The Church Member

Understanding Your Place in the Body of Christ

Wellman

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781621895770
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Church Member is written as a handbook. It is a collection of exegetical studies on strategic passages that cover the biblical expectations for those who profess Jesus Christ. It provides sound interpretation to some of the most controversial issues in the church today such as baptism, the Lord's Supper, worship through music, and church leadership. While it is written from a Southern Baptist perspective, this book is the result of experiences from a variety of other denominations. It captures what the Scriptures teach regarding membership in a church and ultimately reveal that church is more than something a believer does; it is something he is. If you are interested in understanding your place in the body of Christ, this book is for you!

1

Be the Church

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “church?” Is it a building with a steeple, pews, and stained-glass windows? Is it a service with three songs, an offering, and a sermon? Maybe it’s something less tangible such as the feelings of boredom, hurt, or anger.

Church means many different things to many different people. One often-overlooked thought when it comes to defining church, however, is “people.” For most of us, when we think of church we think of the three P’s—a place (the building), a plan (the order of service), or a passion (our emotions)—but rarely, if ever, about the “p” that matters most, which is “people.” When we define church without people, however, we ignore the very essence of what it means to “be the church.” An individual cannot “be the church” alone because church inherently means “people” (plural), not “person” (singular). Hebrews 10:25 says not to forsake the assembling “together” as is the habit of some. This means that true church cannot happen alone on your couch. In order for the church member to be the church, he should assemble together with other like-minded believers.

This affirms that while the place, the plan, and one’s passions are all part of church, they fail to capture how the Bible describes the church. Consider Paul’s commission to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:28: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood.”1 Paul describes the church as something that was bought with the blood of Christ. Jesus did not buy a place, a plan, or a passion with his blood. He bought people.

Paul likewise describes the church in his letters to the Romans, Corinthians, Colossians, and Ephesians. He describes it as consisting of people making up a body. Just like a person has a body with many parts, each person makes up different parts of the body of Christ:

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. (Rom 12:4–5).

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ . . . whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it (1 Cor 12:12, 24–26).

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Col 3:15–16).

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:19–22).

Each of these passages speaks of people. The message here is that one cannot talk about church without talking about people. In light of this, it is important to know and see what this looks like practically, and there is no passage in the Bible that captures this better than Acts 2:40–47.2 This passage not only describes people as comprising the church, but it describes what it looks like when people, in a covenant community, act like the church, therefore encompassing what it means for the church’s members to “be the church!” The passage provides at least seven ways this is possible.

Exhortation

“And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, ‘Be saved from this perverse generation!’” (Acts 2:40).

In 1938 a film was released entitled The Sword and the Stone, portraying how a young boy named Wart became the great King Arthur.

The film begins in sixth-century England when the country was grieving the loss of their king, Uther Pendragon. Uther does not leave an heir to his throne, and without a king it seems that the land will soon be plagued with war. Suddenly, a mysterious sword appears trapped tightly within a stone with an inscription stating, “Whoso Pulleth Out This Sword of this Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of England.” For years no man was successful in pulling out the sword, and it soon became an afterthought.

Years later, a twelve-year-old orphan named Wart is introduced, training to be a squire. He eventually becomes the squire for his foster brother, Kay, who is elected to fight in a jousting tournament. It is declared that the winner of the tournament will become the next king of England. When Wart and Kay arrive at the tournament, Wart realizes that he has left Kay’s sword back at the inn, which has since closed for the evening. In a nearby churchyard, however, Wart notices an abandoned sword in a stone and pulls it out effortlessly, unwittingly fulfilling the prophecy. When Wart brings the sword to the tournament, a few individuals recognize it as the sword in the stone. They ask Wart to put it back in the stone to prove that he was the one who pulled it out. When he does, the sky grows bright and miracles begin appearing in England. The surrounding knights proclaim, “Hail! Long Live the King!”

Young Wart was called to be something great, but it took him a while to realize it. He was not fulfilling his potential because he didn’t realize who he was created to be. This concept can be applied to the church. Followers of Jesus are called to do more than just go to church—we are to actually be the church, and unless we realize this we will never meet our full potential.

Becoming the church is summarized in Acts 2:40 when Peter exhorts the crowd to “be saved.” He later uses the term “living stone” to illustrate that building a church means building people (1 Pet 2:5). This means that to become “a living stone” of the church, one must be saved, and being saved is initiated through the exhortation of the gospel.

Luke’s record of Peter’s exhortation begins in Acts 2:14 and extends to verse thirty-nine, although it is evident from verse forty that this is only a portion of Peter’s message (“and with many other words . . .”). It is a sermon based on Joel 2:28–32 that also gleans from Psalm 16:8–11 and 110. The message focuses on the death, resurrection, and lordship of Jesus Christ. It is a message that “pierced” the audience “to the heart” so that they couldn’t help but respond by asking, “What shall we do?” Peter instructed them to “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38).

The overarching idea is that Peter exhorted the people to fulfill what they were created to be: A child of God through the salvation of Jesus Christ. This advances the thought that in order to be a “living stone” in the Lord’s house, one must first be saved. An unsaved person, while having the ability to visit the place of church, participate in the plan of church, and even have passions about church, is in actuality not experiencing the fullness of church. In order to be saved, and therefore become the church, one must accept the message that Peter pronounced in Acts 2.

The text says Peter “exhorted” his audience to accept his message. This word essentially means that he “pleaded with them.” This is because Peter realized what they were created to be. He knew that if they would accept Jesus as the Messiah that it would unlock great potential for each and every one of them, and they could literally change the world. This much is seen in the life of Paul. Although he had a prosperous life prior to his relationship with Jesus, it wasn’t until after his experience on the road to Damascus that he became what he was created to be. Drawing an analogy from our story, he went from being a squire to a king, and people who give their lives to Jesus can too. Colossians 1:13 captures this thought: “Fo...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Be the Church
• Chapter 2: Be Saved
• Chapter 3: Be Baptized
• Chapter 4: Take the Lord’s Supper
• Chapter 5: Give
• Chapter 6: Sing
• Chapter 7: Study the Bible
• Chapter 8: Pray and Fast
• Chapter 9: Be Missional
• Chapter 10: Respect Pastoral Leadership
• Chapter 11: Build Others Up
• Chapter 12: Go to Church
• Bibliography