The Church is God’s Idea, Part II
In an earlier blog we saw that the Great Commission and the Church began at the same time – on the Day of Pentecost. But not only did the Church and Great Commission begin at the same time, they also move forward together. In fact, without the Church, there is no mission.
Pentecost Was Only the Beginning
We see the identification of the advance of the Great Commission with the progress of the church in the structure of the Book of Acts. Luke’s account makes it clear that the apostles understood the Great Commission as centered on the church. The Bible Knowledge Commentary has correctly outline d Acts according to this understanding:
The outline of this study is the result of using two keys in Acts. The first and most obvious one is the theme verse, Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
The second key is the use Luke makes of “progress reports” which are sprinkled throughout the book (cf. 2:47; 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20; 28:30-31) …
The beautiful correlation of these two factors — the key verse of Acts 1:8 and the seven progress reports—form the basis of the … outline [of Acts].
Luke’s declares his intention to chronicle the expansion of the Great Commission at the outset (Acts 1:8). The “progress reports” make it clear that the advance of the Mission is co-extensive with the progress of the church. For instance, the report in 9:31 says “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.” Likewise, 16:5 states, “So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.” Again, 19:20 informs us that, “In this way [Paul’s missionary journeys] the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”
Paul’s Resumé
Of course, the central figure God used to carry the gospel to “the ends of the earth” was the apostle Paul. At his spectacular conversion found in Acts 9:15, the Lord says of Paul, “[He] is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles.” In Ephesians 3:9 Paul tells us that his job description included another important component: “To make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God…”. Paul identified the “mystery” a few verses earlier in 3:6: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body [the church], and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” (cf. also Colossians 1:24-26).
The word translated administration is sometimes translated dispensation (KJV). It is a translation of the Greek word oikonomos which is a compound of two words meaning literally “house order”. In Ephesians 3:2 Paul refers to this age as “the administration of God’s grace”. For this reason, pastors often speak of the “age of grace” or “church age”. The phrase signifies that God has now, in this dispensation, arranged His plan around the church. In the words of Paul in Ephesians 3:10, “[God’s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known…”.
What was Paul’s strategy for fulfilling his two-fold job description? From Luke’s account of Paul’s activities in Acts as well as Paul’s letters to the churches, we see that the multiplication and strengthening of local churches was at the heart of his ministry. A careful study of “the Pauline cycle”1 as given in Acts 13-20 reveals that Paul developed an intentional strategy that centered upon the establishment of a church in a population center which, in turn, could reach out to other communities. For instance, during their first missionary journey (see Acts 13-14), Paul and Barnabas followed a clear plan: after their commissioning by their home church in Antioch of Syria, they planted a new church in Antioch of Pisidia, from which they were able to reach out to neighboring cities to establish other churches in Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Paul followed the same pattern during his next missionary journey (Acts 16-18). On this occasion he planted the “mother church” in Ephesus which commissioned a trained disciple (Epaphras, see Colossians 1:7) to establish churches in Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. In each of these examples, Paul or a trained fellow worker 1) communicated the gospel, 2) organized congregations, 3) taught them doctrine, 4) helped them appoint pastors, and 5) checked back on their progress. The result was always an autonomous local church.
Paul’s epistles are, in large part, a response to the reports he received because of checking back on the churches’ progress. So, for instance, he wrote to the church at Corinth to correct errors reported to him (see 1 Corinthians 1:11; 7:1). Thus, the bulk of the New Testament, from the Great Commission, through the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, centers on the advance of the church. Therefore, David Hesselgrave has rightly said:
The primary mission of the Church, and, therefore, of the churches is to proclaim the gospel of Christ and gather believers into local [visible] churches where they can be built up in the faith and made effective in service, thereby planting new congregations throughout the world.2
Since the Bible clearly teaches that the church is central to God’s plan for this age, as followers of Christ we must each ask ourselves whether we are arranging our lives around the mission of the Church, or fitting the Church into the schedule of our lives. If we want to please our Lord, His priorities must be ours as well. He has centered His plan on His Church so let us center our lives on it also.
Ken Brown is the pastor of Community Bible Church in Trenton, MI. We republish his article by permission.
Photo by Peter Dlhy on Unsplash