How the Church Works

Can you guess what my favorite television program was as a child? Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood! I appreciated how he spoke in a gentle, patient manner and focused on thoughtful, reassuring conversations. One of my favorite parts of the program was the occasional trip that he’d take to a factory or store to show how they did things or how certain things were made. In one episode, he went behind the scenes at a paper factory, in another episode a crayon factory, in another episode a shoe store, and in another episode a concert recital hall where Andre Watts was practicing at the piano.

These episodes helped me to understand the world around me. They encouraged my curiosity in the ordinary details of life and inspired a deeper appreciation for things I might normally have overlooked or taken for granted. They also accomplished something else – they gave me a better understanding of who I was and what my role was in the world. For instance, through some of the episodes I realized that I didn’t want to work in a factory or store! Yet the concert hall episode with Andre Watts inspired me deeply at 8 yrs. old. That one episode fueled my interest in playing the piano so deeply that its impressions carried with me through college, when I finally played the same piece that Andre had played – Schubert’s Moment Musicaux in F minor – for my undergrad senior recital.

In fact, that episode even played a part in how God helped me to discover my spiritual gift(s) and role in the church. As a music minor in college, I taught piano lessons and directed some choirs as part of my training. This eventually led to me overseeing the piano program for a private Christian academy, and through these experiences, I discovered a special enjoyment in teaching. This opened further opportunities for me to teach theology and biblical languages in a private Christian college for nearly a decade, which eventually led to a desire and opportunity to serve as a pastor.

Now that I’m speaking about the church, let me attempt to do what Mr. Rogers did for me at a crayon factory and the concert hall. Let’s go behind the scenes to see how the church works. In this message, we can’t possibly explore everything there is to know about the church. So, let’s focus on what Paul says in Eph 4:11-16. As we listen, ask yourself this one simple question, “Am I doing my part to make the church work as well as possible?”

“Am I doing my part to make the church work as well as possible?”

There are many views and opinions on how the church works, how it’s organized or not organized for instance.

• On one end of the spectrum, we have people who view the church as a hyper-organized machine. Roman Catholicism (which isn’t genuine Christianity) is one such example, with its global, hierarchical system organized under the pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, dioceses, parishes, etc.). This is not a biblical arrangement.
• On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who view the church as an unorganized arrangement with no real structure or roles. Some with this view encourage gatherings in homes led by the father of the family, while others gather in groups in which all the men serve as de-facto pastors and teachers, with no defined leadership roles. Some people even believe that they have no obligation to belong to any particular church but can simply attend whichever church they want at any given time without committing to or serving in any one of them. This is also not a biblical view.

As we learned in Eph 4:7-10, Christ finalized his victory over sin, death, and the spiritual realm by resurrecting from the dead and ascending to the throne heaven. After this, he shared the spoils of victory with all who believe on him by giving us all spiritual gifts through the Holy Spirit within us. Ever since then, believers have been gathering together as multiple, devoted congregations throughout the world, putting their gifts to use for Christ. The church at Ephesus, to whom Paul wrote this letter, was one such example.

So, as Christ gives spiritual gifts to believers, does he send them away to do as they please and find their own way? Is it “each for his own,” or does he have a plan for building up his church? Let’s look at the special way God has arranged for the church to function.

Christ has assigned some believers to equip the rest (Eph 4:11-12).

Christ not only gives every believer spiritual gifting to serve in the church, but he also gives some people as gifts to the church, too. The way Paul explains it, when a man serves in the church as a pastor, he doesn’t have the “gift of pastoring.” Instead, he is God’s gift to the church.

This list of the kinds of people who are gifts to the church includes four main categories which we should understand in two groups. The first group is apostles and prophets. Besides mentioning this pair of gifts here (Eph 4:11), Paul also mentions them earlier in Eph 2:20. There he describes them as “foundation” gifts. So, if we think about the church like a building, as Paul describes it in this letter, then these were people God gave to the church when the church started in the first century. They “laid the foundation” upon which the church continues to be built.

How did they give the church its foundation? According to Eph 3:5, they provided direct revelation from God that churches needed to know, the doctrine and teaching that was necessary for the church to remain strong and grow for centuries to come. A major difference between apostles and prophets was that apostles had been sent directly by Christ and several of them wrote down revelation in the Bible for us today. Prophets also received revelation but weren’t sent out by Jesus directly and didn’t necessarily write their revelation down as Scripture. They spoke when NT Scripture was not yet available.

From a biblical standpoint, no apostles and prophets are serving the church today. We have what we need in the Bible and receive no more revelation from God. If anyone claims to provide revelation from God, they are mistaken, and anyone else who calls themselves an apostle or prophet is misunderstanding what these roles actually entail.

The second two roles are evangelists and pastor-teachers. Both these roles are ongoing, not first-century only. Evangelists (the word means “gospel preacher”) are men who are leaders in getting out the gospel, who have evangelism as their number one priority. Though all believers should be evangelistic (be witnesses), only some are evangelists (divinely delegated witnessers). When men like this are functioning in this role, not only do they lead people to Christ, but they help others do the same. They’re also effective as front-end missionaries who starting new churches.

Acts 21:8 tells us that a man named Phillip was an evangelist. This is the same man known for preaching the gospel in many cities of Israel and Samaria after Pentecost. He is especially known for witnessing to a government official from Ethiopia and baptizing him (Acts 8:4-40). It also appears that Timothy served as an evangelist (2 Tim 4:8).

Pastor-teachers (the word pastor means “shepherd”) are men devoted to caring for the church as a shepherd cares for a flock of sheep. Whereas an evangelist is outward focused, a pastor is inward-focused. Whereas an evangelist is devoted to bringing in more people to the church, the pastor is devoted to building up the people who are in the church already.

The way the Greek grammar functions here emphasizes that teaching is the primary way that a pastor fulfills his role. He shepherds the church through teaching. Though every believer should be able to teach the Scriptures in some capacity (1 Tim 5:12), not all are assigned by Christ to devote their lives to this task as a primary focus (1 Tim 3:2; 2 Tim 2:24), nor should they endeavor to do so (Jam 3:1).

In all four of these roles, notice the common emphasis on the Word of God. Apostles provided us with the Word of God. Prophets spoke the Word of God. Evangelists present the gospel from the Word of God as the apostles and prophets have given it to us. Pastors teach believers from the Word of God that’s written in the Scriptures. Through these four roles, God “equips the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph 4:12).

Equip means to train, furnish completely, prepare. The idea is that every believer receives spiritual gifts from Christ, but Christ also gives believers in churches certain people to help them through the Word of God to develop and put their gifts of grace into action for the good of the church and the glory of God.

Here’s how the apostles and prophets (through what they’ve given in NT Scripture) and evangelists and pastors (through their ongoing outreach and teaching of NT Scripture) should impact our lives. We can translate Eph 4:12 this way: “to prepare believers so that they [the believers] can do the work of service and can strengthen the body.”

• Each believer has a responsibility given by Christ to “do the work of service.” This refers to varying tasks and acts of service that Christ has enabled each one of us to do as we each learn to meet various needs and fulfill assigned roles in the church.
• Each believer also must do their part in strengthening the body of Christ. While “edifying” can refer to increasing the numeric size of a church (“outreach”), here it emphasizes increasing the moral, spiritual strength of its members.

A key takeaway here is that all believers and every member of a church should be active and involved. We should be served by one another and serving one another at the same time. And through the ministry of apostles and prophets (the NT Scripture) and evangelists and pastors, God equips the other believers to get involved and become more effective. As believers in the church, we should do more than attend. We should all be engaged in active service. Are you? How are you strengthening your church?

All church members should pursue three goals together (Eph 4:13-16).

What is the reason for getting involved as believers who are members of Christ’s church? Paul outlines three basic goals we should all have in mind. We should all aim to be an active part of achieving these spiritual goals in an increasing, more effective way in the church. Are you doing your part to make these goals a reality?

We should pursue unity around the doctrine and virtues of Christ (Eph 4:13).

“Till 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.”

Here Paul refers to unity that’s based upon the foundational doctrine of the Christian faith. By unity, he is referring to being “unified” or “one.” He is speaking about solidarity as a spiritual group. And what is the basis for this solidarity and oneness? It’s not a shared culture, ethnicity, political party, economic status, social class, or favorite sports teams or hobbies. It’s a unity based upon the truth about Christ, the Son of God, and his teachings.

The goal here is that we grow closer to one another day by day, yet not just in our social friendship, but most especially in knowledge about who Jesus is and how we can be more like him. On one hand, this means that we each need to know more about Christ and become more like him as individuals. At the same time, it means that we need to learn more about Christ together – we learn and grow and become more mature and complete as a church, not just as individuals.

To learn all there is to learn about Christ and become more like Christ as we should, we cannot do it alone. We need the input and contributions of the whole church family. I need you, you need me, and we all need we, to become as much like Christ as we can be. Spiritual growth and maturity (“growing up”) is not an isolated, individual endeavor. It’s a group thing, a church thing. We must do it together. We learn more about Christ and learn to be more like him together as a church, not alone. That’s why it’s incredibly (essentially) important to be a faithful participant in your church’s teaching and serving ministries.

We should protect each other from disturbing and deceptive teachings (Eph 4:14).

“That 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.”

According to Paul, we all have a role to play in helping one another move on from child-level Christianity. What he’s talking about here is growing out of childish misunderstandings about Christ and the Christian life. One example of this might be the childish perspective that the Christian life guarantees a better, easier, more comfortable life. There are plenty of books and teachers that will promote this kind of perspective, but it’s wrong. We have a mutual obligation to one another to help each other have a more mature, endurance-oriented view towards suffering, just as Christ himself showed us. Legalism (or “rule-based, performance-based”) Christian living is another childish misunderstanding that we need to help each other overcome, even though there’s a lot of teaching out there which encourages the opposite.

Paul describes the kinds of teachings we should protect one another against as being like the choppy, turbulent, chaotic waters of the ocean which come at a ship from every direction and seem quite uncontrollable. He also describes them as winds that blow here and there, coming and going from day to day, year to year, and generation to generation. In real life, these dangers are not from the natural world though, they come from people who teach things in tricky ways, using deceptive strategies and methods, just as many politicians do to pass their bills and push their agendas.

We should build a loving, supportive community (Eph 4:15-16).

“But, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is the head—Christ—from 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.”

As we endeavor to protect one another from false, distracting, and hurtful teachings that can pull us in, we need to do so in an atmosphere of Christlike love. Notice this clear emphasis as Paul says “in love” at the beginning of v.15 and the end of v.16, like bookends to this thought. In fact, he mentions “love” 14 times in 19 verses in this entire letter and “in love” 6 of those times. For example:

• “With all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love” (Eph 4:2).
• “Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us” (Eph 5:2).

As a church, we can have all the right doctrine and be able to point out all the wrong teachings that are out there, and we can be the busiest church in the city doing gospel outreaches, giving money, and doing church ministries more than any other church, but if we don’t do this in an atmosphere of selfless, Christ-like love, it’s no good. In fact, it actually undermines everything else that we do, like mold that gets into a building because it makes our members more vulnerable to false teachings. That’s why it should be our goal to work together in such a way that we come to understand the doctrine and live out the virtues of Christ more and more – but in an atmosphere of Christian love.

Jesus emphasized this very truth in his teaching to the first disciples and the apostles upon which the church was built:

• “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

• “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:20-23).

So, from what Paul teaches us here, we can see that every believer has a vital role to play in the church, just as every part of your body has a vital role to play in your personal health and functions of life.

Christ is the head of our church and the church in the whole world. He has given every church at least one or more evangelists or pastors to equip the members to do various kinds of services that strengthen the church. So, the goal is that all of us become more and more unified in the doctrine of Christ and our reflection of Christian character. This should come about as a result of all of us participating to make it possible. Together we should protect one another from deceptive, wrong teachings, and fostering a growing atmosphere of support and love.

If we don’t each participate, then our church becomes “handicapped” to a degree and deficient. It also makes our church more susceptible to false teachings and stunted in our spiritual growth and becoming more like Christ.

As we wrap up this study today, let me ask, “Are you doing your part to make Faith Baptist a place that knows more about Christ and lives more like him? That’s safe from false, deceptive teachings, and that is a supportive, loving community centered on Christ?”

In the week ahead, let me encourage us to step out of our comfort zones to do things that accomplish these goals. Make phone calls, meet needs, and be a proactive participant in building up our church. In this time of self-isolation, let’s increase our participation and cooperation. Let’s not wait to gather to be involved in one another’s lives. Now more than ever we need to experience the supportive love of Christian brothers and sisters that guards us against false teaching and helps us become more like Christ. Just because we can’t gather together in person doesn’t mean that God has put these functions on pause. They keep one going and may be needed even more. This is how the church works.

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Thomas Overmiller serves as pastor for Faith Baptist Church in Corona, NY and blogs at Shepherd Thoughts. This article first appeared at Shepherd Thoughts, used here with permission.