go back to that text again:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service (NIV translation). What is their job? Equiping believers for work in God's service. The Good News translation states: He did this to prepare all God's people for the work of Christian service...

That is quite a responsibility. Together (as a team) they must equip (prepare, get ready, arm) the believers to be of service to God. There is no one who can do this on his or her own. Nowadays I see shepherds (also called pastors, reverends, priests) struggle to do this all alone. It is, in my opinion, no wonder that many end up on the couch with a burn-out. Only Jesus himself was shepherd, as well as teacher (rabbi), apostle, evangelist and prophet!

It has never been His intention to put all those qualities in one person! He desires cooperation in a team so that we can keep each other accountable and no one will get the chance to rise above the other. There is no hierarchy in these five functions / tasks. If such a thing exists, we must base it on 1 Corinthians 12:28 where it says: And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers...The shepherd and evangelist are not even mentioned here.

I truly believe we are missing something in our spiritual growth and development if we are being equipped by just one (perhaps two) of these people. Suppose you only listen to a teacher (preacher) and never learn from an apostle what it is like to be sent out and travel and plant churches. You could just end up sitting in a pew for thirty years (with a lot of knowledge, yes) without ever going into the world ....

Now, that is unthinkable, right ...?

Purpose of the church (3)

In my previous blog post I quoted the basic scripture I will use for this series, in three different translations. Ephesians 4: 11-13 gives us an idea about the purpose of the church, don't you think?

Of course these verses are part of a chapter and that chapter is part of a Bible book, in this case a letter the apostle Paul wrote to the faithful believers in Ephesus in the 1st century AD. Ephesus was at that time the capital of the Roman province of Asia, in western Turkey.

Let's take a closer look at what the Bible says here ...

And He Himself [Jesus] gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers...

That sentence in itself gives quite some interesting food for thought and discussion, but is also reason for much gratitude. Jesus gave (appointed or called) some people for a specific task. How wonderful, is my first thought, at least we do not have to invent or set up our own system. The GNT says 'It was he who “gave gifts to people”. The callings and functions are a gift, we cannot earn or get them any other way, we can only receive in obedience.

Some theologians and religious denominations claim that apostles and prophets are no longer given today, that they were only given for a season to start the church two thousand years ago. They believe that only evangelists, shepherds (pastors) and teachers are still being appointed ... To me that seems a random selection with a devastating consequence: by deleting some of the people (functions, gifts, callings) Jesus gave to build up the church we  have elevated others, often to isolated positions.

No one is surprised if someone presents himself as 'the pastor of such and such congregation' or 'the minister of such and such church'. But if someone, for example, claims to be 'the prophet of such and such congregation' he will get the stamp 'strange' or 'sectarian' or 'false'. Now, how in the world did this happen? I invite you to think with me. Biblically speaking it is simply not correct!

Because.... the five are called together for a common task!

Give me an A

In my Bible alphabet blog series A stands for Apostle.

It is a word that only appears in the New Testament. Jesus intro-duced the term when He appointed (or ordained) several of his disciples as apostles.

In Mark 3:14-15 we can read what was expected of them:

He appointed twelve[a] that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.

[a] Some manuscripts twelve—designating them apostles—

Disciples of the Lord Jesus that were appointed as apostles had a clear calling and function:

• they had to be with (close to) Him
• they had to be ready to be sent out
• they had to preach
• they had to use their authority

Were there more than the twelve apostles Jesus appointed? Yes! Paul, for example, was probably the most famous one after that time. Do apostles still exist? Yes! They are still being appointed today for the benefit of His church world wide. Ephesians 4:11-12 says it like this: 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...

The five functions as mentioned above are given by Jesus for the building up of the church (the body of Christ on earth). Most churches today still recognize and have evangelists, pastors and teachers, but to a much lesser extent apostles and prophets. That is weird if you think about it, because they are needed to equip (new) believers for work in service of God!

Christ gave them to us until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13). Well, I am sorry to say, but we are not there yet. So we must ask the Holy Spirit to continue to appoint apostles for the benefit of the church.

If you have a clear calling on your life (a desire, a passion, an inner conviction) to be with (close to) Jesus, to go out and preach (in your street or the other side of the world) and to use your God given authority, then that is a calling from Jesus Himself. Don't let ANYONE stop you to answer that call!