Scripture reveals the existence of God without doubt. There is a clear need of understanding of the concept of the Church, first we need to consider what it is not and what it is. The church is not a continuation of the Old Testament. While there is a connection between the saints of all ages [Jn.10:16, Rom.16:24], there are people of God throughout various ages. Christianity is not New Wine poure
d in old wine skins rather is new in new wine skins, [Matt.9:19] the church is not a continuation of the old system because Israel and the church are not in familiar terms. Paul distinguishes between the Jews, Gentile and the church, [1Cor.10:32] Paul speaks of the Church as one new man, [Eph.2:15, Col.3:11] composed of believing Jews and believing gentiles. The church is not a continuation of a synagogue, though there are similarities between them, there are also differences.
[Matt.16:18] Jesus said I will build my church; this could not be a synagogue because synagogue already existed. When the apostles preached in the synagogue their message was evangelistic, calling for repentance and faith. The people from the synagogue who believed formed the local bodies of believers apart from the synagogue, when the church began the believers initially met in the temple and not in the synagogue. The church is not a denomination
We often speak of various denominations of churches but the term church does not occur in the scriptures. Some of the denominations claim to be the only true church but the word of God warns us about such denominations. [1Cor.1:11-17] There may be many denominations, but there is only one true universal church, all the redeemed of this age are members of this one spiritual body. The church is considered in two sections the Universal sense and the Local sense. In the Universal sense the church consists of all those who in this age are born of the spirit of God and have by the same spirit be baptized into the body of Christ –the word ecclesia in Greek simply means called out people and it is referred at least 100 times in the Old Testament. The English word church comes from the Greek word Kuriacos which means belonging to the lord. [1Cor.11:20, Rev.1:10] the secondary definition of church means called out of the world and belonging to the lord, the church is also called the building of God. [1Cor.3:19, 6:16, Eph.2:20-22, 1Tim.3:15] Christ is the corner stone of this building [Matt.16:18, 1Cor.3:11, 1Pt.2:6] and dwells in it by his spirit. [1Cor.3:16, 6:19] the believers perform priestly service in the temple [Heb.3:15, 1Pt.2:9, Rev.2:6] it is also called the body of Christ [Rom.12:4, 1Cor.12:27, Eph.1:22, 3:6, 4:4, 5:23-30, 12:16, Col.1:18, 1:24, 2:19, 13:15] it is also called the bride of Christ. [2Cor.11:2, Eph.5:24-32] as a bride of Christ the church is to be faithful to Christ. [Jms.4:4]Prepare for the wedding ceremony. [Rev.19:7] to be married some day to Christ.[Jn.3:29] and to reign with him [Rev.19:6-20, 20:6], other figures used as wine. [Jn.15:1-5, Heb.13:20, 1Pt.2:25]
In the Local sense the word Church is used as in the group of the professed believers in any one locality, thus we read of the church in Jerusalem [Acts.8:1, 11:22], in Ephesus [Acts.20:17], Cenchreae [Rom.16:1],in Corinth [1Cor.1:2, 2Cor.1:1], we read of the church of Laodicea [Col.4:16], and we read of the church of Thessalonians [1Thes.1:1, 2Thes.1:1] sometime the term is in plural as in the churches of Galatia. [Gal.1:2, of Judea. 1Thes.2:14] of Asia [Rev.1:4].
