What Is a Church?

In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question: “Dear Dave and T.A.: In this day of program-overloaded mega-churches to the under-involved home churches and other confusions related to what a biblical church is, is there a definition of church from the Scriptures that might help a believer discern where to fellowship, and with whom, and what to accept, and what to reject?”

Dave: Well, of course, we have the Greek word, but you don’t need to go to the Greek word—Jesus said it in John 15: “I have called you out of the world.” He said it in John 17: “I have chosen you out of the world.” So, ecclesia is the word, and it means “a called-out company.” You get the same thing in the Old Testament regarding Israel—the congregation—they were a called-out people, separated. If you want to go to Deuteronomy 20, it says, “I have separated you from all people, you are to be holy.”

So, it’s just like you were reminding us there, Tom, from the Scriptures, this is a group of people who have been called out from the world, they’re holy, and you wouldn’t dare to join them—you would be exposed. So the church is really—you get some hints at it: “the church that is in your house,” you know, “the church that is here,” “the church that is there.” They are different from the world around them. They are not ecumenical. They are not trying to get the local priest from the temple of Diana, or whatever, you know, to join with them in ecumenical church services. These are people who are serious about God, about their eternal destiny. They have been purchased with the blood of Christ. They belong to Him; they are not their own. And Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you,” okay.

So, the church is a group of people—they are not meeting and putting on a program and a show, an entertainment, in order to attract the world in. Thank you for referring us to that scripture. Nobody dared to join them. I’d like to confront a few of the seeker-friendly churches with that idea. Nobody dared to join them—these are holy people! God is in their midst. They are there to worship Him. They know Him, they love Him, they are praising Him, they belong to Him, and nobody is going to join them. They are not putting out prizes to entice people to come in.

So, the church was a separated body of believers who know and love the Lord. They went everywhere—I love what it says in Acts 8: because they are being persecuted—you know, the persecution that arose after Steven was stoned—they were scattered and they went everywhere trying to hide out. “Don’t let anybody know where we are”? No, it says they went everywhere preaching the Word. So, the church is supposed to go out, win people to Christ, and then they join the church—they come in. But we’ve got it a little bit backwards, and Tom, I know some people will think we’re fanatics on this program, and if some unsaved people do wander in, do come in, the Bible allows for that. First Corinthians 14, says, “If you are all speaking in tongues and a stranger comes in, he will think you are mad.” There are some churches that do that, even though the scripture says, “One at a time, not without an interpreter.” But they disobey the Bible and they are all going at it at once, and so forth. So it says there could be strangers that could come in, and I think they held street meetings, or whatever. They were holding a meeting, apparently at the temple, and a whole multitude gathered. In fact, there were thousands of people there—3,000 of them were converted, got saved, on the day of Pentecost.

Tom: What was the prize for that, Dave? What drew them in, or did Peter say something that might build their self-esteem?

Dave: Well, actually what happened on that particular occasion, they were all speaking in different languages, and they were astonished. You’ve got people, well this was at Pentecost, and there are Jews from all over the empire speaking all kinds of different languages that have gathered there. And they hear the apostles fluently declaring the glory of God in their own languages, and they think this is astonishing. So, that word spread, and people came running just to see this phenomenon. I don’t know that we can put on a street meeting like that today, Tom. This was a special occasion.

Tom: So what was the message—that’s really what I am getting to, Dave—what was the message that Peter brought? Did it make them feel good about themselves?

Dave: (Chuckling) The message was, “You had better repent, because you have taken the Lord of life and glory, you have crucified Him, you have rejected your Messiah, and you had better repent right now and get right with God.” And they were convicted in their hearts. They repented, and when they believed they were baptized. And it says they were joined unto the church. So, you get into the church apparently by getting saved. The church is a gathering of saved people, then those saved people begin to witness and more people get saved. I wish we could see more of that today, Tom.