Most religious people believe that man can worship God just about however he wants. It seems people think that God is so thrilled to be worshiped that it does not matter how one does it. Such thinking could not be further from the truth. John 4:24 (ESV) 24 God is spirit, and those who worship […]
We have looked at elders and deacons in the Lord’s church but what about an evangelist? Does not an evangelist occupy an office in the church? The answer is no. There is no office of an evangelist in the local church. The term evangelist refers to a work, not an office in the church. Paul […]
Every church should want to look like the one we read about in the New Testament. One area where this needs to be examined is the organizational structure of the local church. In faithful churches of Christ, elders, deacons, and saints make up local churches just like you find in the Bible. You see elders […]
One of the biggest misunderstandings about elders is thinking that the pastor and preacher are the same. As a result, I am often called a pastor by denominational people before I correct them. In the denominational realm, the one who does all the preaching is the pastor. In the New Testament, there is a distinction […]
We have seen the simplicity of the organization of the local church. It is made up of elders, deacons, and saints (Philippians 1:1). The only exception to this is when a local church does not have men who qualify to be elders or deacons. We must realize that there is a distinction between elders and […]
We have seen that the New Testament church (in the local sense) is made up of elders, deacons, and saints (Philippians 1:1). While being an elder is the most important role one can have in a local church, being a deacon is an honorable role as well. 1 Timothy 3:13 (ESV) 13 For those who […]
The denominational world has a great misunderstanding of elders in the Lord’s church. I indicated in last night’s blog that in the New Testament, there was always a plurality of elders in local churches that had them (Acts 14:23; 17:20, etc.). These elders only had authority over the flock that was among them (1 Peter […]
In Acts 11:30, we read of elders in the church for the first time. When a famine hit all over the world, the brethren in Judea were especially devastated by it, and brethren determined to send relief to them. They sent that relief to the elders of local churches (Acts 11:27-30). While we have just […]
In Acts 9, we have the first record of the conversion of Saul. Saul of Tarsus ultimately became Paul, the apostle, the most influential Christian of all time. While the conversion of Paul was not complete until he was baptized into Christ in the city of Damascus (Acts 9:17-19), the process began when he met […]
Today, the majority of so-called religious leaders, those who have the most influence over churches associated with the 16th-century Protestant Movement, teach that man is saved by faith alone. This leads most denominational churches to reject the necessity of baptism. Any suggestion that one has to be baptized to be saved becomes a major controversy. […]