I am starting to think about things that I haven’t thought about for a while: semantics. When people use the term ‘the church’ what do they convey? The word has various meanings in various contexts and I don’t want to try to force a singular meaning on it – that’d be just confusing and a lot of work for me to try to start an international campaign 🙂 Instead I want to take a brief look at the uses and then suggest care in using it in some contexts.
Meanings:
- The Church
- A building in which people of a Christian denomination come together (in contrast to a temple, mosque or Community Center)
- The Church
- A group of people that are gathered together in a particular building or that area associated with a particular denomination’s meeting place. Example: The Assemblies of God Church in Carson City is called Capital Christian Center.
- The Church
- The bride of Christ as defined by being a believer in Christ and not being associated with a denomination or meeting location.
It is this last definition that most concerns me. I recently read a statement wherein the person said [roughly], “The church has been judgmental in the past.” This is a sticky wicket and I wouldn’t normally even want to touch it. Here’s my concern though: by using the singular, universal term for Christians throughout history regardless of denomination or adherence to the authority of scripture you are painting with too broad a brush. Also, by doing this you’re actually defining the church differently compared to how the Bible teaches it to be on a doctrinal level. Practicioners of a religion do not necessarily represent the religion in its pure, ideal form.
I’m not suggesting that we white-wash church history so as to always appear as if all believers throughout history were abiding in the Holy Spirit and acting as God’s messengers in all things, but I am suggesting that we be careful how we use the church. The Bride of Christ has been made perfect by her redeemer/groom, Christ. We are sanctified in Him, perfected in Him and presentable to Him (see Ephesians 5 for this last reference). Let us not forget this when trying to interact with people and how we use the term ‘church.’ I’m sure I need to be more careful myself, but I do want to remind believers that by representing the church as anything but a redeemed group we short sell our savior.