The Church - Called to Proclaim the Gospel

(Arvind Balaraman - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

 Central to the church being the church is the proclamation of the Gospel.  Since the post-Resurrection church didn't truly begin until the Book of Acts, we can look from Acts through Revelation and see that in the writings of all the New Testament authors, the preaching of the Good News is central to what it means to be the church.  Consider these references from Paul's writings to Timothy and Titus:

"Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching."  
1 Timothy 4:13

"In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction."

2 Timothy 4:1-2

"You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine."
- Titus 2:1

This is just a little taste of all that the New Testament has to say about proclaiming the Word, and in particular, the Gospel of Christ.  From Acts (2:14-36) on, the church is called to tell people about the lostness of humanity and the grace of God in light of our need.  We can thus conclude a bold but biblical truth: any church that claims to be a church but does not preach the Gospel is indeed not a biblical church at all.

- tC

The Church, The Body

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"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many."

- 1 Corinthians 12:12-14

One of the images Paul uses to describe the Church is the Body of Christ.  The passage above tells us that the Body (read: the Church) has many parts, but they are all linked together.  Thus here and in other places, Paul teaches us that the Church is called to live as a body, a body where each part serves a purpose connected to the greater good.  He goes so far as saying that the gifts each person in the Body is given are granted in order to bless others in the Church.

A simple conclusion: when a person decides to stay home and not gather with the Church on a Sunday morning for corporate worship, he or she may be the key element needed in the Body that day.  Just as opening a door requires many parts of the body but mainly it requires the hand, what if on that one day I chose not to gather with the Church I was needed, my gifts were needed, what I brought to the table was needed?  Suddenly, the Church is not just about me "getting something" out of Sunday morning, but instead it is about playing my part in the grand symphony that God is conducting.

- tC

The Church is called to Make Disciples.

One of the most well-known passages from the Gospel of Matthew is the closing (Matthew 28) where Jesus tells His hearers to go and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them.  At the core, one might argue that while there are many key things that the church does or many key elements of what it means to be the church, but I think it's safe to say that this is one of the main purposes of the church. 

If the church is called to make disciples, then the next logical question is, "What's a disciple?"  It's funny because most people could not clearly and concisely describe what a disciple is.  We often, I believe, assume that someone who is religiously active is a disciple but that is clearly not the case if you look at Matthew 23.  There Jesus challenges the religious leaders and confronts them on the way they are missing the cores of knowing and loving God.  Church attendance, praying pious-sounding prayers, giving a great deal of money - these MAY be signs of a disciple, but they are not the core facts about a disciple. 

Often the word “discipleship” is used to describe a broad spectrum and can be a term we use to describe the total scope of moving people toward being a fully-committed follower of Christ.  BUT the weakness of this approach is that we can then say that EVERYONE is in a place of discipleship, even if they are not interested in God at all (we could argue that God’s working despite that person’s hardened heart – Romans 1 – they know of God but reject Him).

To deal with this issue, I looked into the word “disciple” in the Bible – How does the Word of God describe what a disciple is?

- 2 references in the Old Testament (Isaiah has both)

- 294 references to a disciple in the New Testament (use of the word or references directly to people we would call disciples i.e. subtitles that use the word in the NIV)Of these examples, the Bible uses them to describe some of the early followers of Christ (and  those who seemed to just come and listen to Jesus) early on in the Gospels

- However, we should note that very quickly, the term disciple is used to describe those who are fully-committed to following Jesus. 

Their lives are exemplified by the following 4 attributes:
                                                * consistently following Jesus
                                                * commitment to learning from Jesus
                                                * commitment to being like Jesus (in character)
                                                * doing as Jesus did

So we conclude that there is something unique about a disciple – it’s not just a person who wants to come to church and be nice; it’s not a person who wants to meet with a mentor to just hang out.  At the core, a disciple is someone who has found the Pearl of Great Price and has sold EVERYTHING to have it.  A disciple might be best described using 1 John 2:6 – “Those who claim to be in Him must walk as He walked.”