In this blog, I will be referring to the church in the local sense.  The local church has a specific organizational structure, it does a specific work, and worships God in a specific way.  None of these will ever change.  Let’s look at it tonight.

The organization of the local church is simple.  We read of it in Philippians 1:1

Philippians 1:1 (ESV)
¹  Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:

The local church is made up of elders (overseers), deacons, and saints.  This is the only organization the local church in the New Testament has ever had, and it is the only one it should have today.

The elders have the oversight over the local church, having received delegated authority from the Lord to rule the flock (Hebrews 13:17).  While we do not have the space to go into detail about the organizational structure of the local church, nor the overall work and duty of elders, it is important to know that every local church had a plurality of elders (Acts 14:23; 15:2; 20:17).  There was never a local church with only one pastor as is common in denominational churches today.

This aspect of the local church is unchangeable because no one on earth has the authority to change it.  If you see a church with one pastor, or even with a head pastor, which is something you never read about in the Bible, you know that it is an unscripturally organized church.

The work of the church is also unchangeable.  Like the organization of the local church, there are no authorities alive today to implement any deviations from what we see in the New Testament.  The work of the church is that for which we can use the Lord’s money to support.

In the New Testament church, we see three activities—Benevolence, Evangelism, and Edification.  While some churches finance any and everything they think is a good work, scriptural churches only spend the Lord’s money on things authorized (Colossians 3:17).  The work of the church is the same today as it was in the first century.  It is never going to change because we will never have any new revelation.

The same thing can be said about the worship of the church.  We should be worshipping the same way they did in the first century.  There may be some incidentals that we do differently, but anything that reflects specific authority should be the same.  We should worship on the same day, that is, the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2).  We should praise God in song, without the addition of musical instruments, just like they did (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).  The Lord’s Supper should be observed on the first day of the week as well, using only the fruit of the vine and unleavened bread as the elements (Matthew 26:26-29; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 11:23-28).  Since we have no authority to change these things, they should remain the same.

The church is unchangeable.  When a group of people add innovations to the church, it ceases to be the Lord’s church and becomes a concoction of man.  Let’s avoid that at all costs.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.