The Christian church is not a building, but a frame of believers united in Christ. Its function is to worship God, nurture and edify and attain out to a suffering world with the saving message of the gospel in addition to the practical compassion and mercy exemplified in Christ. To this end, ecclesiology isn’t some ivory-tower, academic subject eliminated from the fact of daily existence. Instead, learning extra about the church allows us make a real difference within the international, not just temporally, but for all eternity. C.S. Lewis, extract from his BBC radio talks now not determined in the revealed text of Mere Christianity, as stated in Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: Companion & Guide. For greater insights on ecclesiology seek advice from any variety of systematic theology texts together with Systematic Theology, Volume Four by means of Norman Geisler (Bethany House, 2005), Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem (Zondervan, 1994), Christian Theology by way of Millard Erickson (Baker Books, 1998), and Integrative Theology, Volume Three via Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest (Zondervan, 1994).
Although “church” has come to mean a constructing or corporation, the unique Greek ekklesia meant “a gathering, assembly” and is the basis for our phrase “congregation.” And that’s what God designed the church to be—a set of humans. THOMAS J. SCHULTZ The definition of a “church” as a separate building especially for worship would have been overseas to the early believers, as they met in houses.
When a constructing became referred to in the New Testament, it turned into always when it comes to the church that met there (Romans 16:five; 1 Corinthians sixteen:19; Colossians four:15; Philemon 1:2). The church changed into the humans, now not the building. With the legitimization and affluence of Christianity in later years, the “church” got here to mean the constructing in which people met. Now, it often is used to mean a particular denomination. But the truest that means of the phrase “church” is the organization of believers.
Christ is the top of the church, and the church is the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23). The contributors of the frame are all Christians. “For just as the frame is one and has many individuals, and all the individuals of the body, even though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one frame—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all have been made to drink of 1 Spirit. For the body does now not encompass one member but of many” (1 Corinthians 12:12-14). The prevalent church is described as all who have received the Holy Spirit, regardless of their place, denomination, or technology. To make certain order and to provide fellowship, the usual church is also divided into neighborhood churches.
