The study of God’s plan for the Church projects a picture and presence of what can be and what might be, what was and what surely will be again. The Scriptures themselves will witness to your spirit and reveal His Church, filled with the life of Jesus Christ and endued with the unconquerable power of God’s perfect love. It is a Church courageous in witness, joyous in persecution, and whose members consider themselves strangers and exiles in the world. Together, they happily travel the narrowest of all roads, leading to the one destination for which all human hearts long, heavenly Jerusalem.
The author initiated his study while attending Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. As a young, zealous Christian, it was perplexing as he considered the gap between God’s greatness and limitless grace in Christ and the everyday life experience of most believers. It was as if God provided a 200 amp service box (enough electricity for an entire house) and believers’ lives were illuminated by a single 25 watt light bulb. What tremendous unused potential! But why?
What was the void? More importantly, what was the needed connection? A book by Alexander R. Hay, titled New Testament Church and Missionary, pointed to the Church’s organization and workings as key to releasing God’s divine intention in the lives of everyday saints. Believing that the Bible held the answers, the questioning author made a note card study of the New Testament during his last year in seminary (1980-81). Reading the New Testament from beginning to end yielded almost 600 references to the church and its activities. In addition, the author reviewed 39 books written on the subject of the Church. The note cards were sorted by theme and organized into groups, ultimately forming the outline of the study.
More than twenty years lapsed, the original outline and shoe box of note cards biding their time. Now, ten children later and evermore happily married to the same wife, ten years working in industry as a marketing professional and another twelve years developing an “old economy” manufacturing business, the shoe box of study cards resurrected.
The original outline was due a slight change of attitude. Every section is now introduced with discussion in hopes of providing fuller perspective to the subject. More importantly, the entire scripture for each Bible reference is reprinted in the text.
“The proof of the pudding,” as the saying goes, “is in the eating.” It is the author’s deepest conviction that someday soon we will experience the Church overflowing anew with a remarkable love, joy and peace as to rival the earliest band of Christians. Their powerful love and childlike faith sparked a spontaneous expansion of the Church and turned the world in their own day upside down.
I hope you and I are members of it.
Sincerely in Christ,
Rob Weber
Can you imagine “What is possible in God?” Your first reaction might be, “But of course, all things are possible with God.” True, certainly, and yet who do you know lives as if that truth penetrated their soul?
The first human couple, Adam and Eve, uncovered what is possible outside of God. They ate the forbidden fruit and unleashed a flood of death dealing consequences from which we still suffer today (Genesis 3:6-8).
What are the possibilities for you and me in God? The Bible provides a record of ordinary lives transformed to extraordinary when joined with God in His eternal purposes. Noah erected an ark safely carrying his family and species of the animal kingdom through the Great Flood and repopulating the earth (Genesis 6-9). Abraham abandoned his country, following the Lord to an unknown land which his descendants inhabit today against all odds (Genesis 12:1-4). Jael won a great victory for Israel without leaving the perimeter of her home. An enemy commander, exhausted and in retreat, made an unplanned stop at her home seeking food and shelter. After a meal, while he slumbered, Jael drove a tent stake through his temple, triumphing over Israel’s enemy (Judges 4:17-22). Hannah, refusing to remain barren, “poured out her soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15) and God opened her womb with the birth of Samuel, the prophet.
Ancient earth reveals God’s possibilities hidden in creation. Several years ago, miners in the Naica Silver and Lead Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, discovered a cavern containing a literal forest of the world’s largest crystals. Unmatched in proportion, the crystals average four feet in diameter and thirty feet in length, some as long as fifty feet! (web search: giant crystals) Can you imagine?
Working for a seventy year old firm whose top management anticipated limited growth, human projections could not rival God’s possibilities. Within a short three year period, a flood of new products drove sales to increase four-fold. Can you imagine?
Old Testament prophets spoke of the day when God would break the pernicious problem of sin, not by writing tougher laws or establishing wiser leaders, but by replacing man’s stony, self loving heart with a heart of flesh, truly capable of loving God and our fellow man. How? By pouring out His Spirit on all flesh, each person is enabled to know Him personally (Joel 2:28, Ezekiel 36:26). Can you imagine?
What if you cannot imagine? The New Testament recounts an interesting story involving religious leaders who had no expectation of better things to come. They possessed no hope for the future, refusing to believe in the afterlife. One account describes their attempt to prove that the resurrection of the dead was a complete impossibility. Imagine that! In the record, these religious and learned folk strongly defended their conviction, relying on Scripture for justification. Jesus listened patiently, but rejected their logic. Pointing to where their mental road map took them off course, Jesus said, “You are mistaken, because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God.”
Matthew 22:23-33: 23On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Jesus and questioned Him, 24asking, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother; 26so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. 27Last of all, the woman died. 28In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.”
29But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: 32‘I am the God Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” 33When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.
To a degree, more or less, you and I might accept the logic of the Sadducees of old, living a less-than-possible life and not knowing the scriptures or the power of God. Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Have we tested the limits of the more than abundant life? Have we plumbed the depths of the peace that passes all understanding? (Philippians 4:7) Have we held our breath with joy inexpressible (1 Peter 1:8), or lost ourselves in the love of God which is beyond knowledge? (Ephesians 3:19)
What is possible in God? Can you imagine a simple way to gain entrance into a lifetime of continual discovery?
As a young man I was accused of asking too many questions and having too few answers. As an unbeliever it was troublesome to explain why people act the way they do. Particularly perplexing: as natural as it is to live unhappily, the task to create genuine happiness, at least for more than a moment of time, lay far beyond my reach. Thankfully, after personal salvation, the spiritual understanding of sin and the power of sin dissolved these bafflements.
And along with salvation, new questions surfaced. Why do Christians act the way they do and why do so many, including myself, live less than more abundantly? What changed?
Did God change? No! Did His power or His good will toward us or the promises and precepts in His word change? “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, yes and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). “All flesh is like grass and the flower of grass. The grass fades and the flower falls off but the Word of God abides forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Likewise, human nature remains unchanged: fallen. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Temptations and our Adversary remain constant. What changed?
What is so fundamentally different from the early, New Testament Church as to explain the spiritual poverty inflicting so many saints today? The answer lies in the conventional wisdom men use to organize the church and its functions, a pattern totally foreign to the New Testament. The Church that flamed to life at Pentecost two thousand years ago is the model that we will explore. Jesus’ own teaching, as well as His will revealed through the apostles and authors of scripture, describe a Church uniquely designed to serve the needs of the saints, unlock the personal experience of His actual presence, and release His almighty power in the lives of ordinary believers. Through a living, vibrant Church, God will flood the earth with the knowledge of His glory: His saving mercy in the Gospel of Christ.*
You may wonder how God’s plan for the Church, detailed in the Bible, could disappear almost unnoticed. Actually, other basic Bible truths, even plainly stated ones, were neglected or simply “lost” for long periods of time.
One example, “salvation by grace through faith” a key tenet proclaimed in the Protestant Reformation was previously a sweet mercy hidden from the Church for possibly over 1000 years. Until then, salvation came solely through the Church, through its priests, and the administration of sacraments. One could purchase forgiveness from the Church with money by buying an “indulgence.” Can you imagine?
Ephesians 2:8: 8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 3:24: 24...being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
In the early 1500s Martin Luther championed the truth of saving grace through personal faith in Christ, setting the foundation stone of the Protestant Reformation. New churches were formed (for example: the Lutheran Church, named after Martin Luther) and the monopoly of the Catholic Church, exclusive and authoritarian, began to splinter.
We ponder how on earth a central saving truth vanished in the midst of a believing community. During most of the period between the birth of the New Testament Church at Pentecost and the Protestant Reformation only Church leaders could access the Bible and only in the ancient languages of Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Furthermore, religious and civil law prohibited translating scripture into any common language understood by all. Fox’s Book of Martyrs records the persecution and death faced by those who bravely did translate and distribute scripture.
Why would leaders entrusted with the Church’s wellbeing prevent their congregations from reading the Bible? Furthermore, why would the same religious leaders teach false doctrines, enticing the multitudes to buy God’s forgiveness through indulgences? The love of money, lust for power, and desire for position and privilege provide sufficient explanation.
Another reasonable question is “Why would God provide a detailed plan for the Church, its organization and activities?” How could a single plan address all the needs of diverse peoples, cultures, languages and times of history? Reviewing Bible history uncovers how frequently God provided detailed plans.
In the construction of Noah’s ark, length, width, height and materials used are all detailed. The directions provide an overview of the construction, not a design intended to be duplicated ever again.
Genesis 6:14-16: 14Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. 15This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
16You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.
The design of the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, formed the spiritual gathering place utilized by God’s people as the center of Old Testament worship.
Exodus 25:9-40: 9According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.
10They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high. 11You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it. 12You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. 13You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 14You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them. 15The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it. 16You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you.
17You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide. 18You shall make two cherubim of gold, make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19Make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends. 20The cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another; the faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat. 21You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony which I will give to you. 22There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.
23You shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long and one cubit wide and one and a half cubits high. 24You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a gold border around it. 25You shall make for it a rim of a handbreadth around it; and you shall make a gold border for the rim around it. 26You shall make four gold rings for it and put rings on the four corners which are on its four feet. 27The rings shall be close to the rim as holders for the poles to carry the table. 28You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, so that with them the table may be carried. 29You shall make its dishes and its pans and its jars and its bowls with which to pour drink offerings; you shall make them of pure gold. 30You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before Me at all times.
31Then you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand and its base and its shaft are to be made of hammered work; its cups, its bulbs and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. 32Six branches shall go out from its sides; three branches of the lampstand from its one side and three branches of the lampstand from its other side. 33Three cups shall be shaped like almond blossoms in the one branch, a bulb and a flower, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bulb and a flower–so for six branches going out from the lampstand; 34and in the lampstand four cups shaped like almond blossoms, its bulbs and its flowers. 35A bulb shall be under the first pair of branches coming out of it, and a bulb under the second pair of branches coming out of it, and a bulb under the third pair of branches coming out of it, for the six branches coming out of the lampstand. 36Their bulbs and their branches shall be of one piece with it; all of it shall be one piece of hammered work of pure gold. 37Then you shall make its lamps seven in number; and they shall mount its lamps so as to shed light on the space in front of it. 38Its snuffers and their trays shall be of pure gold. 39It shall be made from a talent of pure gold, with all these utensils. 40See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain.
The duties of the priests and the system of sacrifices and feasts practiced throughout Old Testament history from the construction of the tabernacle to the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., entailed what sacrifices, when, why, how performed and by whom. More than enough detail - a literal handbook for generations of God’s people to study and follow each procedure.
Leviticus 1: 1Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, 2“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.
3If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. 4He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf. 5He shall slay the young bull before the Lord; and Aarons sons the priests shall offer up the blood and sprinkle the blood around on the altar that is at the doorway of the tent of meeting. 6He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces. 7The sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. 8Then Aarons sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head and the suet over the wood which is on the fire that is on the altar. 9Its entrails, however, and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer up in smoke all of it on the altar for a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
10But if his offering is from the flock, of the sheep or of the goats, for a burnt offering, he shall offer it a male without defect. 11He shall slay it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord, and Aarons sons the priests shall sprinkle its blood around on the altar. 12He shall then cut it into its pieces with its head and its suet, and the priest shall arrange them on the wood which is on the fire that is on the altar. 13The entrails, however, and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer all of it, and offer it up in smoke on the altar; it is a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.
14But if his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering from the turtledoves or from young pigeons. 15The priest shall bring it to the altar, and wring off its head and offer it up in smoke on the altar; and its blood is to be drained out on the side of the altar. 16He shall also take away its crop with its feathers and cast it beside the altar eastward, to the place of the ashes. 17Then he shall tear it by its wings, but shall not sever it And the priest shall offer it up in smoke on the altar on the wood which is on the fire; it is a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.”’ (This is only the beginning of God’s instructions for sacrifices, but it provides a flavor of the depth of detail provided.)
God’s detailed plans given to man are a common theme in Bible history. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). God-given plans for God’s work are a mercy. Jesus promised, “I will build My church.”
Does it seem a stretch to look for organizational solutions when man’s problems seem rooted in the individual Christian life? Personal failings are generally attributed to a lack of faith, shallowness of commitment, or simple disobedience.
Targeting individual soul-searching instead of organizational reform would be a reasonable suggestion if the Christian life were designed to be lived in isolation, like the ascetics and monastics of old who lived in caves or in baskets fastened to the top of tall poles. Through the ages exceptional individuals have risen to the top, bucking the status quo and going against the flow with no regard for reputation, livelihood, or personal safety. Church history glitters with such gems. Jesus, however, doesn’t only reward the exceptional. His mission reclaims ordinary folk, daily performing their utmost wherever they live.
For good or ill, organizational systems exert mighty influences and deeply affect personal behavior. The United States of America is unquestionably the most successful nation in history. Is this because Americans are by nature the smartest or most industrious folk on the face of the earth? (Ans: No.) Unique among nations is its organization which recognizes the God given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Founding Fathers trusted God’s influence in the daily life of each citizen. All political systems that deny this truth fail to unlock the potential of their people as history and present experience proves.
Perhaps you have read about businesses that “reorganize,” describing management’s efforts to reroute everything. The design directing the functions and relationships of individuals within the firm is flawed; not the training or competency of the workers. The employees sincerely work, but unproductively and below their capabilities.
As we have seen, God provided detailed design and order for the religious organization and community life of His people under the Old Covenant. It seems plausible that He also communicated a plan for the organization of the Church of the New Covenant (New Testament). Can you imagine entrusting the design of His Church to the wisdom or imagination of the Twelve Apostles or the most up-to-date organizational theories of Twenty-First Century Christians?
In fact, the record of the New Testament provides ample information regarding God’s plan for His Church. Our responsibility is to search the scriptures and believe that what God designed, He can and will build. Even the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Remember the error of the Sadducees, who did not understand the scriptures or the power of God.