What Is the Church?

It’s really interesting that when I ask people the question: “What is the Church?”, I often get differing answers.  Some people think that the church is a building where people meet, mostly on a sunday. If you are in England, some people imagine that it is a 16th century building with picturesque stain glass images. Others have said it is a social institution that tries to do good in the community.

We have been going through a teaching series during our sunday meetings, looking at what or “who” the bible refers to as the “Church”. I believe very strongly that a Christian really needs to understand clearly: what the church is, from a biblical perspective. Some of the things we’ve looked at are:

[1] What is the church (Scriptures: 1 Timothy 3:15, Ephesians 2:19)

[2] How did the church come about (Scriptures: Ephesians 2:8-10] [3] How does one become part of the church (Scriptures: John 1:12)

[4] How does the church live (Scriptures: Acts 2:42-47)

[5] What does the church do (Scriptures: Mathew 28:18-20)

It’s been a really interesting topic to look at.

The Holy Spirit

We just completed our series on the Holy Spirit at our Sunday Church services. In the last part of the series, we looked at the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Everyone who is born-again has the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. The bible says that we are sealed by the Spirit the moment that we are born-again (Ephesians 1:3). However the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a different experience. Jesus stated clearly that to be effective witnesses for Him, we need to be baptised or in-filled by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). The two main points relating to this are outlined below.
[1] We have the Holy Spirit when we are born-again, but this is different from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. (Scriptures: Ephesians 1:3, Acts 1:8, Mathew 3:11, Acts 19:1-6)

[2] Receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The pre-requisite for receiving this baptism is that you must be born again and ask God in faith. (Scriptures: Acts 2:38, Luke 11:13, Acts 2:4)