We'll turn this morning, if you
would, to Acts chapter 19. Acts chapter 19 is where we left off. Last week, since y'all were gone,
we didn't We didn't go further in our study on the church. I
was kind of reserving that for when everybody, whenever all
y'all are here. Brother Ed was here, but we preached
a message on the freeness of salvation last week. That's on
our web, or our Facebook site, if you wanna pick that up. We'll
look at that later. But Acts chapter 19, that's where
we left off in our study of Ecclesia, the study of the church. Again,
we're doing an extensive study on the church. And when we say
church, we mean a local congregation, not an invisible body of people
all over the world that has been elected by God. We see there
is a distinction between that and the local congregation, which
is called in the scriptures, the church. And we've looked
now over the course of the last eight studies, or seven studies,
we've looked at the etymology of the word ekklesia, behind
the word church, also the word that church comes from in its
English form, but basically behind the Greek word ekklesia, we've
looked at the etymology, we've looked at the history and how
that word was understood by Greek-speaking people, by literature, by historians,
by wordsmiths throughout the years and how that term Ekklesia
is understood and how it is distinct from other words that just means
to be called out or to be assembled, that the word was more narrow
than that. And so we saw that, looked at
a lot of quotes from different people throughout history and
everything. And so we've seen that the etymology
and the history all pointed to the fact that the term ekklesia,
and as it's translated in our King James Bible Church, means
a gathered congregation that has been gathered to conduct
the business of the kingdom in all respects for how it is the
Lord's ekklesia. But we started a couple weeks
ago looking at the biblical use of the word Ekklesia and we are
going through every verse that talks or has that word in it,
Ekklesia. And if you guys remember on the
papers that you got in front of you, also for those who are
watching, I got this up here on the board. There is 115 times in the New
Testament that the word Ekklesia is found. that out of 115, 112
times, the word is translated church or churches, and then
three times it's translated assembly. Okay, so every time that the
word ecclesia is found, it is found and translated church or
churches or three times assembly, okay? And so what we're doing
is we're looking that if we're gonna get our understanding of
what the term church means, Are we going to apply a theological
definition that's been given by some academic institution
or by some theologian or by some movement of believers in the
past, or are we going to let the Holy Scriptures define for
us what we are to believe about God's word, ekklesia, that he
used, okay? Now, as we looked in the etymology
of things, we seen that there were four Greek words that all
have to do with assembly or congregation or being called out. And we've seen that Jesus did
not use those terms, but he used ecclesia, which we've seen was
not only to be called out and gathered, but it was an assembly
that was conducting business or a lawful assembly as the scriptures
uses. So it's more than just called
out. It's more than just an assembly. Okay, so these people that want
to contend that the church is this universal invisible body,
is militating against the word ekklesia that Jesus used. He
could have picked a word out of Greek that did mean just assembly,
or just called out, but he didn't. He used ekklesia, which was a
more narrow word that had more to it than just being called
out, than more than just being and assembly, okay? It is a gathered
assembly that is gathered for the purpose of governing, conducting
business over the affairs of the state and in the terms of
the Lord's church or the Lord's ecclesia over the kingdom. And
so it is the local gathered assembly in which Christ has instituted
and that institution in its institutional form, which is one of the ways
that these terms are used, in the scriptures is in its institutional
way. The term church, when Jesus instituted
the church, his kind of ecclesia, he had ground rules for that.
He laid down some prerequisites for its membership. And I know
a lot of people that probably are gonna listen and watch, because
I've seen it all over the internet and in discussions all the time,
when people differ about these things. They claim that we are
putting restrictions or putting things on the membership into
the Lord's church that God never intended. Whenever we say that,
you know, you have to be this or this or this to be a member
of the church. They always say that because
their idea of church is this gathered visible assembly that's
being called out of the world and they think that there's stipulations
to be put on that, and that's not what we're saying. There
is no prerequisites, as far as on our side, to be considered
the elect of God, okay? God elects us based upon his
choice and his choice alone, so it has nothing to do with
us. However, to be a part of the church, which is distinct
and separate from the, the elect of God or the family
of God, we see that there is some ground rules that Christ
laid down. And we see that for one, you
have to be believing. Good morning. There has to be
faith given to you. One must believe and one must
be baptized. And so, if one is not a believer,
if one is not baptized, then they cannot be a member of the
church. And again, we're gonna go over
a lot of this later on in our study when we get into some of
the things about the church. But now, as we're talking about
the nature of the church, we see that the church is a gathered
body of believers that's together in one place, one locality, and
that they meet together and they have been given gifts, they have
been given officers, they have been given ordinances that they
are to keep, and they've been given the gospel to perpetuate. And so that is what our look
at the church is. And so we've been seeing that
in all these verses, and we've been going through every verse,
because we want to be followers of scripture and not followers
of tradition, okay? And so if we want to believe
what the Bible says about the church, we need to see, is that
how it's used in the church? Now, if we can go anywhere in
the scriptures and we can find a place where the term church
means something other than a visible congregation, a local congregation,
has any other definition besides that, then we need to believe
that. But if we look at all these scriptures
and every one of these scriptures contextually point to a local
gathered assembly, then we don't have any warrant. We don't have
any grounds to say that the church or the ecclesia is something
other than what Christ has made it out to be. And so it isn't
about a tradition of the Baptist. It isn't about a tradition of
a church, our church, okay? It isn't what we have to say
about it or our thoughts about it. It isn't coming from man's
wisdom. It's letting the Bible tell us
what to believe. And that's what we put forth
here, is that the Bible is our rule of faith and our rule of
practice. We don't practice, apart from
what the Bible gives credence to and says, we don't believe
things that the Bible doesn't teach. If the Bible says this
is how it should be, then that's how we follow and that's how
we believe, that's how we declare it. And so the church is no different. And so I think there's been a
lot of misconception, wrong teaching about the church that's out there,
especially among sovereign grace believers. There is a lot of
misunderstanding of the church, and it's not being preached,
and a lot of people don't hear that, and they grow up not hearing that. And
because they don't grow up to hear that, they don't grow up
with a value to the local assembly. They think that, well, it's just
all right if I did, you know, and they become so dogmatic and
picky that they can't fellowship with anybody. And the reason
why is because they have found no love and they have found no
importance in finding a true New Testament church and being
a part of that. And so whenever you don't see
that, the church doesn't have a lot of meaning to you. And
so what I find a lot of times is that the course of action
is to, well, the church doesn't mean that, it means, and so the
whole propulsion of that universal and visible church is more readily
acceptable to them when they hear it. Oh yeah, well, the church
is just all of us everywhere, you know. I don't have to, you
know, I'm part of the church universal, you know. I don't
have to go down to that church over there because I'm part of
the church universal. Well, that's not what Christ
has commanded. Christ commanded us together.
Matter of fact, we'll see that later on in Hebrews, but he said
not to forsake the assembly of ourselves together. There is
an importance upon the child of grace to gather with the church,
not just having chats with Christians, to gather in a capacity of worship
where there is the things of God being given, the gifts of
God, the offices of pastor, the offices of deacon, not that every
church requires those such things to still be a church, okay? There
are churches that are gonna be without deacons, there are gonna
be churches that's gonna be without pastors at points in time. They
don't cease to be the church because the church isn't the
pastor or the deacons. That's just roles within the
church. And we'll see that also as we go along. But the thing
is, is the church, is that gathered body, and there is an importance
for us together in that capacity. Now, the last time we met and
we were discussing these things, we were in Acts 19, and we've
seen here where, and if you remember back when we were going through
the etymology of all this, we've seen that the King James translators
were ordered by King James not to translate ecclesia as a congregation,
but as church. Okay, and he gave them that stipulation.
And he said that they should follow the church fathers, which
King James being part of the Church of England and coming
out of the Catholic Church, the church fathers that he speaks
of all have that reference of a church that is not a gathered
assembly, but that is, universal thing and so whenever we come
to the scriptures we must have that in our mind to know that
whenever we see the word church there that that word is congregations
in the translations preceding the King James Version. But in
Acts 19 we actually seen where King James translators tipped
their cards where we could see that very inaction of King James
to not translate these words properly because we see that
there was times where they used it, where the word ekklesia was
found, they used the word assembly, and then there was times that
they turned around and used the word church when it should have
been assembly, but yet they used assembly whenever it didn't have
to do with religious things. And we see that in Acts 19 where The followers of Diana in Ephesus
were pulling Paul and I believe it was Barnabas, wasn't it? Paul
and Barnabas out because of what they were preaching and had brought
them into the assembly, had brought them into the Greek ecclesia. Or first they brought them into
an assembly, but that assembly, they couldn't do nothing about
it. because they said we must gather into a lawful assembly,
or a lawful ecclesia. And so we see that they used
the term behind ecclesia, they translated it church in some
areas, but that same word ecclesia, they translated assembly when
it didn't have anything to do with religious things. And so they actually translated
it properly, they translated it an assembly. We found that
in Acts 19, and that's kind of where we left off with Acts 19
and verse 41. So today, let's move on into
Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20, this is the next
verse, and again, for those that are coming into this study and
watching or listening, we are literally going through every
scripture in the Bible that the word Ecclesiast found. and seeing
how the Bible uses that word. Acts chapter 20, look with me
if you would at verse 17. And from Miletus, he sent to
Ephesus and called the elders of the church. Okay, so Paul
here, While in Miletus, he sent to
Ephesus and called the elders of the church. So he was specifically
talking, the word ekklesia here is speaking of the church in
Ephesus. Okay, so it's a local assembly,
it's a distinct assembly as we looked up here. It's a church,
it's translated church, and behind it is the word ekklesia, And
in the context, we see that it is speaking of an actual congregation
in Ephesus. Not a universal body, but the
congregation that is found in Ephesus. So a particular church
is found there. Look down at verse 28. It says,
take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church
of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. Okay, so
again, Paul is making instructions here to a local congregation
and specifically to the pastors of that congregation. Okay, take
heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. Now if the church
was a universal invisible thing, then this direction, this command,
this instruction to these overseers would be telling them, alright,
it's your job to oversee all the Christians in the world. If you take the word flock to
mean all the elect, if you take the word church to mean a universal
invisible body, then here Paul is instructing these men to be
overseers and to watch out and take heed over everyone who's
the elect. Now, I can tell you right now,
I can't do that. I've been called to pastor the
church, but I can't do that. I mean, listen, it's hard enough
to pastor one church. Much less to oversee some universal
invisible body. Now, people are gonna say, well,
Pastor, you're being a little facetious there. You're being
a little sarcastic in that. Of course it's meaning a local
congregation there. There is no way that someone
can be an overseer of all the elect. That's not what it's talking
about. It's being the elect over the place where they're at. Okay,
well, that's the point that I'm trying to make. is that the church
is a local congregation and that pastors are given to local congregations,
that overseers are overseers of the local congregation, and
that the flock is the local congregation. Nowhere is it found that it's
anything else but that. But for you to say that it's
an invisible, universal thing, where do you make the distinction
when, here again, we're finding that it's a local congregation?
How do you know then in one verse that it's a universal thing and
in another verse it's a local thing? How are you going to make
that distinction? When it suits your fancy? When
it fits your theology? When it fits your doctrine that
you want? When it fits your circumstances? Or are we going to let God's
Word dictate to us what it means and then just let it say what
it says? One of the reasons that people get kind of riled up about
this is because it says, to feed the church of God, which he had
purchased with his own blood. And so the question arises, well,
wait a minute. You mean the church in Ephesus
was the only church that Christ died for? They was the only ones
that he died for? Well, no. What's true of the
church of Ephesus is true of every church. The church at Joplin,
Missouri, is it not true of everyone who is a child of grace here,
that Christ died for us. So just because you make that
distinction, let me see if I can illustrate that. I think I've
done that here before, okay? If you have, and we'll just use
this as a building here, and this is a local congregation
of people, okay? However many. Okay? The prerequisite to be a member
of a local congregation is that you must believe and be baptized. Okay? You must believe and be baptized.
Is that what they said in Acts? And those who gladly received
his word, they believed, were baptized and they were added
to the church. Okay? So believing baptized is
the prerequisite. Now, so what does, now I know
that there are gonna be people that are not believers, true
believers, and by mistake we may bring people in that has
not been scripturally baptized. Okay, there's gonna be that mistake,
that fault in humankind as we try to follow the rules of Christ
for us that we might not, because we can't see in the heart, right? And we can't follow up on every
baptism to see whether or not it's genuine from a true New
Testament church or not. You know, sometimes we have to
just, you know, let their conscience bear witness of that thing. And
eventually maybe the Holy Spirit will teach them as they come
along. But to the best of our knowledge, we at least can affirm
whether or not they've been immersed or not. If they've not been immersed
in, it doesn't matter what church that they were in, but if they
were immersed, then we'd try to find out what was the gospel
that was being believed that you were baptized under. If it
was an Arminian gospel, then your baptism was invalid because
that church didn't have any authority to baptize because it wasn't
a gospel preaching, gospel teaching, Church of Jesus Christ, holding
the doctrine of Christ. Believe and baptize. So these
people that are in here theoretically are made up of people who are
elect, right? Okay, so if Christ died for his
people, the elect of God, okay, so let's just put that out here
that all the people of the world from all time that Christ died
for, these people are a part of this
group, right? but yet these people have been
called out of this group into that. And so to say that Christ
died for the church is just as much true as saying that Christ
died for all the elect, because theoretically, the church is
the called out from the elect. So even though Christ died for
everybody who is his, the church is made up of the people that
are his. So it ain't saying something
different. It is, and to say that Christ
died for the church isn't excluding anybody that's not in here, that's
over here, okay? So that's another thing that
we've been trying to make very clear here. When we say that
somebody is not a part of the New Testament church, we are
not saying that then they're not an elect. That's not what
we're saying. They can be an elect, but not
in the church. See, the called out is not called
out of the world to be an elect, okay? It's not that. Because the called out is called
out to gather and to assemble for the purpose of conducting
the business of the kingdom. That's the called out. So ek
in the ekklesia, the ek meaning to call out, okay? That is this, not this. And so whenever we come to scriptures
like this where it says that he purchased, the church that
he purchased with his own blood, it doesn't have any effect on
these people still being the elect of God who also have been
redeemed of God, purchased with his blood. But brethren, this
is the church. And when Christ instituted the
church, and as we've seen in Acts chapter two, the understanding,
the direction of the church, even before Acts chapter two,
in Matthew chapter 28, in Acts chapter one, we see that the
direction of Christ for that very first church that he instituted,
and give all the doctrine, give all the practice, give all the
instruction in the Great Commission, what he told them to do and what
the norm was is to go make disciples, to baptize, and then to bring
them back and to teach them all things whatsoever. And we've
seen that in Acts, didn't we? We've seen that in Acts chapter
two, that the people believed, they were baptized, they were
added to the church, and then they continued in the apostles'
doctrine in the breaking of bread. So they continued in those things.
That's how it was perpetuated. That's how the gospel was perpetuated. The doctrine of Christ was perpetuated. That's how the church as an institution
was perpetuated. When Antioch came into existence,
how did that happen? Because believers from that first
church went somewhere else and was preaching the gospel, made
disciples. They gathered together, those
who began to believe and were baptized, gathered together.
And guess what? They became the church at Antioch. And the church at Antioch began
to do the same thing. They began to go and make disciples
and baptize and bring them back to the church at Antioch and
teach them all things whatsoever. And that is how the church has
perpetuated throughout the years. In every age, this has happened. And so that was the understood
norm, is that if you have been saved, you are given faith to
believe, you are baptized, and then you gather with the local
assembly. That was just understood. But
this whole thing today of all the elect just out scattered
wherever they want to be and not having to be this has become
so mainstream and norm because the teaching of the church has
been dropped, has been forgotten, has been neglected by many people. And I say a lot of that has to
do because of the a Protestant influence, especially back in
the 1650s, 1600s. The Protestant influences out
of that Reformation brought forth a belief system that this isn't
as important as this is, where Christ made a very clear emphasis
that if you are one of these, this is where your importance
lies. This is where your instruction lies. This is where your edification
lies. This is where your encouragement
lies. This is where your gifts are to be exercised. This is
where the gospel is to be heard and to be purported. So it's within the church, and
again, I quote my friend J.C. Fulton. He says, according to
the scripture, and if you look and I look, there is no other
life outside of church life for a Christian. There is nothing
else. Everything has a point of reference
that has to do with the church. Where do we come for worship?
We gather with the church. Where do we come for edification? We come for the church. Where
do we come for instruction? For the church. Where do we come
to work out problems between each other, brothers and sisters
in Christ? We come to the church. Where
do we exercise those gifts? We come to the church. I mean,
that's where Everything takes place and is sent out. Anybody who is sent out to be
an evangelist throughout the countries and wherever else,
guess what? It's from the church. They don't
just all of a sudden just one day out of this say, you know,
I think I'm called to do this and I'm just gonna go. No, this right here, every place
in scripture, you can't find me anywhere in scripture. And
I challenge, if anybody watching, anybody listening, can show me
where there was one person that was sent that was not ordained
within a church and sent from a church that went out to spread the gospel.
Everyone who was an ordained or that was a minister of Christ
that went out was sent by a local church and they had been previously
ordained by that local church, including Paul, including Barnabas.
Paul was an apostle. That was an office that Christ
put him in, yes. But Paul also was ordained by
an Antioch church and was sent by an Antioch church and reported
back to an Antioch church and was accountable to an Antioch
church. So even though he had the office
of apostle, which give him certain things that Christ had given
him over other people, other just regular pastors, Paul also recognized the submission
to the local church. He was not the pastor at Antioch.
Even though he was an apostle, he wasn't the pastor or the overseer
at Antioch. He wasn't over anybody in Antioch. other than what his apostolic
office was. And we may talk about that more
later on when we talk about the offices within the church. But
to be clear, this verse in verse 28, when it says that he had
made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he had purchased
with his own blood, that phrase, purchased with his own blood,
doesn't mean a universal church because Jesus died for all the
elect. Just because Jesus died for all the elect doesn't mean
that that doesn't mean a local church. Because as I pointed
out, the local church is made up of elect. And so what's true,
what you're saying is true of that, you're saying is true of
all the elect. Because that's what makes up
the local church. Anybody got any questions? Did I kind of make that as clear
as mud? Do you understand what I mean
by this right here? that you can say that Christ died for
all the elect and also say that Christ died for the church and
exclude those who are not in the church. It's not saying that
these people are not redeemed, okay? It's not saying that these
people weren't purchased with blood. What he's making is this
is his distinction. This is a church of God made
up of people that Christ purchased with his blood. This is a congregation
of disciples who are true believers in Christ who are the elect of
God. So Christ has made us overseers. And the other things you can
look at in this is the very fact that God makes us overseers,
those who are pastors, he makes us overseers of the church. I'm not the overseer of the VFW. I'm not the overseer of the funeral
home. I'm not the overseer of Watered
Gardens or Souls Harbor. You get what I'm talking about? For those who's not watching,
or who's watching, who don't know what I'm talking about,
Souls Harbor, Watered Gardens is homeless shelters here in
town and everything. Whenever I first came to Joplin,
I was approached by other preachers in town. and was told that I
have an obligation to take my turn down at Water Gardens and
Souls Harbor because I was an overseer, because I was a pastor.
To which I explained to them that I've been called to oversee
the Church of Jesus Christ in Joplin here, not to be the overseer
of Water Gardens or Souls Harbor. And that's not saying that I
don't think that we shouldn't go preach to people like that.
I'm not saying that. But my duties as a pastor is
for the church, not for everybody else. My office as pastor is
for the gathered congregation here. I'm not to be a counselor
for the world, to be a merrier of people of the world. I'm not
to be the funeral home chaplain who goes and preaches over everybody's
funerals. Now, I have no problem doing
that within the memberships of our church or with people that
we know and stuff like that. I don't have any problem with
that. But the pastor and the preacher of God, they're not
your utility person to call for funerals. You know, I remember going to a funeral one time,
I'll reserve any names or anything, but I remember going to a funeral
one time, and they had this chaplain on staff there, and he just,
he preached at whatever funeral come through the door. And we
was at this funeral, and we knew that the person that was there
wasn't a believer, but yet this guy preached that person into
heaven on how good they were, all this kind of stuff, and just
went on and on, and didn't even know the person. He just had
a few little tidbits of things that was given to him, an obituary,
and preached like that person he knew him all his life and
everything. See, that's not what a preacher of Christ, a preacher
of God, is called to do. It's not my job to go into the
funeral home and sit there and give last rites. That's Catholic,
that's what that is. So, if you look at this verse,
It says that we have been made overseers to feed the church. So pastors, there's no such thing
as these universal pastors. It's pastors to everybody. Now,
I understand I have guys that are friends with me that are
in other places that don't have churches to go to, and whenever
they call me and talk to me, sometimes they call me pastor,
okay? And I understand what they mean.
I understand what they say, and it doesn't offend me or anything.
But the truth be known is I'm really not your pastor. You might
consider me your pastor, but I'm not, because I'm the pastor
of the church in Joplin. That's where I'm the pastor at.
I'm not the pastor at Coweta, and I'm not the pastor. Now,
you can have respect for the office that I hold here. As the
Bible teaches, we are to respect those who the Lord has made overseers. We can have that respect, not
putting them on the pedestal of somebody who is better than
us by no means. I mean, you guys know me well
enough to know I'm not better than anybody else. You know,
I have my faults, my failures. It's only the office that Christ
has called me to. And so we might have the respect
for that office, but that doesn't mean that, you know, whenever
I go down to Choctaw or Tamina or somewhere like that where
they've asked me to come preach, They respect me as being a preacher
and being a pastor of a local church. They respect that. But I'm not their pastor, okay? They have a pastor. God's given
them a pastor. And so while you may respect
somebody in that regard, that doesn't mean they're necessarily
your pastor and everything. So in verse 28, we see this is
particularly in context of a local church, and it only can mean
a local church there. Look now with me, if you would,
into Romans. Let's go on into Romans. Romans chapter 16. Romans chapter 16, look at verse
one. Paul here writes to the church
in Rome and says, I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, which
is a servant of the church, which is at Centuria. Okay, so here
we see the word ecclesia is used in Romans 16 one. And the context
of the word, once again, is a local congregation, the church, which
is at Centuria. And what is Paul doing? He's
commending to the church at Rome. He's making a distinction between
two different churches. And he says, listen, Phoebe is
a servant at the church of Centuria, and she's coming to you, and
I commend her. to you. Now, how does that translate
down to what we understand today? Okay? Now, I'm not so much for
the traditions, you know. We've done this. I've done this.
People still try, you know, do this to some degree, even among
Sovereign Grace churches. But we have what we call a letter.
Whenever we become a member of a church, we call for the letter
from another Baptist Church, wherever they're from. And that
Baptist Church will send the letter because they were a member
of this church, and now they're seeking to be a member of this
church over here. And so the church calls the other
church to find out whether that member is in good standings with
that church. Are they truly shown evidence
of salvation? Have they been baptized? All
these things. And so we send a letter, but
what is that letter that we send, basically? What are we doing?
We're recommending that person. We're commending them to that
other church. Yes, we commend this member to
your care, to your edification, to your worship, to your servanthood,
your service. Why? Because they've been a member
of this church. They've shown that they are believers
in Christ. They've been baptized. and they've been an integral
part of the service and worship here at our church. And so we
command them to you to receive them as such among yourselves. Okay? So, you know, I don't,
I'm not hung up on actually sending letters back and forth anymore
like I used to be. If somebody wants to do that,
I don't have a problem with that. I don't think that there's anything
wrong with that. If you'd like to do that, then
that's fine and everything. But, We see here, this is where
that comes from. That's why Baptists have done
that, is because we find, and this isn't the only place in
Scripture where people are commended to another church, okay? And
we can see that in later studies if we come across that. But here,
we see that the term ekklesia is in a reference of one church
in Chicheria. in a letter that was written
to another local congregation, which was in Rome, okay? So the
term ekklesia here is used as a local congregation. Look at
verse four. Matter of fact, let's just keep
reading down through two. That ye receive her in the Lord as
becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business
she hath need of you, for she hath been a sucker of many, and
of myself also. Now, I just want to make a side
note here. You women are very important in the service of the
church. Here, Phoebe was a servant of the Church of Checherea. Paul
makes that clear. So obviously, her service was
noted by other believers. Whenever we go to churches for
Bible conferences and things like that, We see a lot of women
who are helping serve the church in whatever capacity the Lord
has them serving the church. And to recognize that and to
understand and know that they do have a part. I know some people
are so, we see extremes a lot of times. You either have the
extreme that women just run everything, run the church. They don't follow
the biblical mandates of scripture as it pertains to women in the
congregation. Or you go to the complete, and
total opposite end where everybody is just like the women are treated
like secondary citizens and they don't have any kind of voice
at all. Some churches I know believe
that women shouldn't vote in the church, that they shouldn't
sing in the church, that they shouldn't even sit in the main
congregation, that they should sit around the edges and all
that sort of stuff. But as we've seen already in
the acts that the women were part of the voting process, we've
seen that they were part of the discussions on that. Now, I do
believe that the men should lead in those discussions and that
the men are the leaders in the church. The Bible is very clear
about that. And especially whenever it comes
to the preaching and teaching within the church, that those
are the roles and responsibilities of the men that are called to
do so. But yet we still see the women
have great roles. And so women, we want to always
encourage you to be a servant of Christ and don't think that
your second class citizens because of the roles that God has given
you. Your roles are just as important to the integral workings of the
church. And as we see here, Phoebe was
such that even Paul said that she was a sucker for him and
for others. She was a great help to him.
It says, Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ. Well, here's
another lady. who Paul makes clear is a helper
to him, who aids him. But look at verse four, who have
for my life laid down their own necks unto whom not only I give
thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Now he uses
the plural here, churches, right? If church was a universal invisible
body made up of all believers everywhere, Why didn't he use
plural? Why didn't he say the church
of the Gentiles? Meaning wherever Gentiles are,
you're the church. But he didn't say that. He said
congregations. He distinctly meant that Priscilla
and Aquila have laid down their necks and the people that are
giving thanks to them are not only Paul, but also many churches,
congregations among the Gentiles. So what that tells me is that
Priscilla and Aquila served and helped and aided many churches
among the Gentile community. But again, the point being is
that the term church here is used plural because churches,
congregations, multiple congregations are plural but a universal body
is not plural. A universal body is singular,
but Paul uses ekklesia in its plural use to show that these
are churches, gathered congregations. So again, the next verse that
we come to is a verse that has in context local congregation,
not a universal body. Look at verse five, likewise,
Greet the church that is in their house. Okay? Greet the church that is
in their house. So not only does he make distinction
among the churches of the Gentiles, not only does he make distinction
of the church that is in Rome, Ciceria, other churches among
the Gentiles, but here he says that there is a church that meets,
that gathers in the house of Priscilla and Aquila. Greet the
church that is in their house. Salute my well-beloved Eponidas,
who is the firstfruits of Achaia under Christ. So do we believe that you can
be at church and meet in the house? Absolutely, we don't.
We don't... We don't look down on people
that meet in houses. This is where this church started,
right? If you don't believe me, ask the
person where it started. She's right here. Still right here. Amen. She's still right here. For as long as the Lord lets
me. Amen. See, the church is not a building. The church is not a place that
you go to that is some sort of a business place. The church
is the gathered assembly that God brings together in one locale. And whether it's in a home, or
whether it's in a rented building, or whether it's in a lean to,
whether you're meeting in somebody's house, a park pavilion, you know,
a Quonset hut, whether you're meeting in a construction trailer,
wherever you're meeting, it don't matter. What matters is that
you gather and that you follow the doctrine and practice of
the Lord Jesus Christ and his commission. That's what the church
is. So we don't have any problems with churches being in houses.
We firmly understand that that's true. Now, does that mean that
everybody that meets in houses is a church? No, not necessarily. Not necessarily. And listen, I want to say this
too. Just because you meet in a house,
don't make you a better church. Okay? Don't make you more biblical
than anybody else. Matter of fact, if you look through
the New Testament, especially in Acts, you'll find out that
yes, they did meet from house to house, but you know what?
The Bible also said that they met in the synagogues. They still
met in buildings. So don't look at people who come
to, and I've heard this term, you probably have too, who come
to brick and mortars as bad people, okay? Just because people gather
in a brick and mortar doesn't mean that they're not a church,
and just because somebody meets in a house don't mean that they're
a church. Okay? Likewise, greet the church that
is in their house. Salute my well-beloved, Ephanaus, who is
the firstfruits of Maccai. Look down at verse 16. Salute
one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute
you. Now, why didn't Paul say the
church of Christ? If church is a universal invisible
body, or a universal invisible thing, That if the church is
made up of everybody everywhere, why did he say churches? May
the churches of Christ. So for those people that want
to say, well, then you mean that Jesus has several bodies instead
of one body? The Bible says that he only has
one body. There's one body, one spirit, one Lord. Yes, there
is. Each congregation is one body. You know what that means? That
means we as a congregation function as one. Side note, that's one
of the reasons why I have a hard time with youth ministries, segregating
the congregation into age groups. See the very fact that churches,
whenever they come together and gather and assemble, and then
turn around and split into all these age groups, militates against that. Now, I grew up in Southern Baptist
Church, and we have a class for every age. We have a teacher
for every class. Whether they're called to God
or not, we're gonna find a teacher to fill that spot, okay? And if we can't, then we're gonna
browbeat them, over the pulpit or personally, you know, we've
got 15 classes to fill and only 12 people has volunteered. You
know, you guys aren't serving the Lord. See how we're grabbing
people into service when we should be serving the Lord with a cheerful
heart, when we should be led of the Lord to be doing these
things. Have we ever thought maybe that God doesn't want us
to have 15 classes of people broken up together instead of
being a gathered assembly. It's hard to gather whenever
you have the youth down here at this building. You have the
old people over here on this side of the church, the middle-aged
people over here on this side of the church, and those who
are undecided whether or not they wanna be adults or kids
over on this side of the church. That the youth have a pastor
of their own, doing their own thing, following their own ways,
and most of the time, it's so segregated from the church that
there's a division between them that whatever decisions are being
made, that the youth get upset because the church don't want
to go in that direction, and the old people get mad because
the youth don't want to go in this direction. That's called
schism. That's not called an ecclesia.
That's not a gathered assembly. That's not unity. And so that's
why I'm adamantly opposed. That's why my children have always, since we've left the Southern
Baptist, have always been in where we go. We take them with
us everywhere and we thank the Lord that there are churches
out there that see that and understand that the same spirit that speaks
to adults speaks to children. And that they don't have to have
special classes for children, children's churches and everything
like that to keep them occupied and all that stuff. But, not
to get off topic too far, Salute one another with a holy kiss.
The churches of Christ salute you. So again, we see that these are
speaking of particular congregations, not a universal body. Look at verse 23, and we'll take
a break here. Gaius, mine host and of the whole
church, saluteth you. Erastus, the chamberlain of the
city, saluteth you. and Cordus, a brother. So Gaius, who was the host of
Christ, or not the host of Christ, the host of Paul, and the whole
church there, saluted the church at Rome. And he named off a couple of
other brothers who were members there of the church. Again, so we see that this is
a called out, gathered assembly. It's a local assembly. It's not
a universal thing. So let's stop there and take
a break. We'll come back and look at a
few more verses.