IS THE CHURCH A "BUILDING?"

Bob Mills

What you are really asking is, “Is the picture of a building used as a place of worship, a church?

The answer is the simplest of terms is, “No.” When the building owned by the church where we, as members, go to worship on Sunday mornings, was struck by a tornado and partly damaged one of the elders of the congregation was asked about it. His reply was something to the effect, “No, the box which houses the church was damaged. The church is fine.”

The Bible describes it in many ways, (Matthew 16:18) “ …upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” It is founded firmly on the fact of the divinity of Christ, the Son of God.

It is Christ who does the adding to it. (Acts 2:47), “And the Lord added to the church such as should be saved.” A better translation, than that in the King James Bible, would be, “were being saved.”

In Ephesians 5:23, we read, “… Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body.” He pictures church here as a body and a part of himself, the head. We are the individual parts, each with something to contribute to the whole. It is a living entity.