What Is The Work Of The Church?
Millions of dollars are being spent to build/support student centers, church lodges, swimming pools, fishing ponds, youth retreats, homes for unwed mothers, hospitals, recreation youth centers, gymnasiums; sponsoring talent shows, youth banquets, boy scout troops; or support colleges and other institutions for various reasons from the church treasuries.
Are such things really the work of the church? Where is the Biblical authority for supporting such works? Surely the Lord’s church needs to be hard at work, but at God’s work, not man’s. What is the work of the church?
The apostle Paul revealed the work of the church in writing to the Ephesian brethren:
And He gave some {as} apostles, and some {as} prophets, and some {as} evangelists, and some {as} pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. –Eph 4:11-13 NAS
Notice that Paul speaks of, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” The “work of service” involves help in the spiritual realm. “Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you without charge? I robbed other churches, taking wages {from them} to serve you” (2 Cor 11:7-8 NAS). The church can preach the gospel to anyone. In fact, preaching the Gospel to the lost is a primary function of the Lord’s body (Matt. 28:18-20; Phil. 4:15-16).
The word “service” also includes physical help (2 Cor. 9:1). However, since the Lord’s kingdom is spiritual in nature, strict regulations are revealed concerning its physical service, the relieving of the needs of the poor, sick and infirm. The local church has neither the obligation nor the authority to do all that individual Christians may do in relieving the needy (cf. I Tim. 5:16). We must remember that the church is primarily a spiritual institution performing a spiritual function (Jno. 18:36; I Tim. 5:16). The pattern of New Testament authority for local churches to relieve the needy limits the church to helping Christians (Acts 2:44-45; 11:27-30; 2 Cor. 8:1-4). In fact, the only one who is to be enrolled as a permanent charge of the church is the “widow indeed” (I Tim. 5:3, 9-10). Never did the New Testament church use handouts, gifts, or bribes to attract people (Jno. 6:26-27).
The word “service” also includes the edification of Christians. This is the work of teaching the word of God so that Christians may grow and develop into mature Christians as the writer of Hebrews wrote:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes {only} of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. –Heb 5:12-14 NAS
This can only be accomplished through the teaching of the word of God.
Although the New Testament plainly reveals a pattern for the work of the church, a blueprint of activities that will cause the church to grow and prosper spiritually, many churches have completely abandoned this divine plan for humanly devised schemes of church functions. The Social Gospel concept (the idea that the needs of the whole man are the work of the church) has replaced the blueprint given by God for the growth of His church. That is the reason for churches being engaged in all of the things mentioned in the first paragraph of this article and many other things as well.
Paul rebuked the Corinthians for confusing social issues with the worship and work of the church. Notice his statement:
Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. –1 Cor 11:20-22 NAS
For the church to furnish entertainment or facilities for entertainment is for the church to assume a role that God never authorized. That this is an activity of the home is evident by Paul’s censure of the church in Corinth. It is not the purpose of the Lord’s church to provide social activities.
The social function of the church is that assumed by the theory of modernism, which attempts to change the church from its original form and function into a social agency. The Lord gave it no such function, so that what the church shall be in any place today depends upon the attitude of its members, whether they shall be directed by modernism or the Lord. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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 observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:18-20 NAS). Nothing may be taught or practiced except that which Jesus authorizes.
It is well for churches of the Lord to remember that the church has a spiritual function and is not a glorified provider for all of the physical desires of people. Let the church be the church and leave the physical desires of people to the various institutions set up for such. The legitimate role and divine function of the church must not be prostituted to perform lawless efforts.
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