Video transcript below. Transcript was transcribed using AI software please excuse any grammar or typographical errors.
Welcome back to the basic Bible concepts. This is the last video on the church. And, first let me say, this is a huge subject. I’m going to try my very best to tackle this with God’s guidance and his wisdom and his power. The whole point of this video is like the other basic concepts videos, is to give you an overview of the basic knowledge that you need in order to grow as a Christian and establish a foundation as a born again believer in Christ for having a completely satisfied life and also for carrying out the great commission and your divine purpose before God. This will be a very scratch the surface overview because the idea of the church is such a big subject and there’s so many aspects of it that we could talk about.
So let’s just kind of tackle some of the basics. I apologize ahead of time, if this seems very discombobulated. I’ve tried to organize it as best I can for a 15 or 20 minute video. So let’s first start with what does the word church mean? Well, we know that in our world culture, first of all, it can mean a lot of different things. It can mean a building, a denomination, a worship event, any religious activity. But because the church is so critical to not only Christian growth, but also the perpetuation of the gospel, and the preservation of the truth, and it’s so important to Jesus, let’s get it right.
We’re going back to what we learned in the first concept, which is this foundation of truth. We go back to the truth, to discover what is the truth about a particular idea or concept. And that is also true with a church. How is a church defined? Well, the word church in Greek means ecclesia and it’s used 117 times in the New Testament. So obviously, it’s important. In three times it just means assembly, which is just an assembly in the city of Ephesus. This is in Acts 19. The other 114 times it refers to a specific assembly, or assemblies of believers in a particular place.There are also a few references to the children of Israel in the wilderness. But we’re not going to focus on that, obviously. So I want to give you a couple of examples.
Acts 8:1 says, at that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the region. So clearly we’re talking about the original church that Jesus established, which was at Jerusalem. In Galatians chapter one, verse two, it says, to the churches of Galatia. So if you look at all the letters to the churches, including the ones in Revelations, you’ll see that there are specific identifying bodies of Christ, okay? It’s not some universal church. And oh, by the way, this is not going to be a major discussion on the difference between universal church and the local church. This video is not for that purpose. Maybe a different video. We’ll do that.
So first of all, why is this important? Okay, why do we care? Well, I think the main reason to care is that Jesus started the church. This was important to him. So it should be important to us. Matthew 16:18-19, Jesus said, and I say unto you, this is Jesus talking to Peter, thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever, thou loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. You know, Jesus is talking about, that it is his church. He says, I’ll build my church. And he’s building it upon the foundation of himself. A lot of people have interpreted this to mean that Peter was the rock. But if you read carefully, you’ll see first of all, that would conflict with First Corinthians 3:11 where the Bible says, for no other foundation can anyone lay that than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. So we know that the foundation is Jesus Christ. We also know, if you look at the meaning behind this rock, Peter is referred to as a little pebble. Jesus is the main rock. So I’m not going to go into all that doctrine, but I just want to make it clear that Jesus is saying, look, this is my church. It’s established on me, and it belongs to me, and it will never be destroyed. That’s a pretty important institution. That’s not something you would take lightly. Matter of fact I would challenge you to think about any other institution that you know of that can claim that it will never be destroyed. And it’s really interesting that there’s a cultural shift to take the church less seriously than we ought to. And of course, we know that the enemies, and we talked about spiritual warfare in an earlier video, we know that’s what the enemy wants. The enemy wants us to discount the importance of the church. And Jesus said, look, this is my church. It’s built on me. And, Satan will never take it. It will always be around. It will be the thing that stands.
We’re going to talk about what the purpose is, right? So, Jesus didn’t create this church just for it to be and say, oh, here’s the church, but there’s a glorious purpose he’s given. And part of what we’re going to move into is some of the general characteristics. So what does the Bible say a person must do or be in order to be part of this very special organization that Jesus calls his church?
So first of all, and we know from Acts 2:41, which the Book of Acts is a really great book to read if you really want to learn about the foundational church. But it says in Acts 2:41, those who gladly received his word were baptized. And that day, about 3,000 souls were added to them. So we know enough from reading in the New Testament that a person becomes a member or should become members, should be people who are born again, and then they’re baptized, right? And they’re received into the local congregation.
I’ll mention this too. You know, with regard to the idea of local congregation versus universal church, there are a lot of scriptures that talk about, we know that the church that Jesus was referring to is a church in Jerusalem, right? That was the original church. And then in Acts especially, and even in Second Corinthians, we see other churches being referred to because the church in Jerusalem, under the Great Commission was basically told to go ye therefore, the 12 apostles or the 11 apostles at that point, were told to go therefore and make disciples, right? And, Jesus commissioned them to basically multiply his churches. And we see that happening in Acts 9:31. It says, the churches had rest and multiplied, that’s a clue, right? Acts 15:41, Paul and Silas went through confirming the churches Act 16:5 churches were established in the faith and increased, Second Corinthians 11:28. Paul had a care for all the churches. So we see this principle of the great commission being carried out from Jerusalem and then multiplying.
And again, this is not a video on the history of the churches. There’s some great books on the history of the churches. You can Google that on my website. We refer to several of those. So obviously in order to be part of this very special organization that Jesus created, there’s some prerequisites. Not anybody can just walk in and be a member. And you know, that really makes sense when you think about it. If you have an army unit, I always talk about the military. Because I’ve been affiliated with the military for so long with my community, my son. And, you know, no, a person can’t just walk off the street and say, I’m going to be part of this spec op unit that’s going to go into, you know, into the Middle East. No, you have to go and sign your name and commit, and you have to go through training and special schools, right? So we talked about in the last video, we are engaged in spiritual warfare, right? And so we need to understand that church membership is not something to be taken lightly. It’s not just some, oh, maybe I’ll show up, maybe I won’t. No, you’re either in or you’re not. And that commitment, the church needs to safeguard that unit. I always hear people say, oh, churches are a country club for Christians or it’s a hospital for the broken. Well, yeah, we have a hospital wing in the church for sure, just like the army has a hospital wing, but the church’s purpose is far greater than to be a hospital for sick people.
We are in a spiritual warfare, and I’m not going to get into that last video, But we are in a warfare. And if all we were was a hospital then why would Jesus say the gates of hell will not prevail against it? Well, clearly he’s reminding us, there’s spiritual warfare which we talked about in one of the last videos. So the members need to be qualified. They need to be baptized, they need to be, first, they need to be believers, right? They need to be born again, and then they need to be baptized, which signifies their, the baptism signifies their identification with Jesus Christ, right?
And then we need to, the church needs to follow the doctrine of the gospel. There’s some very harsh warnings for people, for churches that do not carry out the gospel. And the bible says in Galatians 1:8 but if even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you, then what we have preached to you, let him be accursed, that’s really a big deal. So not only is there this idea of a committed membership, there’s also sticking to the truth, and the truth is in God’s word, and it means everything you say and do must line up with God’s word.
And then there’s also another really important characteristic that the Bible emphasizes. And this is in Revelations 2:2-5 Because a church can have lots of doctrine, but not have this very important quality that is critical for a church to have a lively ministry. And I’m going to read this first, and you can read these verses and you can tell me if you think what it is, if you could think what it is when I’m reading it. The Bible says, I know your works. And this is directed to the church, your labor, your patience, that you cannot bear those who are evil.You have tested those who say they’re apostles and are not, and have found them to be liars. That you have persevered and have patience, and have labored from my name’s sake,and have not become weary. This is Jesus talking to the church. He says, nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. And then he calls them to repent. Otherwise, He is saying, look, my spirit’s going to be taken out of your church, out of this body, right? So the spirit of love must be prevalent. That’s a very important characteristic. You can have all the doctrine, right? But if you don’t have a spirit of love, that’s a dangerous place for a church to be. And of course, the spirit of love isn’t just in some global church, it’s in a manifestation of the individual members being, and we’ve talked about love, love being selflessness, right?
We’re going to move on now to the church being a House of witness for preserving the truth, right? There is a whole historical, and biblical litany of verses we could talk about, about the houses of witness. But I do want to read One Timothy 3:15 where it says, Basically, the house of God is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Okay? So the church is to preserve the truth. And again, we touched on that briefly. I do want to mention that this isn’t the only house of witness that’s been used by God and is reflected in God’s word. We had the tabernacle that was built when Israel was in the wilderness and used until the kingdom of Israel was established. We have the temple, which was first built by Solomon and destroyed and rebuilt, and was last used in the time of Christ. Well, at least I say that, there’s going to be a future for the temple, but right now it was used in the time of Christ. And then we have the church, which was established by Jesus and replaced the temple, okay? That’s what we’re talking about. That’s the subject of this video. And then we have a new temple that will be used during the millennial reign of Christ, our kingdom of Christ. And we’re not going to get into all those details, but I do want to bring up a few, a few interesting,correlations between the church and generally the House of Witness.
The House of Witness always had a special empowerment. If you read Exodus chapter 40 with the tabernacle, it talks about the cloud covering the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle, and Moses not being able to enter it because the cloud rested above it. And the glory of the Lord filled it. In First Kings Chapter 8, we see the temple. With regard to the temple, after it was filled, it says, the priest came out of the holy place because the cloud filled the house of the Lord. The priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord, filled the house of the Lord. And then, of course, the verses we’re very familiar with regarding the church in Acts Chapter 2, and I want to read this because this is what this video’s about, and it says, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting there, then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and one sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, those who were saved. You know, this was the moment the Holy Spirit empowered the church, and similarly to prior houses of witness. And then with regard to the new temple, you can read in Ezekiel Chapter 44 and Ezekiel Chapter 43, about this whole empowerment. And of course, that’s a whole nother level of study.
But one of the reasons we’re talking about this is because it’s helpful to look back at the history of the prior houses of witness, and also looking to the present house of witness, which is the church, and understand the very important principle that is not only was it empowered by the Holy Spirit, but it was also a teaching institution. We have in the tabernacle, we have God telling Moses, write down these commandments. And so you may teach them in Exodus 24:12. We see Jesus in the temple, right? He taught in the temple every day. This is Luke 21. He taught in the temple when he was young, right? He was, he learned in the temple. He taught in the temple. And, we also see in Second Chronicles 15, having a reference to Israel being without the true God, without a teaching priest, without the law. So we know that again, this time period where Israel’s history was back and forth with disobedience to God, and the enemies would come in and take over and destroy their temple or ransack it.
And, so we understand that this house of witness is not just empowered by the spirit, but it’s also to be a teaching institution. And of course, we have the words of Jesus and the Great commission where he says, go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them all things he’s commanded. And making disciples is intense training. It’s like basic bootcamp, advanced training. It’s like, then you go out and you do it, right? You actually practice missions and you go out to the battlefield. That’s what discipleship is all about.
And so, that kind of leads us to what is the church’s mission? Well, we need to remember that the church’s mission, the primary mission as set forth in the great commission of Christ, like what we just read, is the general mission, but it’s kind of twofold. We need to be local, by our own personal testimonies, right? In Acts 1:8 when Jesus said, you shall receive power, and the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and then spreading out to Judea and Sumerian all the ends of the earth. That’s exactly what they did. They went out and started making more, planting more churches. And you do that by sending missionaries, right? If you look at the pattern in the New Testament, for example, in Acts 13, where the church in Antioch, it says that they were to separate unto Jesus, Paul and Barnabas for the work, which I have called to them. They fasted, prayed, laid hands on them and sent them away. So this was the whole point. You have your local testimony. Each individual has this mission field, to disciple and witness the gospel to the world. And then you have, through sending missionaries and starting new churches, when, you know, again, I feel like I’m rushing through this, because there’s just so much. But the church’s mission is the great commission, right? To make disciples. And if you make a disciple, that disciple should become a disciple, right?
Ephesians talks about how in the church Jesus gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and he goes on for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. And he talks about how we’re supposed to be joining together to do this work. And the work ultimately is for the glory of God, right? Which is our great purpose. I talk about our great purpose being, you know, the great commission, but ultimately our purpose is to glorify God through the Great commission. And, so again, I feel like I’m really rushing through this information, but there’s a lot.
So we’ve talked about the purpose of the church is to carry out the great commission for the glory of God, right? And so what’s the church’s operating authority? What’s the guide? Is it some man or some, some man made institution? You know, we don’t see any other institution in the Bible except the church in the New Testament. We don’t see these, you know, these other institutions that kind of guide and direct churches. And I’m not going to mention any names, but I think y’all can figure out what I’m talking about. The Bible is the final authority. The church must get their doctrine, their guidelines from the Bible. The Holy Spirit is the administrator. And again, if you look up John 16:7 and Acts 13, which we just read part of, about the Holy Spirit filling the people, right? They were there in the church.
And then you have this, because we are all in need of authority. You have to have some kind of pecking order in order to have an institution run. You’ve got spiritual leadership as directed in the church. And again, there’s plenty of scripture about this. In First Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, you have other subleader deacons to care for the physical aspects of the ministry. And you have the members, right? The members are to fulfill their responsibilities.
And I think one of the big things I talk about in discipleship is, listen, do you know how to share the gospel? Because that is a, well, if I have to share the gospel, so may I just take ’em to the preacher? No. That is your responsibility, that’s like saying if you’re in a unit, you’re a Marine in a unit, and the enemy comes up on the ridge, the marine says, well, I don’t know how to fire my gun, so I’m going to go get my leader and he’s going to fire the gun for me. No, no, we have to be ready. We have responsibilities in order to fulfill those responsibilities. Number one is the great commission, right? We have to know our own testimony. We have to be able to share it.
We have to be able to share the gospel.
So we need to be trained. In order to be trained, we have to be at church, and we have to be part of a church leadership. We need to be engaged, right? And the Bible’s very clear that we need to assemble ourselves. We don’t need to forsake the assembling of ourselves. We need to be studying the word of God on our own. I mean, the whole section on spiritual growth, we talked about what needs to be in our life.
We need to practice the ordinances. And really, there’s two primary ordinances in the Bible, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Those are the things we need to be practicing in our own churches. It’s so important that we understand that. Because the church is important to Jesus, the church should be important to us. And the church is a very critical tool. The church is as critical to us as Christians, as an army. The army institution is not to just be an individual soldier, okay? You’re not going to get very far on your own, and you need help. And we’re to follow the instructions of the New Testament. And I’ll tell you that is one of the best benefits of the church.
You know, we have this amazing institution to serve the Lord in, right? And, whether you complain, well, I can’t find a church that I like, or I went to that church and that preacher, he did this, or that deacon, he’s a hypocrite, or whatever, you know that that’s not a valid excuse because well, I’ve used this example before, and I have a dear friend who’s a dentist, and I know he probably cringes if he hears me say this, but if your dentist says brush your teeth, but he doesn’t brush his teeth, does that mean you’re not going to brush your teeth? Just because he doesn’t, because he’s a hypocrite? No, no, no. If I tell you you need a trust, done, but I don’t do my trust, and I explain to you why you should have a trust, Is that a good reason not to have a trust because it’s a better deal for you? Just because I don’t do it? No.You have to understand, churches are full of humans that are just like you and me, and we can’t hold people to the same standard we’re not able to hold ourselves. And I think it’s interesting that a lot of it, the excuses I hear and excuses I’ve made about why I’m not going to be fully committed to a church. It revolves around me, the fact that I hold other people to a standard that I can’t even adhere to myself. When we realize that when we’re poor in spirit, as we talked about in our beatitude study, and realize that it’s by the mercy and grace of God that we get to be part of his church, and that we go in with an, an attitude that I’m going to serve and I’m going to make it better, then suddenly we start realizing the benefits of being in an organization being a member.
And I really want to end this video by kind of sharing, I’m so sorry I rushed through this. I know this has been a lot of information, but the whole point, the overall point is to encourage you to understand the importance of the church, the history of, of why it’s important and how God has used other houses of witness, and also, your responsibility and your benefits. And so I want to kind of end this video series by, or this video on the church by talking about the benefits of the community called the church. And it goes back to the, “one another” commandments that were intended to be filled in a local church. And it’s, again, this is not a comparison or a discussion about the universal church versus the local church. But I do want to just preface these “one another” commandments by saying, as I’m going through them, think about whether those can be fulfilled in the context of a universal church or if it requires a local church. And, so let’s just dig right into this.
We talk about the love of one another. I mean the one another commandments. And let’s talk about the first one, love one another,
John 13:34. This is what Jesus told us to do when we’re engaged in loving one another within the church, we build community. There are benefits to that. And we know love is selflessness. So if we are being selfless within a community and a community of believers is being selfless back to us, that’s a wonderful benefit. And it’s a responsibility, right? We prefer one another. That doesn’t mean we shun new people because that’s part of loving others, right? But it means that we have a special inner circle with people that we know have got our back. And that’s Romans 12:10, by the way.
Be like-minded one toward another, Romans 15:5, greet one another. You’re excited to see the people from your church. They’re excited to see you, right? You see how this builds a bond, and it’s such a benefit. It takes work though. It takes work, no doubt about it. Then bear one another’s burdens, forbear one another. In other words, forgive one another. Ephesians 4:32. Submit yourselves to one to another. That’s part of love, right? Love is selflessness. Love is submitting ourselves, meeting each other’s needs. Even when it’s hard, sometimes it’s very hard. Consider one another. In other words, consider the other person before you consider yourself. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. You know, if you’re on a team and a team member consistently does not show up, and you can’t count on that person, that’s very frustrating. And if you’re on that team and you show up and you have another person who shows up all the time, and you can depend on each other, that’s a great bond. That’s a great bonding experience. And then finally, the one I really, really appreciate is comfort one another. And I just want to read out of Second Corinthians One, It says, Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, to the Church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in Achaia, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies, and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
Wow, we have a community that will bear our burdens. Forgive. We know we can be forgiven. We can serve together, we can be like-minded. And we know that in times of trouble, we can comfort and be comforted. That’s like family. You know, your church is your strongest family bond because it’s based in Jesus Christ. And he says the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He is the foundation, we have this common ground in Jesus Christ that binds us together stronger than even a family, a blood family can be bound together.
And so I kind of want to end this video, and again, I apologize. I’ve given you a lot of information in a little bit of time, and I’ve talked really fast. I’m doing my very best, thank you. And I want to just end this with Ephesians Chapter three, verses 20 through 21, where it says, Paul says, now to him, who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all, that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. And I feel like those two verses tie together what I’ve been talking about in the church. We can do far more exceeding abundant work than we can do on our own. Because number one, it’s built on the foundation of Christ Jesus. Number two, it’s empowered by the Holy Spirit. Number three, we have battle buddies. We have a unit. We have a band of brothers and sisters that we can depend upon, and we can do more than we can ask or think, in other words, more than we can ever imagine, according to the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and the word that works in us. And we can give glory to him in the church. Glory to Christ. Isn’t that great? Don’t you want that? Do you see how being a part of a church is so critical? And if you are not a member of church, find one. Pray the Lord will show you. The Lord will show you a church that needs you. And the church he wants to add you to. The Bible makes it very clear that the Holy Spirit adds to the church. We don’t just decide, oh, this is a church I’d like to go to. We have to be prayerful. We have to be prayerful and say, Lord, what church do you want me to be part of? And then he will add. And the only reason you should ever leave a church is not because you’re angry, not because somebody’s hurt your feelings, but because the Holy Spirit’s leading you somewhere else.
So I know I’ve given you a lot of information today about the church, but I hope it’s helpful. I hope these guidelines are helpful. And please, there are a lot of good resources out there about the church. My home church Mission Boulevard Baptist Church has a plethora of sermons about the importance of the church that you can go and listen to. And there’s also more in depth studies on the church, on the website, and that’s Mission Boulevard Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. So, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this. I hope this has been useful. And, until next time, next video, I hope that God blesses you abundantly and exceedingly, abundantly more than you can ever ask for or imagine.
