Where’s your “church?”

Tradition provides that we might worship together in specific locations, having different congregations to choose from. And indeed, those different congregations are a license for us to agree to disagree about what the Bible says.

But what does the Bible actually teach us about our “churches?”

First of all, that Jesus Christ was never on record referring to His disciples as the “church,” but rather as His ἐκκλησία [ê-klā-see’-uh]. This word is defined in the Greek lexicons as a congregation, assembly, or a gathering of religious, political, or unofficial groups. It’s a derivative of the Greek preposition ἐκ [êk], meaning “from, or from out of,” and  κλῆσις [klā’-sîs], a noun which means “a calling.”

In a general sense, ἐκκλησία can simply mean a gathered group. But the context in which Jesus used it was very specific. He spoke of it in a way that leaves the reader no semantical latitude. When He said ἐκκλησία, He defined a group He calls out from the world, that is, those He expects to set themselves apart from it.

He said to Simon, the son of John:

“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I shall build My assembly [ἐκκλησία], and the gates of the grave shall not overpower it.” [Matt. 16:18] [my emphasis]

Many of the Greek lexicons have added the word “church” to the list of meanings of ἐκκλησία over the centuries, which explains why the two words are used interchangeably today. But I think it’s important to understand that the English word “church” originated with the Greek adjective κυριακός [cûr-î-ô-kôs’], and means “belonging to a lord [or a master].” And if you care to trace this word’s Germanic and Gothic morphology over the past two millennia, you can recognize its generic nuance and why it’s not synonymous with Jesus Christ’s ἐκκλησία. It’s used only twice in the New Testament: [1Cor. 11:20 and Rev. 1:10] and refers to our Lord’s “supper” and “day,” respectively—not an assembly.

So, κυριακός could describe the condition of belonging to any “lord” or master regardless of the presence or type of any religious affiliation.

What’s also remarkable though is that the realm of civil authority is another dimension that the term ἐκκλησία carries with it according to the Scriptures. Read Ac. 19:35-41. The speaker, the town clerk of Ephesus, used the same word twice to describe a legislative body.

So Christ’s ἐκκλησία is called out not just to sanctify itself, but also to govern in His behalf!.

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on His shoulders.” [Isa. 9:6a]

Men are always fighting wars.

But they didn’t invent them. God did. And I think the Bible explains why.

The first man, Adam, allowed himself to be overcome by the sin of disobedience. His wife, Eve, was deceived first, then he followed suit. Nevertheless, it was him God told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before the first woman even existed. [Gen. 2:15-17]

So it happened on his watch, not her’s.

As a result, God charged Adam and his male descendants with the responsibility of waging war against every form of evil imaginable over the last 6000 years. He let it happen, so God dropped the task of dealing with it back in his lap.

Perhaps the first indication of the Lord’s mandate for men to make war against evil occurred when He told Cain that his toughest battle was gonna be conquering his own wicked heart:

“…sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” [Gen. 4:7]

So when we consider the role of a righteous warrior, we should regard him a savior as well. And Jesus Christ is our paradigm:

“…the one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” [1Jn. 3:8] [my emphasis]

[σωτήρ: (sō-tair’) savior, redeemer, deliverer]

But the godly warrior’s battles aren’t limited to dispensing justice on foreign soil or defending territory. By reflecting the character of Jesus Himself, he puts on the whole armor of God, and wields his most lethal weapon in the face of evil—that is, his sword of the Spirit delivered by the power of the written Word. [Heb. 4:12-13] Not only that, his constant prayers are administered as a standing line of defense surrounding his stronghold in the midst of the fray.

Combat training is essential. Biblical literacy is his weapon of choice, and he never goes to war without it.

His toughest battle isn’t to liberate and protect the weak of the world around him. It’s the same one Cain failed to accomplish. He can’t save the world if he can’t save himself.

A wise man once noted that the godly savior both slays the lion with his hands and cradles the lamb in his arms. The ungodly warrior is often a thug, having no such capacity to demonstrate Christ’s character.

The righteous savior is confident in the outcome of God’s war. He fears nothing or no one.

But he fights with his tongue first, then his sword.

My forehead’s important. So’s yours.

Not because it keeps my brains from falling out. It’s also a billboard in a prime location. It can either remind me about something or proclaim to the world who or what I am or who I belong to.

But don’t take my word for it.

The Lord God instructed to His firstborn Israel exactly how they should remember what He told them:

“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.” [Deut. 6:6-8] [my emphasis]

What’s interesting here is that the ancient Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint actually records this noun “frontals” [which means head band in Hebrew] as the phrase “ἔσται ἀσάλευτον πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν σου.”

Literally, it means: “it shall be immovable before your eyes.”

In the days of old, a forehead was integral to the memory of God’s people. But, in the future, it will surely define me more than remind me.

In the apostle John’s Revelation from the Lord’s messenger, He testifies to hearing a list read of those bondservants of God having already been “sealed” with His name upon their foreheads. [Rev. 7:4-8] But later on in the text, he describes an horrendous vision revealed to him at the sounding of the fifth messenger’s trumpet:

“Then out of the smoke [coming out of the bottomless pit] came locusts upon the earth, and power was given [to] them, [the same way] as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were told not to do harm to the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only to the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. [Yet] they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man. And in those days men will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death flees from them.” [Rev. 9:3-6] [my emphasis]

This passage forces me to consider what it actually means for me to be “sealed” with the Holy Spirit of promise. The apostle Paul assures those having believed the message of truth to be sealed in Christ, suggesting them to be a form of proprietary possession in His behalf. [see: Eph. 1:13-14]

[σφραγίζω: (sfrâ-gî’-zō) to seal, secure with a seal, mark with a seal, set apart by a seal, affix to be true, acknowledge, prove; Strong’s #5381: to put a mark on an object to show possession, authority, identity, or security]

Where, then, am I wearing that seal—that is, His proof of ownership?

Does the world see it clearly now demonstrated through my words and actions? Is it immovable?

Will the locusts be able to see it when they start flying?

We’re always looking for the red horns and trident.

The problem is, wickedness commonly reveals itself incrementally, disguised in innocence, and concealed behind a neutral pretense. As a result, the Great Deceiver is able to methodically obscure the focus of many of Jesus Christ’s disciples in their daily battle to resist his tactics.

But we don’t have to fall for it.

In his letter to the church of God which [was] at Corinth with all the saints who [were] throughout Achaia, the apostle Paul confirmed just how diverse Satan’s techniques can be:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but powerful in God for the destruction of strongholds [so that] arguments are being dismantled along with every lofty [thing] raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive [in order] to maintain the obedience of Christ…” [2Cor. 10:3-5] [my emphasis]

[ὕψωμα: (hoop-sō-mâ) height; stronghold or proud obstacle]

The list of things being raised up against the knowledge of God today is endless. But Satan would have me believe that the important conflicts are limited to what he’s made very evident to the world. However, these obvious struggles seem to serve as distractions, able to help conceal a more crucial battle being fought on another front.

And that battle, the battle of relevance, is supreme in it’s ability to render Jesus Christ’s disciples weak and fruitless.

Because the goal of “lofty” knowledge is to somehow convince me that striving to live in obedience to Christ’s commands isn’t actually necessary at all, but instead irrelevant to being His disciple. Yet Jesus told His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” [Jn. 14:15]

[Why I should be concerned about being obedient to Christ’s commands: Steering Clear of ‘That Place.’]

So if I can be pursuaded that, because I’m living under His grace and therefore shouldn’t really be expected to obey His commandments, then the deception of irrelevance has prevailed. My captive thoughts would be insignificant, no longer needing to be contained and analyzed from a true Biblical perspective.

Yeah, but I’d still be a Christian. Right?

Voila! says the Evil One.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” [Eph. 6:12]

Feeling left out normally isn’t a pleasant experience.

But maturity tends to soften the blow by providing a more realistic perspective of a situation. Exclusion isn’t only something we learn to deal with. It often just becomes irrelevant.

But one thing is certain, the relationships we do choose to develop are sustained by reciprocity.

If they’re not, then they usually go south at some point, because the ground rules of healthy relationships are commonly established at their beginnings. For example, Jesus Christ insisted that His disciples help perfect the mutual nature of their relationship with Him. He said to them:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one who is doing the will of My Father who is in the heavens [shall enter]. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I shall confess to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me—you who are practicing lawlessness’” [Matt. 7: 21-23] [my emphasis]

γινώσκω: (gî-nōse-kō), have knowledge of, find out, learn, understand, perceive, discern, to have knowledge acknowledge, recognize, be very certain, remember

ἀνομία: (â’-nô-mîâ) wickedness, lawlessness, sin

Jesus demanded that my walk with Him take place on the same path that He’s on.

I can claim to know Christ, proclaiming everything He said. It might sound credible to the world, but if my words and actions don’t resonate with the Spirit Himself [see: Rom. 8:16], then perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised “on that day.”

If I didn’t practice what I preached, He’s gonna know about it.

He’s gonna know all about me for sure.

But He’s not gonna know me.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.” [Matt. 7:24]

When asked what he’s done to live a healthy life into his nineties, Clint Eastwood once quipped:

“I get up every morning and I don’t let the old man in.”

This sounds like a great mental strategy to help impede the normal process of metabolic aging. If I don’t let him near me, he can’t rub off on me. And I’d be a better man for it—or maybe just an older one.

Because while longevity is an inherent objective, it can be pointless trying to achieve it as a natural man. That man is more of a threat to me than some dude with a sickle and hoodie:

“…a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. He cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” [1Cor. 2:14] [my emphasis]

He’s the old man I’m determined not to let in.

The apostle Paul wouldn’t let him back in either. In his letter to “all who [were] beloved of God in Rome, called as saints, he confirms that the faithful regenerate man—that is, the one who continues to walks in newness of life, has shed the old sinful temperament [or “old man”] that once controlled him:

“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall also be of the resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, because he who has died is freed from sin.” [Rom. 6:4-7] [my emphasis]

[ἄνθρωπος: (ân’-throw-pôs) man, people, mankind, person]

That old man tries to find his way back in my life once in a while. But I’m every bit as confident about my struggle as Clint is about his—actually more so, because his battle is all his to fight.

But not mine.

Because whenever I think I could lose a battle, I remember that Jesus Christ has already won the war. So if I can keep my old man down in his grave, I can rest assured I’ll be raised from mine someday.

Can you say that Clint?

“Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him…” [Rom. 6:8]

Any suggestion that gender can be exchanged or re-formulated breaches the limits of sanity.

Everyone in his right mind knows this. As a logical, moral people, we know we shouldn’t even be having conversations about something so preposterous. The real issue, then, is that not everyone is in his right mind.

[How do people become callused to God’s truth? see: Rom. 1:18-32]

Fortunately, this isn’t just my opinion. Gender is actually a Biblical concept. That means God first created sexual distinction and then He defined the differences. These differences didn’t emerge randomly or evolve over a period of time.

For this reason, gender cannot be correctly understood or applied outside of a Scriptural context. In the International Council on Gender Studies’ publication, Five Aspects of Man, the groundwork upon which transgenderism is built can be described from a Biblical perspective:

It is “…the direct result of feminism and homosexuality built on the foundational sins of idolatry and autonomy.”

If a man doesn’t understand why God created him, then he’s going to build his life around something other than Him by creating idols for himself. The result is that everything and everyone connected to his Biblically mandated authority and guardianship begins to fall apart.

Because a wife and children are responders, they learn to reject the husband’s/father’s authority in the same way that he rejects God’s authority. And so begins the cycle of delusion and depravity—a generational devaluation of the created order which was originally proclaimed to be “good.”

And while autonomy isn’t always a bad dog, the context here suggests an attitude completely free from external control or influence—something clearly incompatible with being a disciple of Jesus Christ. The result is that autonomous behavior simply becomes a warm-up act, setting the stage for just about any form of decadence to perform.

Sexual deviance is now a rockstar singing its final song. With razor edges, it’s shredding the remaining remnant of a great moral fabric under which free people once shrouded themselves.

How long will we allow the show to go on?

It’s a real heart-breaker.

Some might recall a popular catchphrase of the 70’s: “Hey man, WWJD?” It was an acronym for “What would Jesus do?”

Though it was seriously overworked, it was often an effective means of administering either encouragement or shame. It eventually became versatile enough to be used solemnly or with levity. The interesting thing was that sometimes it actually worked.

After all, Jesus Christ was a paradigm of integrity for His people, wasn’t He?

But I used to wonder how anyone could retain his dignity and allow himself to be humiliated and tortured at the same time. Common sense seems to suggest that integrity not worth defending can hardly be considered to exist in the first place.

So what did Jesus do?

He offered Himself up for slaughter yet maintained the dignity He deserved. But did He accomplish this simply because He was God—being the only One able to legitimately execute this particular task of Biblical prophecy and, as a result, live again to tell about it?

If that were true, what would’ve been the point?

I believe He chose to suffer as a man for more reasons than I can understand. But I’m also convinced that, by suffering as a result of true obedience, He demonstrated the essence of dignity rather than absence of it.

I can even conclude that, if my integrity isn’t in tact, then perhaps my ability to obey is compromised as well.

But then, I could strive to be like the Person of Jesus.

Though He suffered pain like any other man would, He chose not to focus on it. As a man, He had the capacity to hate those persecuting Him because it was unjust. But He chose not to.

The things He did—or didn’t do, weren’t necessarily a model for me to follow in every circumstance.

But His reasons were. And His choices paid for my freedom to make the right ones.

That’s what Jesus did.

I’d like to think I’ve been the one who chose what I did with my life.

But when I look back, that’s not completely true. Just like everybody else, I have specific needs, desires, skills and talents. So, it follows that I’ve learned to focus on the things which sustain me—the skills and talents.

The thing is, I had to discover some of the things I can do well.

Because I didn’t know I could do them until that happened. When I was a kid, I knew that I had predominant gross motor skills. I realized that by comparing what I did with others. As a result, I chose to develop my talents and profit from it.

But, eventually, the Lord got my attention. I often say that He took hold of me by the ears and wouldn’t let go. That made it impossible to unhear what He said. And I’m grateful that I couldn’t because He showed me that I could do His work in ways I never imagined.

I also learned not to waste any time getting started. [see: Matt. 25:14-46]

His gifts to me were extraordinary—precious gems hidden in plan sight, revealed to me as spiritual capital, waiting to be invested for His purposes. From then on, I began to sow my seeds in a different field.

The irony of finding and developing spiritual gifts is that we often don’t become aware of them until we’re mature enough to develop them in a way that glorifies God.

But then, there’s a joy that accompanies authentic servanthood—the same joy that fueled the hearts of Abraham, Moses and the prophets Samuel and Isaiah:

“Here I am, Lord!”

So, leave no stone unturned seeking the gifts God has prepared for you. They don’t always fall in your lap. Define them, and seek to perfect them. Prepare yourself by honing the skills you already have and sharpening your tools. Then all you need to do is show up.

I guarantee He’ll put you to work.