Vol. XLI July2, 2009 No. 7

The Divine Pattern for the Lord’s Church (6)

The Mission and Message of

the Church of Christ

(continued)

by Tom McLemore

Having considered our Lord’s great commission as a foundational summary of the mission and message of the church of Christ, we shall conclude our study of this feature of the pattern by looking at a basic image for the church which was regularly employed by Paul, viz., the church as the body of Christ. (This imagery is found in 1 Corinthians 10:17; 11:29; 12:12-27; Ephesians 1:23; 2:16; 3:6; 4:12, 16; 5:23, 30; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:17, 19; 3:15. Great profit may be received from a careful and prayerful study of the passages in which Paul provides extensive discussion, viz., 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4). Perhaps there is no more enlightening and practical picture of Christ’s church accomplishing its mission and delivering its message than this imagery.

This imagery of the church as the body of Christ is basic and very informative for several reasons. First, it directs the attention of the church to the fact that we are the representatives of Christ in this world. In Acts 1:1-3, Luke describes what he reported in the first half of his two part story as follows: “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. To them he presented himself alive after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” This statement is extremely significant. Luke had written of what Jesus began to do and teach. A thoughtful reading of Acts shows that Luke intends for the church to be seen as continuing the work of Christ. The signal that Luke provides is the continual notation of things being accomplished in or by the name of Jesus. We are intended to see that Jesus did not conclude his activity when he ascended to heaven to sit at God’s right hand. He continues to work through his body, the church. Also highly significant is the fact that Luke describes his first part as a report of what Jesus began to do and teach. By this great observation the church is called to follow the precedent set by Jesus in his ministry. Peter, while inaugurating the Gentile mission by preaching the good news to the household of Cornelius, summarized the precedent thus: “...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). The mission of the body of Christ is to do good. The message of the body of Christ is the teaching that Jesus taught. Luke summarized this in Acts 1:3 as “the kingdom of God.” (We may profitably study the gospel of Luke to understand more about this idea. Fundamentally, it involves acting to promote the reign of God among human beings, doing whatever it is in our power to do to fulfill the will of God. As Jesus modeled this, it meant showing compassion and kindness in meeting the needs of others, especially those who are oppressed and suffering).

The order of the verbs in the phrase “to do and teach” is crucial for our understanding of the mission and message of the church. Both Jesus and Paul stressed the influence the church is to exert in the world through blameless living (Matthew 5:13; Philippians 2:15, 16). Blameless living of the message gives credibility to it. Jesus taught others to do what he himself had done. Time after time the church’s message has been discredited (Titus 2:5) by a failure on the part of Christians to practice what we preach (cf. Matthew 23:3).

On the matter of what we preach, several fundamental passages suggest that our message is the gospel of Christ crucified, the word of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, Son of God, and Judge, repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ, resurrection from the dead through Jesus, and the kingdom of God. (Note Acts 3:20; 4:2; 5:42; 8:4, 5, 12, 25, 35; 9:20; 10:36, 38, 42; 11:19, 20; 14:7, 21, 25; 15:35, 36; 16:10; 17:3, 18; 20:25; 28:31; Romans 1:15; 10: 8, 9, 15; 15:19; 16:25; 1 Corinthians 1:17, 18, 23; 9:14, 16; 15:1-12; 2 Corinthians 1:19; 2:12; 4:5; 10:14, 16; 11:4, 7; Galatians 1:8, 9, 11, 16; 2:2; 4:13; Ephesians 3:8; Philippians 1:15, 16, 18; Colossians 1:23, 28; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Timothy 3:16; 2 Timothy 4:2; Hebrews 4:2; 1 Peter 1:12, 25; 4:6; Revelation 14:6, et. al., with particular attention to 1 Corinthians 15:1-12; cf. Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46, 47).

This then, is the mission and message of the church of Christ. The modern church must evaluate itself in the light of this mission and message. The modern church must resist the pitfall of making itself its mission and message. We must avoid viewing the church as a business and its mission as being merely to keep the business solvent. When that happens, the message easily becomes a sales pitch for recruiting more people to support the business. The church ends up trying to sell itself rather than trying to communicate the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 4:5 Paul wrote, “For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.” Conspicuous by its absence is any report that the apostles urged anyone to become a member of the church. They preached the gospel, and when people believed, repented, and were baptized as per the commission, the Lord himself was adding them to his church (Acts 2:41, 47).

If the church does not understand its mission and message, when things are going well it is very easy to neglect preaching Christ to the lost and ministering to the needs of people. Too often the church, not having made ministry and reaching the lost its continuous mission, wakes up in panic and frantically seeks to stem the tide of decline by evangelistic efforts which, by then, it is no longer as well equipped to perform.

In our next installment, we will continue our study of New Testament descriptions of the church which indicate its mission and message. Meanwhile, as the body of Christ, this is our pattern, and when we fulfill it, the will of Christ (the head of the body) is fulfilled and he is pleased to dwell among us and to work with us and through us (Matthew 18:18-20; 28:18-20).

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