CHURCH MEMBERSHIP (5)

The church is God’s household. 1 Timothy 3.15

First and fundamentally, the church is the people of God; not just a random group of people assembled together, but God’s household . The church is a family with God as our Father. Now, a family is not an institution or organisation held in place by charters and rules. A family is relational. Its members share the same blood! A family is dynamic and living, able to adapt to circumstances. A good family is conversational, full of talk, advice, sympathy, correction and comfort. A family values experience, paying attention to its more experienced members and raising up its younger members to behave well. So it is with God’s family, the church. We are not joined together around an external programme or set of rules; we are joined together by blood. We share the life of Christ spiritually. Like a family tree Christ is the vine and we are the branches. The same juice runs in us all. We share the same Spirit.

Secondly, the church belongs to the living God. It is not a man-centred or man-ordered organisation. God is its reason for existence and it exists to fulfil his purposes. God has not handed over his church to men to run as they please. God has appointed Jesus Christ to be head of the church and he speaks his word into it to correct and train it.

2 Timothy 3.14-17 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.