Since I became a believer, I’ve been drawn to serve the church and minister to the body of Christ. From a decision to attend Bible College to teaching and pastoring, my call was obvious. From time to time, I’ve thought there were different roads God wanted me to follow, but those roads always brought me back to serving the church.
I don’t know what others see in the church, but I see a church struggling in today’s world. The church is battling an identity crisis. It seems that’s the prevailing spiritual attack throughout every level of society in our generation; Who am I? What am I? How am I? Where am I? We see these questions in people, businesses, cultures, nations, and churches. The church is asking; Who are we? How are we? Where are we? What are we? And Why are we?
It’s important for the church to know the answers to these questions, so over the next six weeks, we’ll look at the questions; Who are we as a church? How do we exist in this world as a church? Where do we fit as a church? What are we as a church? And finally, Why are we here as a church?
This episode is an introduction to answering those questions. This will be a series of 6 episodes, including today’s introduction to the series, which I’ve entitled “A Vision of a Church Alive in Christ.” What I mean by this title is we’ll be looking at the vision God gave the Apostle Paul for a church that is alive with Jesus Christ at its core. If you want to read ahead, we’ll see this vision as we go through 1 Corinthians 3:1-16. But first, in this introduction, we’ll look at the church “When” Paul established the earliest churches beyond Israel.
The first church founded outside of Israel was Antioch. Antioch is in present-day Turkey. Antioch was where believers were first called Christians. But we don’t have a lot of historical information about the church in Antioch, so we’ll look at a more typical church from the first century that we do have more historical information about; the church at Corinth.
The Apostle Paul established Corinth on his second missionary journey to the Gentiles from Israel. It was established around 49 to 50 AD. Paul spent a year and a half teaching in Corinth to ground the church in the faith. We have two letters in the New Testament from Paul to the church at Corinth.
The city of Corinth was similar in many ways to cities in the world today. Corinth was a prominent city in Greece located about fifty miles southwest of Athens. In the first century, Corinth was controlled by Rome.
Because it was located between the East and West, it was very diverse. It was influenced heavily by Greek culture, but Rome ruled it, so there was a strong Roman influence. Being a commercial hub, there were other cultural influences from the Middle East. Corinth was known for its wealth, commerce, and prosperity, which attracted people from everywhere.
Corinth also had a reputation for moral laxity and decadence. It was infamous for its immorality and sexual promiscuity, with temple prostitution being very prevalent. The temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was atop a hill overlooking the city. This environment of sexual permissiveness contributed to Corinth’s reputation as a city with very loose morals.
It’s important to note here that while Corinth had a lot of moral challenges, not everyone in the city would have engaged in immoral behavior. Paul’s letters speak to the specific issues faced by Christians in Corinth, but as in any city, it wasn’t completely perverse.
If we could compare Corinth to an American city today based on cultural diversity, business activity, and moral issues, then Corinth would have been most like Las Vegas.
Often, I’ve heard believers say the church today should be more like the churches of the first century. But those churches had a lot of problems. Remember, Paul spent a year and a half personally establishing the church in Corinth. After just two short years away from them, he had to write them a letter with a list of issues they needed to fix. Things like;
- Divisions and factions fight among themselves about which leader to follow.
- Immorality and sexual misconduct
- Overemphasis on spiritual gifts.
- Adopting worldly philosophy and logic, Greco/Roman culture of great speakers of wisdom instead of God. Impressing people with knowledge. The world’s wisdom is foolish to God—the Gospel.
- Legal disputes with other Christians; settle disputes among themselves (forgiveness and reconciliation).
- Church worship problems and issues during the Lord’s supper. It was chaos in the gathering.
- Some false teachings are spreading in the church—doubts about the resurrection, circumcision, etc.
- Christian liberty is being abused in the church (i.e., drinking, meat sacrificed to an idol, ham sandwich).
The Corinthian church seems like it would fit right in today. So after two thousand years, why is the church still having these same problems? Why hasn’t the church advanced spiritually?
This was the church ‘when’ Paul presented the vision of a church alive in Christ. And it still appears to be the church today. We must remember the concept of “church” was brand new in the first century. The Jews had synagogues and the Temple. The Greeks and Romans had their temples too. Other religions kept their idols of their gods in their homes. Pagan religious followers only met for ritualistic ceremonies.
Gatherings in the first century were for public and political assemblies, civic meetings, marketplace meetings, theatrical shows, sporting events, and philosophical lectures.
Therefore believers patterned the church meeting after what was familiar to them. What they knew became the blueprint for church gatherings. But was that the blueprint Christ intended?
The Greek word *‘Ekklesia’ is what’s translated as “Church.” ‘Ekklesia’ means ‘a calling out for a meeting.’ In relation to the ‘church,’ it means a ‘gathering of believers in a meeting.’ But two churches are gathered; the spiritual church, which is a gathering of believers in the body of Christ, and the physical church, which is the gathering of believers on earth.
In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says the gates of Hades would not overcome his church. This is the spiritual church because Hades is in the spiritual realm. The gates of Hades mean the grave. The grave will not keep believers out of the body of Christ.
In Matthew 18:15-20 Jesus speaks of the physical church when he says where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there with them. We see from this passage where two or three are gathered in his name, Jesus is there with them. A gathering is an ‘ekklesia,’ a church. This gathering is obviously in this world and not in heaven. It’s also important to recognize here that Jesus says the gathering of two or three people in his name is a church.
Jesus says that whatever the church binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever the church releases on earth will be released in heaven. The church in the world has the authority of Christ to decide sin. To bind comes from the word to ‘tie up’; therefore, in this passage, it means to ‘restrict.’ To lose comes from the word to ‘take off’ or ‘dissolve’; therefore, in this passage, it means to ‘un-restrict.’ The church can decide the organization, culture, doctrine, and requirements of the church.
Jesus only gave the disciples the basic requirements for ‘Church’ meetings;
- Worship; John 4:23-24 (but not specifically in a gathering). To worship God in Spirit and truth.
- The Lord’s supper; Luke 22:14-20 (is done in a gathering).
- Love one another; John 13:34-35 (by this, people will know that we are disciples of Christ, in our gathering, we show love to one another. In fellowship, but what is fellowship today?).
From this point, for two thousand years, the church has been tossed back and forth by those who exercised leadership over it. This is why there are so many different denominations of the church. And plainly, Jesus gave that authority to the church. Denominations aren’t wrong, and we’ll talk more about that in the coming weeks.
In fact, in Revelation 3, Jesus speaks to 7 churches. They each restricted and unrestricted different things.
So when Paul presented “A Vision of a Church Alive in Christ” to the church in Corinth, we see a church that is very similar to the church today. Except for the technology and the buildings and furnishings, not too much has changed. Why is that?
That’s another question we’ll answer in the next episode of this series when we look at ‘Who’ we are as a church. By the church, I’m including all the churches on earth. Who are we supposed to be as a group of believers in Christ who are gathered in his name? Who are we as a church and as a witness to non-believers of the saving grace and forgiveness of God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
So until our next gathering in the ethernet, I pray God will help you to see ‘A Vision of a Church Alive in Christ’ for the world to come. If you have any questions about what I’ve said, leave a comment or email me with your questions.
God bless you and keep you safe for his glory always. Thank you for supporting the Sonday Life ministry.
