The Church - Why Bother Studying It?

There is a tragically interesting situation in western Christian culture right now, and it is this: an increasing number of people who are not only leaving the church, but who are leaving behind any religious affiliation whatsoever. They have grown tired of religion in general (at least as they understand it) and they no longer want to be connected to it or with it in anyway. And so they are departing. This group has come to be labelled as the nones; those who belong to nothing; those who are no longer identified with any organized religion.

The nones are on a staggering rise. Today, for every one person that had no religious affiliation and now does, four people leave the church and become a none. Just between 2007 and 2014, while Christianity in America was declining, the number of nones rose literally by millions. The largest portion of them were millennials (22–37-year-olds), but it wasn’t limited to just that demographic. The rise also included baby boomers and those in generation X. In other words, the nones were and are crossing all generational boundaries.

At the same time that this exodus of nones is occurring, there is also this group who wants to continue to embrace Jesus and to identify as Christians but like the nones, they don’t want the church. They argue, and maybe rightly at times, that the Christian church has become politicized by agendas and sides and has been infiltrated by televangelist like preachers seeking to make gains off the backs of religion and religious people. The only way forward is to liberate themselves from the church and get back to the simplicity of Jesus and His Word. No creeds; no traditions; no buildings; no religiously infused positions; just Jesus.

Add to that this group as well: those who identify as Christians and who are remaining as participants in and of the church but who don’t see it is as a primary priority or necessity for the Christian life. They are the products of an individualistic age and culture, where there is a primacy of the individual over and above the corporate, where everything is about personal freedoms, personal experiences, self-interest and self-help. To them (which is probably all of us to some degree), church is great if you want it, but it’s a voluntary choice. In the list of priorities, church comes after one’s personal experience and relationship with Jesus.

Don’t we see this priority of the individual even in our evangelism? We say everything about making a decision for Jesus and almost nothing about being incorporated into a church, because that’s secondary to the personal experience and ultimately optional.

The Situation

So here we are then. We have professing nones leaving the church; professing Christians leaving the church and professing Christians staying in the church but not seeing its importance. All of that tells me that we need not to develop more strategic programs to attract people and keep them, but rather to develop and share a right theological understanding of the church. We need people who understand what they are apart, or what they are being invited into. I am convinced that if we could see the church even a sliver of how God sees it, we wouldn’t run from it no matter how hurt or offended we got.

Did you know that in all the areas of theological study over the last two-thousand years, one of the least studied areas or subjects has been the church? Scholars speak of ecclesiology (the study of the church) as being in its “pre-theological phase.” And it shows, doesn’t it? We don’t know if the church is a building, a service or a group of people. We are not sure where a bible study stops being a bible study and becomes a church. We don’t want to be members of the church because that doesn’t seem right to us. Still, many of us are dedicated Sunday attenders, unless there is a special event. On snowy days many make statements like, “Church for is on the ski hill.” One group says the primary function of the church is worship, while another group says its social justice. When it comes to understanding the church, we are so confused!

If you go to a Christian bookstore today you will find lots of writing on the church, but almost all of it will be practical: how to plant a church; how to attract people to church; how to lead a church; how to be a missional church. There is a big concern for how to do church and a seemingly little concern for understanding it biblically. That means for the average Christian and maybe even the average pastor, there is little biblical knowledge of who and what the church truly is according to God’s Word. This makes it very easy to not care about the church, and very hard to promote the church. It makes it very easy for the church to become whatever humans think it should be, and very hard to see when it has actually stopped being a biblical church.

The Hope

All of that to say, in this short series I want to ask the theological questions: What is the church? What is its mission? What is its structure? Etc. And I want to look to the Bible for the answers to those questions. My hope is that, God willing, by the end of this little mini-series you will not simply have more knowledge about the church but will have a new and invigorating love for God and His church, as well as an unrelenting desire and conviction to be a part of it. Whatever category you land in right now in your relationship with and opinion of the Christian church, I pray that you will come to see it as Christ sees it, as something beautiful and essential.

Momentary Affliction

One of our key tactics as humans for enduring times of suffering is thinking about that suffering in terms of its duration. Before the dentist jabs his patient’s gums with a needle, he says, “This will only hurt for a moment.” The sleep deprived parents of newborn twins tell one another, “This is just a season.” The coach encourages his straining, sweating athletes by yelling, “Keep going, your almost done! Your almost there!” There is something powerful about knowing that something is not forever and that there is an end in sight. It just gives you an ability to endure things that are hard to endure. You can find a motivation to get to the finish line because you know that then there will be a level of relief once you cross it.

In 2 Corinthians, when the apostle Paul speaks of suffering for Jesus’ sake, he calls it this: “Light momentary affliction” (2 Cor 4.17). He goes on to say some extraordinary things directly after this phrase, unpacking what he means by it, though I would like to pay attention just to that phrase itself for a moment and specifically to the word ‘momentary.’

It is clear from his letter to the Corinthians that Paul is undergoing a lot of pain for the Gospel. He writes things like, “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor 1.8), and “We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4.11). And yet incredibly, he endures. He writes, only a few verses later, “So we do not lose heart” (2 Cor 4.16). But how? How does he not lose heart? How does Paul endure so joyfully?

At least one answer is that he interprets his suffering in terms of its duration. He understands that it is momentary. Now to that you might rightfully say, “How is it momentary Paul? It seems to be nonstop.” To which I think the apostle Paul would say, “It is momentary compared to eternity.”

Imagine if there was waiting for you an unending and infinite time of relief. And not just relief but an infinite time of infinite joy. An eternity of worshipping the One worthy of worship. An eternity of knowing the One you were created to know. An eternity of dwelling in the presence of the almighty God. What is a lifetime compared to an eternity? It’s a moment. More than that, what is a lifetime of suffering compared to an eternity of joy? It’s a moment.

Even if the rest of Paul’s human life was to be unrelenting pain and suffering for the sake of the Gospel, he understood that compared to the relief that was coming for him, that pain and suffering was momentary. Compared to eternity, it would be over in a flash.

The reality for Christians today is the same as it was for Paul, that there really is waiting for us after the race is over an eternity of infinite joy in the presence of our Creator. Which means that no matter what we suffer in this life for the sake of Christ; no matter how long it goes on for, what was true of Paul’s suffering is true of ours as well: that in comparison to eternity, it is momentary.

It is light momentary affliction that is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

This will only hurt for a moment. Its just a season. Keep going, your almost done! Your almost there! So do not lose heart.

Reasons to Praise

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night” (Psalm 92.1-2).

My simple question is this: Why? Why is it good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to His name and to declare His steadfast love? Of course it is good for God the receiver, to be on the receiving end of thanksgiving, praise and declaration, but the idea here is that it is also good for the giver. So again, I ask, why?

I think Charles Spurgeon sums it up nicely. He writes in his commentary on the Psalms, “It is good ethically, for it is the Lord’s right; it is good emotionally, for it is pleasant to the heart; it is good practically, for it leads to others to render the same homage.”

Take each one of those.

The Lord’s Right

It is good because it is the Lord’s right, or to say it another way, He is worthy of it. When something is worthy of praise, it is an offence to not give it the praise it is due. To talk to your neighbour while the New York Philharmonic plays Beethoven’s 9th Symphony; to make jokes in front Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son; it is borderline blasphemy. How much more blasphemous to not give praise to the God of the universe; the good, omniscient, omnipresent, all wise, all satisfying, reigning, ruling King; the one so glorious that no human can see His face without crumpling up like a piece of paper and dying; the one so magnificent that His very presence sent the prophet Isaiah into calling down judgment upon himself, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6.5)?

It is good to give Him thanks, to praise Him, to declare His goodness, because it is good to give God what God is due. We ought to praise Him night and day because He is worthy of praise, because He just is that great. Really the question should be, how could we not give Him praise?

As the multitudes in Revelation sing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5.12)

Pleasant to the Heart

It is good because it is pleasant to the heart. In other words, it is good to do because it is good to do what we were created to do.

Since He is worthy of all adoration, of all praise, thanksgiving, and declaration, and since we are the creations of a God who is worthy of all of that, it is no surprise that we were created to give it. We were created to glorify God. Isaiah 43.7 puts it like this, “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory.” Now everyone knows how good it feels to do things that you were created to do. Humans were created to run, that’s why it feels good to run. We were created to enjoy food, and that is why it feels good to enjoy good food. If we were created first and foremost for the glory of God, then it is going to feel simply incredible to give glory to the God who created us. At the same time, it is going to feel empty and wanting to live a life that does not give Him glory, that does not live in the role we were created to fill. And isn’t that something we have all experienced at some point? The emptiness of self glorification?

All that to say, our hearts rejoice when we give glory and honour to God because it is what our hearts were made for. It is sweet to give glory to God.

Practically Good

And it is good because it leads others to do the same thing.

Hopefully as Christians we desire for all men and women everywhere to honour and rejoice in God. Well, the simple truth is that most people are followers. They tend to wait to do things until they see others doing them too. That doesn’t necessarily take away from the genuineness of the action, its just how humans usually operate. There might be a whole swath of people who know deep down that God deserves their praise, their thanksgiving and their declaration, but it is not until they see and hear others directing it all to God that they are driven to turn and to do it as well.

That should be enough reason in itself to want to praise God, to want to direct all our thanks to Him and declare His goodness, because we know that as we do it that others will do it as well. This one raises the question though of where. Where do we do this so that others are exposed to it? Are we supposed to stand in the streets and praise Him? Based on Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount, I don’t think so. Instead I think it takes place as we speak in ways and live our lives in ways that give all glory and honour and power to God. As our lives direct all praise to Him then people around us will take notice, and, God willing, will direct their praise to Him as well.

I am sure the reasons could go on, but Spurgeon gives us a good place to start. For at least these three reasons, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night” (Psalm 92.1-2).