The Purpose and Centrality of the Local Church

Here is what I posted at the Grace and Peace blog yesterday. Check it out to find more gospel centered writing in several different types from my good friends.

To me…this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Eph. 3:8-10)

In this world of self-help it is difficult to imagine that the Creator might have intended something greater. Though I believe that it is a great thing that so many Christians want to emphasize that Jesus is the savior of individuals, it seems that some wonderful truths have been lost in the process. Perhaps we have tried so hard to avoid the ditch of Roman Catholicism’s errors that we have swerved into the ditch on the other side, individualism.

In this series of posts I want to argue that the local church is God’s primary means of working in the world. This may sound terrible to some and strange to others but let me assure you that when you stop reading Scripture through the lens of tradition it becomes much clearer.

What is the church?

In this post I want to begin with some simple definitions. The church is not an easy biblical term to define; in fact I will need to use two definitions here.

1. The entirety of redeemed people throughout history. This is known as the universal church or the invisible church.

2. The local assembly of a specific group of believers for the purpose of worship, edification, fellowship, and ministry to the lost. This is what I am calling the local church.

One interesting thing that needs to be understood is the reason I use the word “assembly” in the second definition. This is because the word used for church in the New Testament is ekklesia which can be most simply defined as a “gathering of persons for a purpose” (Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains).

What this seems to indicate is that the word is being used mostly to talk about local congregations of believers rather than the entirety of Christian individuals. But what about statements like that of Ephesians 3:10 (see above)? I don’t think Paul is only talking about the church at Ephesus. But I do think that he expected the original audience to think of the church at Ephesus when he said, “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known.”

God is working in the world through His people, of that I don’t think there is much question. But what we will see in coming weeks is that those people find their identity, calling, and growth within the context of the local church.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen