The State of the Church Today
- Edward D. Andrews
- 9 hours ago
- 20 min read
The Question Every Church Must Face
There are few questions more serious for Christianity than this one: What is the actual state of the church?
That question cannot be answered by counting buildings, measuring attendance, examining financial strength, surveying denominational influence, tracking social-media reach, or pointing to the size of Christian publishing, broadcasting, education, and entertainment. None of these things, by themselves, tells us whether a congregation is spiritually healthy in the sight of God. A church may be wealthy and admired while being spiritually poor. It may be culturally influential while having little resemblance to the congregations established under apostolic direction. It may speak continually about Jesus while disregarding His commands. It may possess impressive programs while neglecting the work Christ actually assigned to His followers. It may celebrate unity while sacrificing truth, praise spiritual experience while neglecting careful biblical interpretation, or pursue acceptance by the world while surrendering the moral distinctiveness required by Scripture.
The decisive question is not what the church thinks of itself. It is what Christ thinks of the church.
Revelation Chapters 2–3 establishes this principle with unmistakable force. Jesus Christ examined real congregations, identified both faithfulness and corruption, commended what deserved approval, condemned what required correction, and repeatedly called Christians to hear what was being said. Some congregations possessed admirable qualities but had tolerated serious wrongdoing. Others retained a name for being alive while their true spiritual condition was far different. Laodicea regarded itself as prosperous and needing nothing, yet Christ's assessment exposed spiritual poverty, blindness, and nakedness. The contrast is essential. Congregational self-evaluation can be disastrously inaccurate. Christ's judgment is decisive.
That same principle must govern any examination of Christianity in the twenty-first century. The question cannot be settled by popularity, tradition, denominational history, theological credentials, emotional intensity, institutional prestige, or cultural acceptance. Christianity possesses only one inspired standard by which belief, worship, conduct, leadership, teaching, and evangelistic responsibility may be judged: the Word of God.
The church therefore does not possess authority over Scripture. Scripture possesses authority over the church.
This conviction stands at the heart of the present volume. The purpose is not to criticize Christianity for the pleasure of criticism, nor to romanticize an earlier period as though every congregation in the first century were without serious problems. The New Testament itself prevents such an idealization. Corinth struggled with division, immorality, litigation, disorder, misuse of spiritual gifts, and doctrinal confusion. Galatian congregations were being disturbed by false teaching. Some believers addressed in Hebrews were becoming spiritually sluggish. Several congregations addressed in Revelation required urgent correction. The apostolic writings openly record these matters precisely because the inspired standard includes both the proper pattern and the divine correction of departures from that pattern.
The issue, therefore, is not whether congregations can experience problems. They always have. The issue is whether Christians recognize the inspired standard by which such problems must be identified and corrected.
The Church Must Be Measured by Scripture
The contemporary church lives in an age of extraordinary religious choice. Christians can select congregations according to preaching style, musical preference, children's programs, social environment, architectural atmosphere, political emphasis, denominational heritage, personality, location, or personal convenience. Churches themselves frequently operate in an environment in which they feel pressure to compete for attention. This has encouraged the language and methods of consumer culture to enter congregational life. Success becomes measurable by attendance. Growth becomes identified with numerical expansion. A church's effectiveness may be judged by visibility, branding, popularity, entertainment value, or its ability to make outsiders comfortable.
Yet Jesus did not commission His disciples to create religious organizations that would succeed according to the standards of the surrounding culture. He commanded them to make disciples.
Matthew 28:19–20 records the assignment in unmistakable terms. Christians were to go, make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to observe all that Christ commanded. The commission therefore involves proclamation, instruction, conversion, obedience, and continuing discipleship. It is not fulfilled merely by maintaining a weekly worship service and waiting for interested people to enter a church building. The first-century Christian movement was outward-moving. Believers carried the message into cities, homes, marketplaces, public locations, and ordinary conversations. The good news advanced because Christians understood that the responsibility to proclaim Christ was not confined to a small professional class.
Acts repeatedly presents Christianity as a teaching and evangelizing movement. The apostles proclaimed publicly and from house to house. Philip spoke to an Ethiopian official. Paul reasoned in synagogues and marketplaces. Aquila and Priscilla helped Apollos gain a more accurate understanding. Ordinary believers scattered by persecution continued declaring the message. Christian congregations were not designed as audiences gathered around religious performers. They were communities of disciples who themselves bore responsibility for Christian witness.
The state of the church must therefore be examined by asking whether modern Christians have preserved this understanding.
The same standard applies to doctrine. The church did not create Christian truth. Christian truth was delivered through the inspired apostles and prophets. Paul could therefore command Timothy to guard what had been entrusted to him. Elders were required to hold firmly to the trustworthy word so that they could encourage by sound teaching and refute those who contradicted it. Congregations were warned about false teachers because doctrinal corruption was never regarded as harmless variation.
Modern Christianity frequently treats doctrinal differences as though serious concern for truth itself were a greater danger than theological error. Yet the New Testament does not present doctrinal clarity as the enemy of Christian love. Biblical love rejoices with the truth. Nor does unity require Christians to suspend judgment about what God has revealed. Jesus prayed for unity among His followers, but the unity envisioned in Scripture is inseparable from truth, obedience, holiness, and loyalty to Him.
A unity created by reducing doctrine to the smallest possible collection of shared religious sentiments is not the unity produced by apostolic Christianity. It is unity achieved by subtraction.
When Human Judgment Replaces Divine Revelation
One of the deepest problems examined in this book concerns the way Scripture itself is interpreted.
Every major departure in Christian belief eventually raises a question of authority. Who decides what is true? Who determines what a biblical passage means? Is Scripture received as inspired revelation whose meaning is to be discovered, or is it treated as religious literature whose claims are subject to reconstruction according to modern assumptions?
The difference is enormous.
The historical-grammatical method begins with the conviction that biblical texts communicate meaning through words used by real authors in identifiable historical and literary settings. Interpretation therefore seeks the meaning conveyed by the inspired author through grammar, vocabulary, syntax, context, literary form, historical background, and the coherent teaching of Scripture. The interpreter does not create meaning. He discovers it.
This requires humility because the interpreter approaches the text as a servant rather than a master.
The historical-critical approach developed within intellectual settings increasingly willing to investigate Scripture according to assumptions that excluded or questioned supernatural revelation. Biblical books came to be dissected into hypothetical sources, authorship claims were repeatedly challenged, predictive prophecy was reassigned to later dates, miracle accounts were subjected to naturalistic reconstruction, and sayings or events could be classified according to judgments about what modern critics regarded as historically probable.
Not every scholar using the term "historical-critical" employs every skeptical conclusion associated with its development, but the methodological danger remains serious whenever interpreters grant themselves authority to stand over the inspired text and determine which elements may be accepted as historically authentic, theologically developed, culturally obsolete, or merely human.
Once that door is opened, the Bible can be retained ceremonially while losing its governing authority practically.
A church may still affirm that Scripture is important while repeatedly explaining why its teachings need not govern modern belief and conduct. Biblical sexual morality can be treated as culturally limited. Male pastoral leadership can be dismissed as a temporary accommodation to ancient society. Creation can be reformulated according to theories that control the reading of Genesis rather than arising from it. Miracles can be reinterpreted. Prophecy can be naturalized. Moral commands can be subordinated to contemporary approval. Passages that conflict with prevailing attitudes can gradually become texts that Christians apologize for rather than words they carefully explain and obey.
The transformation does not occur all at once. It commonly advances through qualification.
Scripture is authoritative, but.
Scripture is inspired, but.
Jesus is Savior, but.
Christian morality matters, but.
The resurrection is important, but.
The Great Commission remains relevant, but.
Repeated often enough, the qualification becomes the controlling doctrine, while the original affirmation survives only as religious language.
The church cannot remain faithful while adopting a method that allows human judgment to determine when divine revelation deserves obedience.
The Difference Between Biblical Unity and Religious Cooperation
The modern appetite for religious unity has also created enormous pressure to minimize doctrinal distinctions.
Unity is attractive. Conflict is unpleasant. Christians rightly oppose arrogance, hostility, needless division, and personal bitterness. Yet Scripture never authorizes unity at the expense of truth.
The question is not whether Christians should be peaceable. They should. The question is not whether they should treat outsiders respectfully. They should. The question is whether Christian fellowship can properly be constructed on the assumption that contradictory claims about God, Christ, salvation, Scripture, and worship are spiritually compatible.
They cannot be.
Jesus' statement in John 14:6 is deliberately exclusive: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Peter likewise declared concerning Jesus that salvation is found in no one else. These declarations cannot be reconciled with interfaith religious cooperation that treats contradictory paths to God as equally acceptable expressions of spiritual truth.
Respect for a person is not endorsement of his religion. Kindness is not theological agreement. Peaceable conduct is not religious fellowship. Christians can defend the freedom of others to believe differently without pretending that conflicting religious systems teach the same truth.
The same principle applies within professed Christianity. Genuine doctrinal unity is not achieved by asking Christians to stop caring about doctrine. The apostolic congregations were expected to believe and teach identifiable truths. There was one faith, one body of Christian teaching, and a recognizable standard by which false doctrine could be distinguished from sound teaching.
Acts Chapter 15 is especially important in this regard. When a serious doctrinal controversy arose concerning Gentile Christians and circumcision, the congregations were not instructed to accept incompatible positions indefinitely. The apostles and elders gathered in Jerusalem, considered the matter in light of God's actions and the Scriptures, reached a judgment, and communicated that decision to congregations. The resulting unity was substantive because it concerned what Christians were actually expected to believe and practice.
Modern Christianity often possesses communication without doctrinal agreement, institutional organization without biblical accountability, and cooperation without common submission to Scripture. The Jerusalem Council presents a different pattern: recognized spiritual oversight functioning under the authority of God's revealed truth for the protection and unity of congregations.
The Moral Crisis Cannot Be Separated From the Doctrinal Crisis
A weakened view of Scripture inevitably affects Christian morality.
Doctrine and conduct cannot remain permanently separated. What Christians believe about God, Scripture, sin, Christ, judgment, salvation, holiness, and human nature eventually governs how they live. When biblical authority becomes negotiable, biblical morality follows.
The New Testament never treats holiness as an optional advanced stage for unusually dedicated Christians. Those who belong to Christ are called to turn away from conduct condemned by God. Paul did not tell congregations to absorb the moral standards of their surrounding societies so that Christianity would appear less offensive. He repeatedly warned believers against sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, drunkenness, dishonesty, uncontrolled anger, slander, and other sinful practices.
Christian holiness does not mean withdrawal from ordinary human society. Jesus prayed concerning His followers, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world," but He also declared that they were "not of the world" (John 17:15–16). Christians live among unbelievers, work beside them, speak with them, care for them, evangelize them, and demonstrate honorable conduct before them. Yet they do not obtain permission to adopt beliefs and practices condemned by God.
This distinction has become increasingly difficult for churches that measure success by cultural acceptance.
The temptation is understandable. Biblical Christianity contains teachings that modern society dislikes. A church that clearly teaches those doctrines may be labeled intolerant, antiquated, narrow, or unloving. Leaders therefore face a choice. They can explain Scripture carefully and accept the social consequences of fidelity, or they can gradually modify the message until the church's beliefs become indistinguishable from the values of the culture around it.
The second path may produce acceptance, but it cannot produce faithfulness.
Paul's command in Romans 12:2 remains fundamental: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Christian transformation does not occur by learning to think increasingly like the surrounding world. The mind is renewed according to divine truth.
A congregation that imitates the world in order to attract the world faces a contradiction at the center of its mission. If the church becomes essentially like the people it hopes to convert, conversion loses its biblical meaning. The Christian message calls people not simply to attend a religious gathering but to repent, believe, become disciples of Christ, and learn obedience to His commands.
Experience Must Never Become the Authority
Another major concern is the elevation of subjective religious experience above the written Word.
Christianity certainly involves emotion. Jesus displayed compassion, grief, joy, righteous indignation, and deep affection. The Psalms contain intense expressions of human feeling. Christian worship is not intended to produce emotional indifference. Love for God engages the whole person.
The danger begins when emotion becomes evidence of revelation.
Claims of direct messages from God, continuing prophetic revelation, supernatural words of knowledge, private divine impressions, tongues treated as miraculous speech, and other charismatic practices raise a fundamental question: Is the written Word sufficient to guide the Christian, or must believers continually seek additional revelation beyond Scripture?
The apostolic age contained miraculous gifts serving identifiable purposes during the establishment of the Christian congregation. The apostles possessed authority and miraculous authentication that cannot simply be claimed by later religious leaders. The completed Spirit-inspired Word now supplies Christians with the revelation necessary for faith, doctrine, correction, moral instruction, and Christian maturity.
The Holy Spirit guides Christians through that Spirit-inspired Word, not by giving every generation an expanding body of private revelation.
This distinction is protective. Subjective impressions cannot be examined in the same way as written revelation. One believer says God told him one thing; another says God told her the opposite. A religious leader announces a prophecy; when it fails, explanations are introduced to preserve the prophet's reputation. Emotional intensity can then become mistaken for divine activity, and the person who questions the experience may be accused of resisting the Holy Spirit.
Biblical Christianity reverses the order. Claims are examined by Scripture. Scripture is not judged by claims.
The more firmly Christians understand the sufficiency of the Bible, the less vulnerable they become to personalities who claim special access to divine information.
The Great Commission Is Not a Department of the Church
The state of the church is also revealed by its understanding of evangelism.
For many Christians, evangelism has become a specialized activity performed by missionaries, pastors, traveling evangelists, apologetics ministries, or unusually confident members of a congregation. Ordinary believers may support evangelism financially and approve of it in principle while rarely explaining the Christian faith to another person.
That arrangement cannot easily be reconciled with the first-century pattern.
Christianity spread because disciples made disciples. Public proclamation by apostles was important, but the New Testament picture extends far beyond formal preaching by prominent leaders. Christian truth moved through households, friendships, travel, commerce, personal conversation, teaching, hospitality, and ordinary contact between believers and unbelievers.
This volume therefore gives serious attention to evangelism in the marketplace and the home. The point is not to mechanically reproduce every circumstance of the Roman world. The historical-grammatical method does not confuse historical description with universal command. Rather, the first-century record demonstrates the missionary character of Christianity. Believers did not understand the congregation as a place where professional ministers performed the Christian mission on behalf of passive attendees.
Every Christian should be capable of explaining the basic content of the gospel, defending his hope, opening the Scriptures with another person, and helping an interested person move toward informed discipleship.
This requires biblical literacy.
A church cannot fulfill the Great Commission while its members remain unable to explain what they believe. Nor can disciples teach others "all that" Jesus commanded if they themselves possess only fragmentary knowledge of Scripture. Evangelistic weakness and biblical illiteracy therefore reinforce one another. Christians who do not know the Bible hesitate to speak; Christians who rarely speak about their faith feel little urgency to deepen their knowledge.
Restoring the first-century evangelistic pattern consequently requires more than organizing occasional outreach events. It requires congregations to understand themselves as communities in which every mature believer is being equipped to participate in the work Christ commanded.
Profession of Faith Must Be Joined to Obedience
Perhaps no warning from Jesus is more sobering for professing Christians than Matthew 7:21–23.
Jesus did not describe openly hostile unbelievers. He described people who addressed Him as "Lord," appealed to religious works, and expected favorable judgment. Yet He declared that not everyone saying "Lord, Lord" would enter the kingdom, "but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
The passage destroys the assumption that verbal profession automatically proves genuine discipleship.
Jesus' words also explain why examination of the church is necessary. Religious activity can coexist with disobedience. People can preach, gather, sing, pray, build institutions, perform charitable work, claim extraordinary experiences, and use Christian vocabulary while failing to submit to God's revealed will.
The issue is not sinless perfection. Christians remain imperfect humans in need of forgiveness, correction, and growth. Scripture openly acknowledges the reality of sin among believers. The issue is whether a person genuinely accepts Christ's authority and walks on the path of obedient discipleship or substitutes religious profession for submission.
Salvation is therefore not properly reduced to a momentary condition created by repeating a formula. Scripture presents the Christian life as a path requiring enduring faith, obedience, repentance, sanctification, and perseverance. Jesus commanded disciples to continue following Him. Paul compared the Christian course to a race requiring disciplined endurance. Hebrews repeatedly warns believers against drifting away. Revelation commends those who conquer faithfully.
Such passages make little sense if the Christian's relationship to salvation is treated as an irreversible status unrelated to subsequent conduct.
The state of the church is therefore inseparable from the state of its disciples.
Shepherds Must Actually Shepherd
Biblical restoration also requires serious attention to congregational leadership.
The New Testament does not portray elders as corporate executives, religious celebrities, motivational speakers, entertainment directors, or passive administrators. They are shepherds entrusted with the welfare of the flock. Their responsibilities include teaching, protecting, correcting, encouraging, setting an example, and guarding congregations from destructive doctrine.
Acts 20 records Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders that fierce wolves would enter among the flock and that even from among the elders themselves men would arise speaking distorted things. The warning reveals the seriousness of oversight. A shepherd who refuses to identify danger because correction may produce discomfort is not performing his biblical responsibility.
Pastoral compassion and doctrinal firmness are not enemies.
Correction is not cruelty when error threatens people spiritually. Discipline is not a rejection of love when serious unrepentant wrongdoing harms the congregation. The New Testament joins tenderness and firmness because genuine shepherding requires both.
Modern churches can easily distort pastoral work in opposite directions. Some leaders exercise authoritarian control unsupported by Scripture. Others avoid meaningful oversight altogether because correction is culturally unpopular. Neither represents the apostolic pattern.
Biblical shepherds possess delegated responsibility, not personal sovereignty. They remain accountable to Scripture. Their authority is ministerial rather than absolute. They cannot create doctrine, alter God's moral standards, demand obedience to personal preferences, or claim unique revelation that places their decisions beyond examination. At the same time, congregations should not reduce elders to ceremonial officers without genuine responsibility to guard doctrine and conduct.
The church requires qualified men who know the Scriptures sufficiently to teach truth and refute error, whose lives demonstrate Christian maturity, and who understand leadership as service rendered under Christ.
Biblical Order Includes Distinct Responsibilities for Men and Women
Any attempt to recover the first-century congregational pattern must also address questions that modern culture has made controversial.
The New Testament presents women as indispensable participants in Christian life. Women supported Jesus' ministry, learned from Him, witnessed His resurrection, served fellow believers, instructed children, demonstrated hospitality, assisted Christian workers, and labored faithfully in the spread of the gospel. Their contribution was substantial and honorable.
At the same time, Scripture assigns congregational teaching and governing authority to qualified men.
1 Timothy 2:11–12 and 1 Timothy 3 cannot be dismissed merely because their teaching conflicts with contemporary assumptions. Paul roots his instructions concerning teaching authority in creation, not merely in a temporary local custom. The qualifications for overseers likewise assume male leadership.
Acknowledging these distinctions does not imply spiritual inferiority. Equality of worth does not require identity of assignment. Jesus Himself willingly acted within the authority of His Father while remaining uniquely exalted as God's Son. Functional order therefore cannot automatically be interpreted as diminished value.
The question for the church is whether Scripture is permitted to define Christian service or whether modern expectations will determine which biblical instructions remain acceptable.
A congregation committed to the authority of God's Word will honor the full range of service entrusted to Christian women without assigning them offices or authority that Scripture reserves for qualified men.
Doctrinal Unity Requires More Than Independent Congregations
Modern evangelicalism frequently emphasizes local-church independence so strongly that doctrinal fragmentation is treated as inevitable.
The New Testament presents a more connected picture.
Congregations existed in distinct locations with local elders, yet they did not operate as isolated theological islands. Apostolic letters circulated among churches. Representatives traveled between congregations. Missionary workers cooperated across regions. Collections were coordinated. Teaching was shared. Questions were referred to recognized apostolic authority. Decisions affecting multiple congregations could be communicated beyond the location where they were reached.
Acts 15 provides the clearest example. The circumcision controversy did not remain a permanent disagreement between Antioch and Jerusalem. Representatives went to Jerusalem. Apostles and elders considered the issue. The Scriptures were brought to bear on the controversy. A decision was reached and communicated. Acts 16:4 then records that Paul and Timothy delivered the decrees for congregations to observe.
This pattern matters because doctrinal fragmentation weakens Christian witness.
If thousands of independent groups can teach contradictory doctrines while all claiming biblical authority, outsiders understandably ask whether Scripture can truly be understood. The problem does not lie in Scripture's inability to communicate. Much of the fragmentation results from traditions, inherited theological systems, cultural pressures, charismatic claims, individualistic interpretation, and interpretive methods that allow readers to move beyond the author's intended meaning.
Biblical unity therefore begins with biblical interpretation.
Christians must recover the conviction that a text has a determinate meaning rooted in the communication of its inspired author. The meaning of Scripture is not created by denominations, church councils, individual readers, or later theological traditions. Collective deliberation is valuable only when those involved are collectively submitting themselves to the same inspired standard.
The Jerusalem Council model is consequently neither theological authoritarianism nor unrestricted congregational independence. It is accountable collective oversight governed by Scripture.
Returning to the First-Century Pattern
The second half of this book deliberately moves from diagnosis to restoration.
Criticism without a biblical remedy serves little purpose. Identifying historical-critical assumptions matters because Christians need to recover historical-grammatical interpretation. Exposing religious compromise matters because Christians need doctrinal unity grounded in revealed truth. Confronting moral accommodation matters because Christians need holiness. Examining charismatic subjectivism matters because Christians need confidence in the sufficient Spirit-inspired Word. Addressing evangelistic neglect matters because Christians must reclaim the Great Commission. Examining weak pastoral structures matters because the flock requires protection and instruction. Addressing modern confusion concerning congregational roles matters because Christ's congregation should reflect apostolic order. Examining fragmentation matters because Christian unity must be substantive rather than merely sentimental.
Restoration does not mean reconstructing the first century culturally.
Christians need not dress like people in ancient Ephesus, speak Greek, gather only in houses, travel by Roman roads, or reproduce social customs belonging to the ancient Mediterranean world. Historical-grammatical interpretation carefully distinguishes timeless teaching from incidental historical circumstance.
Restoration means recovering the beliefs, moral requirements, evangelistic commitments, leadership principles, interpretive discipline, congregational accountability, and doctrinal unity that Scripture establishes.
The distinction is crucial. A wooden imitation of ancient culture would misunderstand the Bible as badly as modern revisionism does. The goal is not antiquarian Christianity. The goal is biblical Christianity.
The first-century pattern matters because the apostles operated under the authority of Jesus Christ and transmitted His teaching to the congregations. Their instructions are not merely one historical expression of Christianity among many equally valid possibilities. Their teaching forms the authoritative foundation by which later Christianity must be evaluated.
Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 that "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." If Scripture is capable of teaching, reproving, correcting, training, completing, and equipping the believer, then the church's restoration must begin there.
Reproof identifies what is wrong.
Correction restores what has departed from the proper course.
Teaching establishes truth.
Training forms obedient Christian character.
These functions describe precisely what the modern church requires.
The Need for Courageous Self-Examination
Reading a book about the state of the church can easily become an exercise in identifying the failures of everyone else.
A conservative Christian may read the discussion of liberalism and think only of liberal denominations. A cessationist may read the examination of charismatic Christianity and think only of Pentecostal or charismatic churches. A pastor may read about evangelistic failure and blame passive members. Congregation members may read about pastoral accountability and think only of deficient leaders. Everyone can finish such a study having identified numerous problems while avoiding the most important examination: personal submission to Scripture.
Jesus' teaching repeatedly directs attention toward self-examination before correction of others. The purpose is not to abandon discernment but to practice it without hypocrisy.
Every Christian should therefore ask whether he personally treats Scripture as the final authority.
Do I read the Bible to discover what God has revealed, or mainly to confirm what I already believe?
Do I accept biblical teaching only when it agrees with my preferences?
Can I explain the gospel clearly to another person?
Am I personally participating in the work of making disciples?
Do my moral choices distinguish me from a world that does not submit to Christ?
Do I belong to a congregation where elders genuinely teach, protect, and correct?
Would I abandon a cherished doctrine if careful historical-grammatical exegesis demonstrated that Scripture teaches something different?
Do I desire biblical unity strongly enough to surrender denominational loyalty, inherited tradition, personal preference, or cultural approval when these conflict with the inspired Word?
These are not academic questions. They reach directly into Christian discipleship.
Reformation of congregations cannot occur without reform in individual believers. Churches are not abstract entities existing apart from people. A congregation becomes biblically strong as Christians within it grow in knowledge, faith, obedience, moral courage, evangelistic commitment, and love for truth.
The Authority of Christ Over His Congregation
Ultimately, the state of the church is a question about the lordship of Jesus Christ.
The congregation belongs to Him.
He purchased it through His sacrifice. He commissioned His followers. He appointed the apostolic foundation. He gave commands concerning Christian conduct. He established standards for congregational leadership. He warned against false teachers. He required disciples to make more disciples. He called Christians to remain separate from the world's sinful course. He demanded endurance. He promised to return and judge.
No generation of Christians possesses the authority to redesign Christianity according to its preferences.
The twenty-first century does not occupy a superior position from which it may revise apostolic Christianity. Technological advancement does not create theological authority. Changing moral attitudes do not alter God's standards. Academic sophistication does not nullify inspiration. Religious popularity does not establish truth. Emotional experience does not create revelation. Institutional success does not equal divine approval.
Christ remains Head of the congregation.
That truth gives this book both its seriousness and its hope. The present condition of much of Christianity requires sober examination, but departure from the biblical pattern need not be permanent. Scripture remains available. The historical-grammatical method remains capable of recovering the meaning intended by the inspired authors. Christians can learn the faith more accurately. Congregations can strengthen pastoral oversight. Believers can renew evangelistic activity. Moral compromise can be abandoned. False doctrine can be corrected. Biblical roles can be honored. Congregations can seek genuine doctrinal unity under the authority of God's Word.
Restoration begins when Christians stop asking how the church can become more acceptable to the age and begin asking how the church can become more faithful to Christ.
It begins when Scripture is no longer treated as raw material for constructing a Christianity acceptable to modern preferences but is once again received as the authoritative Word by which those preferences must be judged.
It begins when pastors understand themselves as shepherds rather than religious entrepreneurs, when Christians understand themselves as disciples rather than consumers, when worship is governed by truth rather than emotional manipulation, when evangelism becomes the responsibility of believers rather than a specialized department, when holiness is regarded as obedience rather than embarrassment, and when unity is built on shared submission to biblical doctrine rather than indifference toward doctrinal contradiction.
It begins when Christians recognize that the central question is not whether a church is large, old, influential, admired, sophisticated, exciting, culturally relevant, or institutionally secure.
The question is whether it is faithful.
Jesus' words to the congregations of Asia Minor still establish the proper posture: "Let the one who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches." The Spirit's voice is not discovered through modern claims of private revelation. Christians hear the Spirit through the Spirit-inspired Word that has been preserved for the church.
The task before the reader, then, is more demanding than observing the problems of contemporary Christianity. It is to place every doctrine, practice, method, tradition, leadership structure, evangelistic strategy, moral assumption, and claim to spiritual authority beneath the judgment of Scripture.
Where Scripture approves, Christians should stand firm regardless of cultural opposition.
Where Scripture corrects, Christians should change regardless of tradition.
Where Scripture commands, Christians should obey regardless of inconvenience.
Where Scripture establishes boundaries, Christians should not erase them in the name of acceptance.
Where Scripture defines Christian unity, Christians should not substitute religious cooperation for doctrinal agreement.
Where Scripture reveals the first-century pattern, Christians should seek restoration rather than innovation.
The state of the church will not be corrected by another marketing strategy, another cultural accommodation, another theological compromise, another emotional movement, or another attempt to make Christianity resemble the age in which it finds itself. The church will be strengthened only as Christians return with seriousness to the inspired Word of Jehovah, submit themselves to the authority of His Son, recover the teaching entrusted to the apostles, and live as disciples whose beliefs, conduct, worship, leadership, fellowship, and evangelism demonstrate that Jesus Christ truly is their Lord.
About the Author
EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 220+ books. In addition, Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).
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