(Please note that I use page links in lieu of footnotes, citations and references, You can pause the audio to follow a page link. These links are important for a complete understanding and for gaining details on references).
IS CHURCH IS A NOUN when it should be A VERB?!
Church: ekklesia (from Strong’s concordance #1537, ek, “out from and to” and #2564 /kaléō, “to call”) – people called out from the world and to God, the outcome being the Church, the mystical body of Christ – i.e. the universal (total) body of believers whom God calls out from the world and into His eternal kingdom.
The English word “church” comes from the Greek word kyriakos, “belonging to the Lord” (kyrios). Strong’s concordance #1577, ekklēsía (“church”) is the root of the term “ecclesiology” and “ecclesiastical.”
Jesus said, first to His disciples, Matthew 10:7, As you GO, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is deserving of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, see that your blessing of peace comes upon it. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. And whoever does not receive you nor listen to your words, as you leave that house or city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment, than for that city.”
Matthew 28:18-19, Then Jesus said to His eleven Apostles and to the Church, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. GO, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Now in the 21st century we, the church, no longer GO. We invite. We invite ‘them’ to come. We say, “Come to church”, and the marquis say, “Come Join Us”, “Come Grow With Us”. But Jesus said, “GO and make disciples”.
When and where did we get off track? I’ll tell you when and where. The problem began almost as soon as the Church started. The Roman Emperor, Constantine the First, in A.D. 327, legitimized Christianity.
But, let’s go back to the beginning, (Excerpts in blue lettering are from Frank Viola & George Barna’s book, “Pagan Christianity”, Tyndale Publishing, 2002, 2008)
When Christianity was born, it was the only religion on the planet that had no sacred objects, no sacred persons, and no sacred spaces.
Although surrounded by Jewish synagogues and pagan temples, the early Christians were the only religious people on earth who did not erect sacred buildings for their worship. The Christian faith was born in homes, out in courtyards, and along roadsides. For the first three centuries, the Christians did not have any special buildings!
As one scholar put it, “The Christianity that conquered the Roman Empire was essentially a home-centered movement.”
Meeting in homes was a conscious choice of the early Christians. It was a coming together in a more intimate setting, a ones’ home. Very little could be hidden in such an environment.
THE DRIFT BEGINS – 391 A.D.
The Church was barely out of its infancy when the religious spirit of innovation appeared, in the late second and third centuries, and a shift occurred.
Christians not only adopted sacred spaces; they also had created sacred objects. (They would soon develop a sacred priesthood.) It might seem they had forgotten Moses and the golden calf.
In all of this, the second and third century Christians began to assimilate the magical mind-set that characterized existent pagan thinking.
These factors made the Christian terrain ready for the man who would be responsible for creating church buildings.
In AD 327, Constantine began erecting the first church buildings throughout the Roman Empire, some at public expense.’ In so doing, he followed the path of the pagans in constructing temples to honor God. Augustine of Hippo, a theologian and a philosopher, (later, sainted by the Catholic church), began his work of making the Christian Movement ‘legitimate’ by government and Catholic standards.
Interestingly, he named his church buildings after saints — just as the pagans named their temples after gods. Constantine built his first church buildings upon the cemeteries where the Christians held meals for the dead saints.
(I ask, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL AN ACT LIKE THAT?)
Constantine brought peace for all Christians.'” Under his reign, the Christian faith had become legitimate. In fact, it had risen to a status greater than Judaism and paganism.
For these reasons, the Christians saw Constantine’s rise to emperor as an act of God. Here was God’s instrument who had come to their rescue.
Christianity and Roman culture were now melded together.”
(Again I ask, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THAT?)
The Christian building demonstrates that the church, whether she wanted it or not, had entered into a close alliance with pagan culture.’ As Will Durant, author of The Story of Civilization (a sweeping, eleven-volume work on world history that earned him a Pulitzer Prize), put it, “Pagan isles remained in the spreading Christian sea.”
This was a tragic shift from the primitive simplicity that the church of Jesus Christ first knew. The first-century Christians were opposed to the world’s systems and avoided any contact with paganism. This all changed during the fourth century, when the church emerged as a public institution in the world and began to “absorb and Christianize pagan religious ideas and practices.
As one historian put it, “Church buildings took the place of temples; church endowments replaced temple lands and funds.”
Under Constantine, tax-exempt status was granted for all church property.
Consequently, the story of the church building is the sad saga of Christianity borrowing from heathen culture and radically transforming the face of our faith.
To put it bluntly, the church buildings of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian era essentially became holy shrines. The Christians embraced the concept of the physical temple. They imbibed the pagan idea that there exists a special place where God dwells in a special way. And that place is made “with hands.”‘
(Once again, I ask, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL AN ACT LIKE THAT?)
“As with other pagan customs that were absorbed into the Christian faith (such as the liturgy, the sermon, clerical vestments, and hierarchical leadership structure), third- and fourth-century Christians incorrectly attributed the origin of the church building to the Old Testament. But this was misguided thinking.”
“Most Americans are struggling to clarify their identity. They tend to see themselves as unique individuals, Americans, members of their family, occupational professionals, consumers, and then as followers of Christ — in that order of priority.
“In the minds and hearts of most Americans — even those whose beliefs classify them as “born-again Christians”— their identity as a follower of Christ pales in importance in comparison to the other roles they embrace.
(WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THAT MINDSET?)
Oddly, most of the born again Christians consider themselves to be servants of God and to have been transformed by their faith in Christ.
Clearly, however, there are some missing connections in this self-evaluation. Perhaps the confusion is due to the enormous number of inter-actions and responsibilities that people take on each day.
Maybe it has to do with the disjointed, topical teaching that most of us receive from our churches. It may even be attributable to the lure of competing perspectives and images bombarding us from the ever-present media.
THE DRIFT
AD 1 The Church of Jesus Christ, The Body of Christ, had no buildings, little money and no wealth. The Church was a Movement.
Jesus said to make disciples; collect no money except to make your journey.
The penalty for becoming a Christian was often death.
The Church grew exponentially.
AD 49 The Church expanded into Greece. The Church became a philosophy to many. The Church grew and size and influence.
AD 313 The Church expanded into Rome and it gained recognition. It grew in power and popularity. It obtained wealth, buildings, property and influence. It became an institution.
AD 380 The Church expanded into Europe. It was becoming a worldwide phenomenon. It grew in wealth, stature, power and influence. It had become a culture.
AD 1607 The Church reaches America.
AD 1681 The Church became corporate. It had become a business and incorporated. It became regulated by the government.
The Corporate Church grew. It needed money to support growth and expansion, which meant the Corporate Church needed more people.
AD 1777 The state of Virginia granted tax exemption to houses of worship.
AD 1894 The corporate church was granted tax exemptions by the Federal Government.
AD 1954 The Federal Government regulated what a church could and could not say in order to retain tax-exempt status.
The church continued to grow, and in order to attract more people the Corporate Church lowered its membership and doctrinal standards. More people became ‘members’ and gave more money to support more growth.
The Church corporation is complete with leaders, boards and membership and a business model.
Local churches compete against one another for members (customers). The church is selling itself in “three line slogans”.
The Church members now have choices and have become religious consumers. Church people can shop around for the religious brand and standards that best suits them. (2 Timothy 3)
The Leadership (pastors and preachers) have become CEOs, disciples have become church leaders, growing their 501(c)(3) business models.
Record numbers of pastors quitting because of stress, burnout or are being fired by their congregations (some stats say 1500 – 1700 leave “the ministry” each month).
Church debt in America soars; church foreclosures soar.
AD 1968 The church ordains homosexuals as clergy.
AD 1972 The United church of Christ ordains homosexual clergy
AD 2010 The Lutheran church ordains homosexual clergy
AD 2012 The Presbyterian church USA ordains homosexual clergy (not to be confused with the Presbyterian church PCA).
The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have also allowed ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates for ministry for some years.
Internationally, churches that have ordained openly lesbian or gay clergy include the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, the Church in Wales, the Church of Sweden, the Church of Norway, the Church of Denmark, the Church of Iceland, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Methodist Church in Britain, the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, the United Protestant Church in Belgium, the Swiss Reformed Church, the United Protestant Church of France, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Anglican Church in Canada, the Old Catholic Church, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and the United Church of Christ in Japan.
AD 2024 The church is losing and has lost influence. The church in 2020 is losing members.
AD 2024 Much of the church is teaching and living a different Gospel than that of the Apostles.
There is a misguided belief that if you can just ‘lure’ people into church, they can hear the Gospel Message and some will get saved. What has happened, instead, is that the remain pagan in their core beliefs, adopt the name of Jesus for convenience, take over as leaders within the church, and the church becomes apostate! You can see this pattern repeating itself in hundreds and thousands of churches, worldwide.
Now, many, if not most churches, practice a brand of church as a formality, but in reality, they simply tickle the ears of the adherents, while draining their resources. Then they travel around to make one convert, and when someone becomes one, they make them twice as much a son or daughter of hell as themselves! (see Matthew 23:15).
The Age of Apostasy is well under way.
So, you may ask, what’s the big deal? In order to answer that, we must first look at how has this drift has affected societies and governments and how is it being reflected in our government and society:
(#1). There is an increase in hostilities between nations. A war is being waged and is raging, between Marxist and Socialist forces, and democracies, in particular, those which have been and are influenced by Judeo-Christian principles. Therefore, there are increasing numbers of wars and rumors of wars between these.
(#2). Nations are realigning and are rising against nations.
(#3.) There is an increasing rejection of traditional Christianity, in society, by the government and in our churches.
(#3.a). Simultaneously, there is an increase in paganistic beliefs and practices in society, in governments and in our churches.
(#4). Around the world, there is a rising persecution and murder of Christians.
(#5). There is a global Christian apostasy taking place; a falling away from the faith.
(#6). There is an exponential increase in lawlessness and anarchy. Societies are fracturing. There is a loss of trust. People’s regard for one another has grown cold.
(#7). There is an increase in the numbers of false Christian teachers and false Gospels, using Jesus’ name, being taught.
(Compare these things to scriptures. See “Evidence that we are in the Last Days”).
WHAT ARE WE TO DO?
How are we to respond in the face of an aggressive and spreading evil?
FIRST, and this is for those who have surrendered their life to God, by His grace and through faith in Christ, only. It is important to remember that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. This can be a very difficult thing to do, since our adversaries are clothed as people. But, as Christians, our struggle and our war is against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Make no mistake, our adversaries are evil people, but, Matthew 5:39, says, “But I say to you, do not show opposition against an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other toward him also.”
Our struggle is against the schemes of the Devil, and James 4:7 says, we are to instead, to submit ourselves to God, and resist the devil, and he will flee from us.”
Our struggle is a different war and a different warfare than the one we see. Our war is for the lives and souls of people and for Kingdom of God.
We, as Christian disciples of Jesus, are to (#1), GO and makes disciples, (#2), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, (#3), teaching them to follow all that He has commanded us!
This is our mission until the day comes, when He will appear in the heavens, and every eye will see Him, and He will gather us, His elect, you and me, from the four corners of the earth, and take us to our eternal destination (see Matthew 24:29-31). Then, He will pour out His judgment and wrath. (see Revelation 8).
Then, He will reappear on a white horse with the armies of heaven to defeat His and our enemies. (see Revelation 19:11-16).
SECOND, day by day, we are to continue with one mind within the Church, and breaking bread from house to house, taking our meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord will add to our number day by day, that is those who are to be saved.
Then, on one particular day and hour, which no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone,the Son of Man will come. It will be just like the days of Noah.For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
At that time there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
Therefore, we are to be on the alert. We are to be faithful to be doing the things He has told us do and to be. Those who are not faithful and diligent will find themselves in great distress, for when that time comes, some who thought they would be invited to go with Him, will also be left behind.
Please, dear friends, don’t buy into the simple salvation and cheap grace message. The litmus test is that you are ready and found to be doing the bidding of our Master and Lord, either if and when you should die before His coming and if you alive at His coming. (see Matthew 24:42 – Matthew 25:29).
It is both as simple as that and difficult as that.
Let’s not be the Church just as a noun. A noun is just a description of a person, a place or a thing, a quality or an action that can function as the subject of object of a verb.
Let’s be the Church as a verb; the part of speech that expresses action! The Church alive, organic, on the move, reaching and reaching out.
Your Brother and Friend,
Mike Young
Let’s talk…
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