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Welcome to The Rapid Pull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.
The last doctrine that I'd like to look at as we have been examining the doctrines of the Christian faith is the doctrine of the church. Now, there's a little bit of confusion on that word, church, because it actually came from the Greeks with the idea of a called out.
It was actually called out for, well, a vote. But it came over time to have more specific meanings. Now, though it historically was a general meeting of people, a gathering of people, after Christ it became more specifically to the gathering of those that gather to celebrate and worship God.
Now, we end up seeing that through the Middle Ages, there's some issues with it, but there became definitions of the church referring to the invisible or universal church, meaning the body of all the believers, and then the visible or local church, which was the church that gathered.
Now, the local church is those that gather within a building. The building, by the way, is not the church. But they gather in the building, and what you end up seeing is that there you can have believers and unbelievers, where the universal church was always the church that was of believers.
Now, during the Reformation, they ended up defining the church even more by saying the church had three functions, to proclaim the Word of God, to practice the ordinances, baptism and communion, and to keep the purity.
In other words, practice church discipline. So, we see that the definition of the church has actually changed over time. You can learn more about the church in my book, What Do We Believe, at whatdowebelievebook .com.
This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content, or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.