Weekly Devotional 8-12-24 The Purpose of The Church
In His first advent Jesus chose eleven men through whom He would establish His church (Matthew 16:18). He commissioned them to go throughout the world teaching and baptizing those whom He would add to their number (Matthew 28:19-20). Small groups of believers were brought together by their endeavors and these groups came to be known as local assemblies, local churches. Dr. Luke’s letter to his friend Theophilus, (aka, the book called “The Acts of The Apostles”), informed him and us how this small band of men grew to hundreds of thousands. In that it was the Lord’s plan that His church would continue past the lifetime of those original eleven apostles, He made provision that His church would be nourished. We read of that provision from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians,
“7But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore He says: ‘When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.’9(Now this, ‘He ascended’—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) 11And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:7-16).
We read from verse 11 that He (Jesus—the Risen Lord), “gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers”. From verse 12 were read of His purpose in this supplying, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” And from verses 13-16 we read of what He intended , that they, we, “13 all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Much of the organized church (so called) of today has gotten away from the Lord’s purpose of maturing the saints toward other endeavors. But, according to the passages above, other endeavors, whatever they may be, should be secondary to the equipping of the saints.
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