지역 교회 local church 럭크만

[남대문고씨]

What is a Church?

The first local church in the Bible had eight members. The word itself means "a called-out assembly" (ἐκκλησία, ecclesia), so the first real church in the Bible is Noah and his family. They are called "out" of a world system that is under the condemnation and wrath of God. This fixes the meaning of the term. A local church that is not called OUT (negative) to be ISOLATED (negative) and SEPARATED (negative) from the world system (κόσμος, kosmos) in which it finds itself is NOT a Biblical organization. "Involvement" in "community projects" and "needs" in the "con- temporary dialogue between the church and the world," as the Christian community "reaches out to touch" the problems of a "pluralistic society," have nothing to do with anything in either Testament; they have to do with Karl Marx.

"Liberation Theology" doesn't liberate anyone from anything according to Jesus Christ (John 8:20- 40), and the idea of a church battling "social injus- tices" for the "ethnic community," where the "oppressed masses" need "equal rights," is as far removed from the Biblical idea of a church as Jim Jones's church in Frisco-which, by the way, was always TOTALLY INVOLVED in all federal, local, ecumenical, and news media projects; he had every state and federal license required for every religious activity known to man.

The "church" is an assembly of people called OUT from the world system to testify to something. Noah was called out to testify that his age was about to be
drowned. He was "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Pet. 2:5). He had seven converts.

The next church in the Bible is Abraham and his kinfolk. Originally, he was not called out as an assembly; he was told to go alone, but his relatives went with him. He was called out to testify to the fact that Babel was Babel, and the moon and sun worship of ancient Babylon, which deified Semiramis and Nimrod, was of the devil. "Allah" was the Arab's moon god.

The next church in the Bible is called "a church," It is called "the church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38), and obviously refers to the nation of Israel. Israel is called out of the world system (Egypt) to testify to the truth that there is one living and one true God who is the Creator and Sustainer of men, and that this God is HOLY and will not tolerate sin. Israel is a local church with about two million members. How would you like to have that "record enrollment" in Sunday School with an associate who builds golden calves, a deacon board that falls into hell alive, and a membership that gripes and complains for forty years?

Do you want to learn about the "pastorate"? Well, Moses is called a shepherd (pastor) in Isaiah 63:11, in charge of a flock. The New Testament church's "problems" will be found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Everything is there: dissension among the brethren, criticism of the pastor's wife (Num. 12), complaining about the pastor being absent (Exod. 32), running out of material supplies, being attacked in the rear (Exod. 18), false brethren inside trying to take over the leadership (Num. 15-16), God killing your members, the pastor backsliding, requests for carnal programs for the young people, a desire to return to the vorld system, lack of faith and trust in the leader, etc. Moses took two million members out of the "con
vention." Try it sometime with one-hundredth that number!

The next called-out assembly is called out in Matthew 10. One of the members turns out to be an infidel (Thomas), one cusses and swears before unsaved people (Peter), and the treasurer of the church is a devil (Ju- das; John 6). It is this local church that is the embryo for the Body of Christ, which is later formed after Pentecost. It has an unsaved man in it. It is NOT "the body of Christ" whose members "are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones" (Eph. 5).

That Body has no unsaved people in it, and that Body is entered by the New Birth, which is not even present in Matthew 10 when the local church is called out. All the members of this first "called-out assembly" in the New Testament are circumcised, Sabbath- observing, temple-attending, pork-abstaining Jews. John is not in the Bride of Christ. John the Baptist, says that he is the "friend of the bridegroom," not the Bride, and John says that his baptism is not a "figure" of the believer's identification with Christ (1 Pet. 3) but is only "to manifest" Jesus Christ to Israel (John 1:31).

This is where the "Baptist Briders" exit. They think the Baptist church began with John the Baptist and the Baptist local church is the Bride of Christ. To get this strange Catholic-Campbellite interpretation, they alter the meaning of the Greek word ἐν ("en") in 1 Corinthians 12:13, and by refusing to translate it in the instrumental case-they mistranslated it in the locative case-they convert Spirit baptism (Eph. 4) to water baptism, just like their Campbellite adversaries do. (This explains all of the "debating" that goes on in Kentucky and Texas between Baptist Briders (Landmarkers) and Campbellites (Water Dogs).

"The church of the Lord Jesus Christ" was a local
By Dr Peter S Ruckman to be continued