The only way to get in the church is to know Somebody.

The Word for today:
1 Timothy 4:6-16

1 Timothy and 2 Timothy and Titus – known as the “Pastoral Epistles” – are all about the church:

Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. (3:14-15)

As we read the New Testament, we can be confused by the phrase “the church” until we understand that sometimes “the church” is used to describe --

1. the visible “church,” which Jesus said would contain both “wheat and tares (weeds)" -- believers and unbelievers mixed together:
The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. (Matthew 13:24-25)

And sometimes “the church” is used to describe --

2. the true church—which is 100% “wheat:”
You have come to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood. (from Hebrews 12:22-24)

The Visible Church -- Wheat and Weeds

People in the visible church are there for all kinds of different reasons:

Cultural “Christians” are there because people are innately religious. So, if the surrounding culture is considered “Christian,” the innately religious person finds his way into a building beneath a steeple topped by a cross. But that same person, were he in another culture, would just as surely find his way into a building beneath a minaret--because he's religious and that's where religious people go, don't ya know.

I get the feeling all the time that I'm in the midst of cultural Christians who have never encountered the unique Son of God, the Christ of the Bible. (Or maybe they have and I haven't--but whichever way it goes, we are not on the same page!)

A ritual “Christian” is just going through the motions, because he doesn't know any better. He doesn't know any better because he was never taught any better. His church did not teach him the saving gospel as proclaimed in scripture, so he is lost for lack of knowledge. Listen as Paul stresses the crucial significance of correct doctrine:
Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you. (1 Timothy 4:16; cf. 1 Timothy 1:3)

This rote, ritual “Christian” represents the saddest case of all. He might have responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ, but no one ever clearly expressed it to him. He unwittingly let “the church”-- not the Word of God -- speak for God.

A third group of tares is there for “personal” reasons that are all about other people. Joe Seek-her attends because dreamy Debbie the Christian chick invited him. John the insurance salesman knows that contacts are good for business. The couple who live down the street think their kids should get some religion.

The True Church—Whole Wheat

The true church, collectively known as the body of Christ (1), is found within the visible church--just as the believing remnant (“true Israel”) was within “national Israel,”

for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. (Romans 9:6)

Every person in the true church is there because he or she knows Somebody! Evangelists call it “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” It means you know a person—not a concept, or a statue, or a philosophy, or a theology, or a creed, or a code of conduct. And it means that He knows you.

That’s why two or three  --sitting on a bench in the park, gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and redeemed by His blood -- fulfill the Scriptural definition of the true church. (Matthew 18:20)

And that’s why two or three thousand -- gathered together in a lavish sanctuary, under a splendid steeple topped by a shimmering cross -- may or may not fulfill the Scriptural definition of a true church. (Matthew 18:20).

If “church” to you means a steeple and people, a building and a meet-and-greet, then I would steal one of their Bibles and head straight for the park.  I would sit there, alone, until I wasn’t alone anymore.

And I would never go back to church until I brought Someone with me.

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(1) see Ephesians 1:22-23