This 13-part series of classes has been many years in the making. About 25 years ago I began in earnest to examine the features, character and characteristics of the church as it existed in its earliest years. As I sometimes do, I kept my notes all along the way, and this series of classes is to a large extent the product of those years of on-and-off studying the subject. Several things in my experience contributed to my interest in making this 25-year study which I will mention along the way, and those go much further back.
There may be some difficulty in using the individual parts of this series separately, although viewer are free to do so if it serves their purposes. But to those whose interest is in knowing what the church was like in its earliest years, I recommend starting with Part 1 - Introduction to the Church of the New Testament and proceeding through the parts consecutively.
I have prepared some slides that I used in presenting the series in a classroom setting before adapting it to use as sermons. I have left my cues to advance slides or activate animations in the notes as posted on Sermon Central. If anyone is interested in having the PowerPoint files with the slides, I will be happy to send them. Send me an Email at sam@srmccormick.net and specify what part(s) you are requesting. Be sure that the word “slide” appears in the subject line. It may take me several days to respond, but I will respond to all requests.
THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
OUTLINE OF THE STUDY
I. Introduction
II. The Origin of the Church
III. What is the church?
IV. The First Christians
V. Authority in the First Century Church
VI. Problems in the New Testament Church
VII. How the Church Functioned
A. Introduction to Functions
B. Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers
C. False Apostles, Prophets, and Teachers & Various Gifts and Functions
D. More Gifts and Functions
E. Evangelists, Preachers, and Ministers, Servants and Deacons
F. Pastors, Elders, Bishops, etc.
VIII. How the Church Worshiped
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III. What is the church?
*Slide - outline
Two weeks ago we gave a short overview of how “the church” morphed into something radically different from what the church was in its early days. It is evident that for most of the last 2000 years there were people who were well-meaning but misguided, but also powerful operatives within the church who had a very different agenda for the church than its builder, effectively highjacking the church and driving it far from its original design. Paul had warned the elders at Miletus that it would occur:
Act 20:29-30 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
Then through the work of numerous reformers the church migrated back to be closer to what the New Testament shows us, but with many variations littering the landscape. Last Sunday we talked about how the church came into being on the day of the Pentecost festival, or “day of first fruits,” to that waiting group of 120 disciples; and how the “first fruits of the gospel” were brought in—3000 that first day.
One of the things we observe about the church of the New Testament is that in every place we read of it, there was a church—not many—but a church. In one of the major cities such as Rome and Ephesus, there may have been a “church” meeting in someone’s house, another in someone else’s house, and so on, but it was considered “one church.” The reason there is a plurality of churches now is that we and they do different things, and do not agree on the things the church is intended to do.
Part of the problem with getting everyone on the same page about what the church ought to do is that there are various ideas about what the church is.
• To some, it’s a location; specifically a place to worship. (Yet Jesus told the Samaritan woman the time was coming soon when the idea of a correct location for worship would be obsolete.)
• Some say it is an organization; others insist that an organization is not a living thing as the church is, but something that is done to give orderliness to things, living or not; and that the church, itself being a living entity, is an organism.
• To some, it’s a charity, one that sits alongside and on equal footing with other charitable organizations. Indeed, the church has that characteristic.
• Some say it is first and foremost an evangelistic platform.
• Or it’s a social setting for people to meet and enjoy the company of others who have similar values and interests. And it is that, and more.
• Or an alternative for young people, providing options for avoiding unhealthy and dangerous pursuits.
• Some think of the church as a forum for advancing political agendas, or addressing societal issues.
• Or the church is to assuage guilt—we just feel that we ought to be in the church.
• A way to reduce or eliminate the fear of hell (though some would dissociate the avoidance of hell from the church).
• For some, being a part of the church is a way to combat loneliness.
• To some, the church is a power base for achieving a person’s or group’s ambition.
• A place to get away from sinful people.
*Advance slide to Vision
Here are some of your visions of the church in Montrose which we requested some months ago to help us in our search for a preacher who would participate in realizing your vision. Here’s what you told us:
• A vibrant, growing church that is making an impact in the community and in the world.
• A parking lot and halls and classrooms filled with children going to their Bible classes.
• Many families of all ages.
• Hugging going on.
• Pews full of people so that finding an empty spot is a challenge.
• People being added to the Lord’s church in baptism, perhaps 3 to 5 each month.
• The lost of this world falling in love with Jesus because His people have led them to a place where he can be found, felt, and followed.
• Praising God.
• Having fun.
• Live so people see Jesus in us.
• Support mission works.
• Be prepared and seize opportunities to study the Bible with others.
• Individual daily Bible study and prayer.
• Arm our children with Bible knowledge.
• Church to be a haven for its members.
• Be helpful to the community, and let them know how we can be helpful.
• Reaching out to the lost.
These all appear to me to be consistent with what I know of the church Jesus intended to build.
But do they define the church the Jesus said in Caesarea Philippi that he would build?
Since we are heirs to several attempts at partial or complete reformation and restoration, it is not easy to know with certainty that we have it all just right--that we are immune to any bias or errors of our own or inherited from those of the reformers who led us here.
A. Let’s see what Jesus’ own vision is.
The best way to discover what the church is, is to examine what the builder said about what he intended to build.
Jesus said was going to build his church.
Unless that statement is an unfulfilled wish, he built what he said he would.
Matt 16:15-19 - read
When Jesus told the disciples and others at Caesarea Philippi that he would build his church, he said four things about it:
*Advance slide to 4 things
1. Jesus’ church is built on a rock.
2. Jesus’ church is his ekkelsia – his “called out.”
3. The gates of hades will not prevail against Jesus’ church.
4. Jesus said he would give to someone he called “you” the keys of the kingdom of heaven. They were for binding and loosing something, both on earth and in heaven.
Let us consider them one by one.
1. It is built on a rock. If we are in the church, we are built on that rock.
What is the rock?
Let one thing be certain – in the scriptures, God is “the rock” in a way that no other is.
2 Sam 22:32 "For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?
Psalm 18:31 says exactly the same
There are plenty of ideas of who or what he rock is, upon which Jesus built the church. Some point to Eph 2:19-20 where Paul wrote...
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone
...suggesting that Jesus pointed to the apostles (and prophets, who were not present?) or even to himself as that rock on which the church would be built. In a sense that is all true.
1 Corinthians 3:11
For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Paul said a spiritual rock followed the Israrelites in the wilderness, and that rock was Christ.
A rock is used as a figure is several other ways in the scriptures. Abraham was called “the rock from which you were hewn,” with “you” being the family of Israel. The entire nation is figuratively quarried from the rock that is Abraham.
But is that the figure Jesus was using at Caesarea Philippi--the church was built on God, or upon Christ himself, or Abraham or the apostles and prophets, or someone else?
I doubt it.
I don’t think Jesus was talking at the time about the foundation of the church that Paul later referred to as the apostles and prophets, or any of the foregoing figurative references to a rock. I think there is an interpretation that fits better than any of these.
Jesus was talking to Peter. We do well in understanding scripture when we take notice of who is speaking and to whom the speaker is speaking.
Jesus said “You are Peter…” and “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
He would not have said those things to God, and prefaced it with “You are Peter.”
I believe the "rock" was Peter’s faith in who Jesus is.
We tend to run away from that idea because we don’t want to be associated with its misuse – the notion that Peter and his lineal descendants are, in turn, the head of the church on earth.
Peter was the first to comprehend and verbalize the truth that makes men free. Jesus said,
Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but the Father.
Peter saw a truth that no one before him had seen—that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. That made Peter the first stone in a building that would have many stones laid upon that first stone—all of them living stones.
It is what Jesus called the truth that “will make you free.” It is impossible to over-emphasize that truth, for it is the central truth of the Bible. Peter didn’t learn it from a man or woman. He learned it from God.
I believe Peter’s faith - the first of its kind - was the rock Jesus built the church on. There would be a second person to believe the same essential truth, and be a stone in the building, the second built upon the first. The third would build upon those stones. Then the fourth, and many more, until the whole building is built. Peter’s stone went in first by his confession. In time, Jesus commanded baptism, and Peter commanded it from the first preaching of the gospel and the beginning of the church on Pentecost.
Peter himself used the illustration in 1 Peter 2:4-8 of a house being built of lively, or living, stones, with Jesus himself (the stone the builders rejected) being the chief cornerstone.
2. The church is Jesus’ ekklesia, the “called out.”
Other uses of the word ekklesia in the New Testament:
In Acts 19, the narrative of the riot in Ephesus resulting from Paul’s damage to the idol-makers’ income, the unruly mob that was trying to tear Paul limb from limb is repeatedly called an ekklesia.
But the translated word “church” conveys a religious connection that is absent from the original word. It just meant “called out,” and could have meant people who were called together for any reason, even evil purposes.
What did Jesus mean by building his “called out?”
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
3. “The gates of hades will not prevail against it.”
The gates of a fortified city are for defense. The gates of a city don’t go forth and attack an enemy.
In ancient times the gate configuration in fortified cities wasn't just an entrance, or "door". it included rooms for conferring with visiting dignitaries or even potential enemies, and for hearing cases and rendering judgment.
However, a gate is also a door that can both allow and deny access, like the doors in this building. When it is locked, it denies access and is a barrier.
Samson in Gaza (deep in Philistine territory) went in to a harlot, which enraged the Gazites so that they waited for him at the city gates to kill him when he left in the morning. So Samson got up at midnight and pulled the city’s gates up out of the ground and carried them on his shoulders to the top of the mountain that is, it seems, near Hebron, 20 miles away). Then he carried them to the top of a mountain.
The translators of the King James Version of the bible made a distinction between hades and hell by using two different words – hades and gehenna. “Hades” is a transliteration of the Greek word hades which does not mean a place of eternal torment awaiting the wicked. It means the grave, or the state of being dead.
Jesus said gates of hades, or the “gates of the grave” will not prevail against his church. Does that seem a little odd? We don't normally think of gates as marching against and overcoming an enemy.
Jesus meant the “gates of hades” would not prevail as a containment barrier for those in the kingdom; that is, a barrier to keep anyone from escaping the grave. Since Adam there had been no escape from the grave. Satan’s stronghold is death, for that was his ultimate objective – no escape from the grave except by a key, and Jesus holds that key. Jesus won that key by rising victorious from the grave. Satan was defeated and can no longer hold prisoners in the realm of death. In Revelation said to John:
Rev 1:18 I was dead, and am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death, and hades. (dying, and the grave).
Listen to what Paul wrote to the Corinth church, first letter, chapter 15:
1 Cor 15:51-54 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."
He conquered death and the grave. The “gates of hades” did not prevail against Jesus. The grave did not hold him.
The “barrier” or closed door of the prison of death, cannot prevail against the kingdom of heaven, Jesus’ “called out.” His ekklesia cannot be held prisoner by the grave.
And that is what I believe Jesus meant by, “the gates of hades shall not prevail” against his “called out.”
*Advance slide to Keys
Jesus went on:
4. “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus said he would give the keys to “you.”
Did Jesus mean he was giving the keys to all the apostles, or every Christian?
It seems very clear that Jesus was still speaking to Peter about the church in response to Peter’s confession.
I have a hard time thinking that he was saying he would give the keys to all the apostles, or to me or to you (except possibly in the derivative sense that every Christian benefits from Jesus’ giving the keys to Peter. It seems plain that he was talking to Peter, in response to Peter’s confession that Jesus is the son of God.
What kingdom was he talking about?
I believe the church is the present-day manifestation of the kingdom on earth. I take that as generally accepted in this group and for our purposes in this study do not propose to prove it today.
Jesus was talking about that kingdom when he told Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” It was like nothing the world had ever seen, and cannot rightly be thought of in the way we think of earthly things.
The church Jesus built was described in prophecy as a kingdom:
Daniel 2:44 – “And in the days of those kings [specifically Rome] the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever…”
The kingdom parables:
Jesus foretold in parables and explained in detail what the kingdom would be like.
Why did Jesus use parables? He explains.
Mat 13:10-11 Then the disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
*Advance the next 5 slides during the following points
Matthew 13 –
• a grain of mustard seed,
• leaven,
• a treasure hidden in a field,
• a merchant in search of fine pearls,
• a net thrown into the sea,
• a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
Matthew 18 –
• Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
• Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 20 –
• a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard,
Matthew 25 -
• ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.
Luke 13 –
• It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.
Peter--or someone—was given the keys to the kingdom (the keys to the “called out” church, as the church is the manifestation of the kingdom. What does it mean that Peter was given those keys? What were they for?
The keys were to be used twice.
In Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost…
On the day of Pentecost, Peter unlocked the door of the kingdom, and 3,000 souls that had been locked up in the prison of sin and death up to that day, entered the kingdom. Many others followed through the open door, including ourselves. He unlocked the door by preaching the gospel of salvation - the truth that makes you free.
…and in Caesarea at the house of a Roman centurion, Cornelius.
At least 8 years later, Peter used the keys of the kingdom a second and final time. Only Jews had been converted to Christ, but it was God’s plan from the beginning, as was his promise to Abraham many years ago, the in Abraham’s seed—Jesus—all nations were to be blessed.
By giving Peter the keys to the kingdom, Jesus did not mean that he was putting the power to absolve sins in Peter’s hands, or Peter and his successors and their chosen assistants. If I am correct in that statement, the entire papal system (pope, bishops, cardinals, and the formal priesthood) collapses in ruins.
Nor was Jesus saying that Peter would stand at the pearly gates with a list of good and bad deeds and decide who gains entrance into the realms of eternal glory. (Saint Peter at the pearly gates).
What Peter, presumably by the use of those keys, bound and loosed on earth would also be “bound in heaven,” and “loosed in heaven.”
I have heard the argument that this applies not just to Peter but to every Christian--that when we make a request in prayer, that prayer becomes binding upon heaven, and that heaven, i.e., God, is under the obligation to grant all requests made in Jesus name because of the words Jesus spoke later in Jerusalem in his last conversation with the disciples:
John 14:14 "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
Thus, the argument went, no request in Jesus’ name will ever be denied from heaven, and if the request fails to be granted, the fault is ours, not God’s, because we ask with too little faith.
But that idea is too much of a stretch to be seriously considered. We know that God didn’t grant Paul’s fervent and repeated prayer that the thorn in his flesh be removed, because it had a good purpose. What if we asked, as David sometimes did in the Psalms, for harm to come to others? Clearly, God does not subordinate himself to foolish and misguided human requests.
What did Jesus mean would be bound and loosed?
My answer: The effect of the preaching of the gospel, done the very first time by Peter, reaches heaven with as much impact as on earth, and more.
Hebrews 12:25-29 tells us that we have come to “the church of the firstborn, who are “enrolled in heaven.”
In the time of the New Testament writings and for a long time before, the firstborn child possessed definite privileges which were denied to other members of the family. The oldest son's share was twice as large as that of any other son.
Earlier today we talked about the 3,000 baptized on the day of Pentecost as being the “first fruits of the gospel.”
But those first fruits were just the beginning. They were to be followed by many others, and the “firstborn” of whom the Hebrew letter speaks are not those only among those Jews who first received the gospel and trusted in Christ; but also the entire elect of God, who are equally the sons of God, and born of him, equally loved by Christ, and equally united to him.
The church to which we have come is the church of the firstborn. Its citizens have the highest privileges and honors that are accorded to humans, and shall enjoy the same inheritance—everlasting life.
We are all firstborn, and are so called as the sons of God, and joint heirs with Christ our brother.
We are said to be "written in heaven." Our names are in “the Lamb's book of life.” John wrote of heaven that
“nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.” (Rev 21:27)
Jesus told Nicodemas that it was only those who were so born who would enter the kingdom.
We who are born again are firstborn. Our names are written in heaven.
Peter loosed the flood of redeemed souls into the portals of the kingdom, and ultimately into heaven by being the first to reveal the fully completed gospel, first to the Jews in Jerusalem, and later to gentiles in Caesarea.
In both events, Peter was breaking new ground.
*Advance slide to descriptions and metaphors
There are other biblical descriptions and metaphors (get through these quickly-the point is they are compatible and concomittant.
• The church Matt 16:16-18 and many more
• The “way” may have been the earliest way the disciples referred to the church, as it was used when Paul was persecuting those very first Christians.
• The body of Christ 1 Cor 12:17; Eph 1:22-23; Col 1:24
• Bride of Christ Eph 5:25-30
• Household (or family) of God 1 Tim 3:15
• Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem Heb 12:22-23
• General Assembly Heb 12:22-23
• The church of the firstborn Heb 12:22-23
• The church of Christ Rom 16:16
• The kingdom that cannot be shaken, Heb 12:?
• A royal priesthood 1 Pet 2:9
• Others…
That is what the church is. All these figures and descriptions are compatible with one another. The church can be, and is, described and thought of in many harmonious ways, and none of its biblical descriptions contain the slightest distortion of what the church is. It is what Jesus created. Whether it is described as a bride, a body, a city, or a kingdom, or saying it’s like ten virgins who went out to meet the bridegroom doesn’t contradict or negate what it is. Jesus showed in very simple illustrations that there are simply a variety of ways of looking at it.
If we depart from the biblical descriptions in an incompatible way, we lose sight of the church Jesus built, and see something different than its builder intended.
The church is nothing more or less than Christians; but to Christians, Oh! What a difference!
If you are a Christian, you are the church, just as surely as my hand is me. The church is not an entity separate and distinguishable from “Christians,” or “saints,” into which people may come.
The church is those Christians, and we Christians are the church.
General Observations about the Church:
• A church is no more or less a church if it is large or small. A large ekklesia is not a superior “large called out,” with a “small called out” being inferior, or failing to qualify as an ekklesia at all.
• Churches were sometimes in people’s houses: Rom 16:5, 1 Cor 16:19, Col 4:15, Philemon 1:2. These were “house churches.”
• Though churches are spoken of as plural, Jesus said, “I will build my church (singular)” and is said by Paul to be the head of the body, the church (Eph 5:23, Col 1:18,24).
Jesus built one church, but it’s local manifestations are spoken of as being churches.
• Paul wrote about the church as global Eph 3:10,21,25,27,29.32)
• Churches were sometimes addressed by city – Thessalonians 1 Thess 1:1, 2 Thess 1:1; Corinth 1 Cor 1:2, 2 Cor 1:1)
• The church is referred to regionally: “The church” throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed peace. Acts 9:31
B. What are we to make of this?
The church is the same in all the ways it is referred to. A local church, or a member of it, does not decide whether to become a member of the city, regional, or universal church. A member of one is a member of all. If you visit a church in Nashville, or Phoenix, or Birmingham, or in India, you are a member of the same church there that you are at home, and you are among other members of the same church.
