If we are going to have a view of the world that is Scriptural and in line with what God thinks of it, we must understand His church. He invented and created the church, Christ is the head of His own body, He has formed us the way He wanted to form us. It is God’s design and God’s will that the local body of Christians functions underneath His headship, so we have to see what the church does. We have already looked at what the church is and who it is. We have looked at its outreach in the way of evangelism as we have this crooked and perverse generation around us. In other words, the world is enveloped in sin and corruption and as we have looked at that, we see that the church is to reach out and be that lighthouse that calls people to Jesus Christ to tell them about the great gospel of the Lord.
What does a church do when it gathers?
I think the church makes a mistake in thinking that we come together to evangelize people as they come in the doors. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give the gospel. In our church we often do give the gospel. In most services, at least a piece of the gospel is presented, sometimes a more detailed gospel is shared. The primary purpose of the church coming together as a body of Christ is not evangelism. That is to be done out in the world where people need Christ.
The primary purpose of the church is to edify the believers. We see how that functions very early in the very first church in Acts 2:42. I have gone through some of this recently with you already, but it is really good to review this great verse of Scripture. Acts 2:42 says, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” About three thousand people were saved in Acts 2:41, and we find the church coming together for specific reasons and purposes to help build up the body of Christ.
First, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings. That means the apostles were now teaching not only the Old Testament Scriptures, but they were also teaching the teachings of Jesus where they were sharing the teachings Jesus taught them when He was on earth. Some of these teachings we find in the gospels and others we do not. The apostles were also teaching what was being revealed to them through the Holy Spirit. So, these divine revelations that God gave His apostles is what the early church focused on. They were being taught the apostles teachings so that they might be the kind of people that God wanted them to be . . .
