‘…And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.’  (Matthew 16:18)

This much-misunderstood verse follows Simon Peter’s profession of faith in Jesus as God the Son; the rock, the foundation of the church, is faith not Peter, even if Jesus blesses him for his profession.  Church then is simply the earthly host of like-minded believers. The Greek word translated ‘church’ is ἐκκλησίᾳ, ekklēsia from the prefix, ek ‘out, from and to’ and kaleo ‘to call’.  This was a common, secular word meaning an assembly, specifically that of a political party literally called out of their homes to assemble in the forum or agora, the market square.

Peter describes the church in this way:

(Those of Christ are…) a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  (1 Peter 2:9)

Whereas the modern English word for ‘church’ comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon circe (preserved as ‘kirk’, in Scotland) it derives from the Greek Kyriakon Doma, ‘House of the Lord’, yet ekklesia is a body of people set apart for God, not a building or an organisation.

The Law of Moses ordained elaborate rituals, the requirement of a priesthood, the specification of set times, days of the week and holy days, to be set aside for the Lord, a holy place, the Temple in Jerusalem, the need animal sacrifice on an industrial scale at the Temple and, although there was proselytisation of Gentiles, was given exclusively to the chosen nation, Israel.

In contrast, having fulfilled the Mosaic Law, Jesus requires very little by way of structure, ceremony and organisation of the church, in fact nothing other than faith; he does not even want that his followers should build it, this he reserves for himself, saying ‘I will build my church’.

So what did Jesus leave by way of instructions for the church?  His final word of the Great Commission covers the preservation and transmission of his teaching:

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:18-20)

Here are the elements of the Great Commission:

Authority: this is the setting of bounds; it specifies the limits but it does restrict liberty within those constraints. This is headship and Jesus is the head of the church, just as God is the head of Christ, so Jesus willingly submits to his Father.

Evangelism: to take the Gospel, the message of good news, to the stranger.

Baptism: immersion in water in the name of the Trinity is the induction rite of the church.

Teaching: the disciple has to teach the commandments and obedience to those commandments.  (We should note the Jesus’ simple model of discipleship does not really draw a distinction between evangelism, baptism and teaching.)

Herein is a simple transmission model, which is reiterated by Paul:

 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.  (2 Timothy 2:2)

Immanence: Jesus is present and must be so for the church to operate under his authority, as he says ‘For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’ (Matthew 18:20)

The above verse in Matthew is the only other occasion that the gospels record Jesus speaking about the church, here is the full passage:

‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.  But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will beloosed in heaven.

 ‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’  (ibid 18:15-20)

Here Jesus gives a simple model for exposing and binding sin, so the church is not infected.  Again Paul gives us an illustration speaking about a man who is unrepentant and flaunting a sinful sexual relationship with his step-mother; he tells the church of Corinth to:

…hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 5:5)

In other words to excommunicate him, as Jesus commanded. And why?:

…(to) get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch – as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.  (ibid 5:7-8)

Referring to the Passover custom when the house was purified and all yeast was destroyed, he is explaining that evil unchecked will infect the church.

This threefold method of dealing with sin within the body of believe is unique in that Jesus specifies for how his church should operates, yet it is roundly ignored.

So what constitutes church?  Simply meeting together – church is relational and needs at least one other person for Jesus to consecrate the meeting.  But the meeting is for a purpose, so the follower is equipped to disciple.  This from the writer of Hebrews:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23-25)

We have a picture of this in Acts, where the early church…

…devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people.  (Acts 2:42-47)

And it was in each other’s homes that the new believers kept the only other instruction, or ordination.  In addition to baptism, the only other specific instruction from Jesus was all remember him and gives thanks when breaking bread together.

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’

 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.  (Luke 22:19-20)

Therefore, all the above is sum total of ritual, rites, procedures and commandment for the church.  It is simple and not burdensome, transcending culture, easy to communicate and replicate.  Yet what does humanity do?  Complicate by addition and some subtraction, just as the Jews had brought legalism to the Law.

The first complication was the need for defined roles to break down and assign responsibilities given to each person by Jesus in the Great Commission.  Deacons, those who serve menially, were formed because the Apostles said:

‘It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables…’ (Acts 6:2)

And yet eleven of these twelve men (excluding Matthias, Judas’ replacement) were present when Jesus demonstrated the disciples need for servanthood by washing the feet of each of them, the lowliest task of all.  Moreover, it should not pass notice that it was one of these deacons, Stephen, not one of the Twelve, who was called by God to witness to the Greater Sanhedrin and become the first martyr of the church.

But what had caused this division?  The requirement for equality and social action.  As the early church, which was predominately Jewish, grew and became increasingly Gentile:

…the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.  (Acts 6:1)

Thus division characterised the church from its inception, and the main reason for this was not following the few instructions left by Jesus.  The early departure was to organise, here to administer the giving of alms.  Jesus left that to individuals.  Organisation is a prideful weakness of humanity which God recognised and thwarted at Babel (Genesis 11).  It is sometimes said that the curse of multiplying mutually incomprehensible languages is lifted at Pentecost when all the disciples found themselves speaking all the major tongues of the known world, but there is no conclusive proof that was the case.  Throughout history denominations had contrived to be ‘the’ church; moreover, many modern Christains believe that the church is there to fix the evils of the world.  Given the distinct lack of success, it suggests that God’s curse on humanity working co-operatively is very in place, and that altruistic church is suffering divine frustration.

Jesus is clear by what he says but also in what he does not say.  The world will not be fixed by any amount of worldly effort.  The aims of philanthropy and altruism even contradicts Jesus when he says the world ‘will always have the poor’ (Matthew 26:11).  Jesus expects that acts of kindness to flow from the act of loving one’s neighbour.  The eradication of ‘the poor’ is the preserve of politics not faith, and is therefore unGodly.

So the church organises around aims not given by Jesus, and call it ‘mission’; re-introduces priesthood – when all are priests under Jesus, the High Priest; specifies festivals and introduces a new Sabbath – when Jesus is the Sabbath; sanctifies buildings – when each believer is a temple to the Lord; constrains prayer to liturgy, when Jesus says to keep prayer simple, direct and personal; and, defines membership when all are invited to the Lord’s table.

Yet God in his mercy does not entirely thwart human attempts to organise the beautiful organism of which Jesus is head and his followers his body, here described to Corinth:

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:27)

And those in Rome:

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.  (Romans 12:4-5)

And to the Asians:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.  (Colossians 1:15-18)

Even though people have the audacity to create church hierarchy, God is merciful.  Reminiscent of Israel demanding a king and in doing so rejecting the Lord (1 Samuel 8), God granted models of leadership even though Jesus is the rightful head of the church.  Through Paul especially, there is much on church governance, such as the definition and qualification for eldership – but these are offered not required.  The dispensing and wielding of  power was never part of Jesus’ teaching – unless it was the power/ordinal inversion ‘the last will be first and the first last.’  Jesus teaches follow-ship not leadership.

The church in action is best illustrated in the Gospels when Jesus closely disciples twelve men, concentrating on just three if them.  Jesus never wrote a book, never had one place of worship (as an observant Jew he kept the Law and visited the Temple as required) and never left a constitution to gain and bring together followers.  Instead, he left his commandments and the Spirit to guide.  Yet his simple model of discipleship offends human sensibility, for why else has it been ‘improved upon’ and replaced.  Such is human pride, such the deficit of humility that has defined ‘churches’.

Critically, the church is a community founded on Christ, who is love.  Jesus says this to his disciples at the Last Supper, it is a commandment that he expects them to teach others to obey:

 ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’  (John 13:34-35)

The world will recognise this community because it makes selfless love, ἀγαπάω agapeo, the aim.  This is this more important than any organisation or structure as it will stand out against the backdrop of a human culture based on values of self-actualisation.  When churches structure themselves on the values of the world, they fail to stand out.  Ultimately there is no point to a church that mirrors the world; it is nothing of Christ, whom the world rejected.

There is but one church, those called out by Jesus and set aside to love God and all humanity;  the church is not manufactured but built by Jesus – all else is ephemera.