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The five pillars of God’s Church

God’s Church has to be established on five pillars: worship, teaching, fellowship, evangelism, purity. These five pillars are going to sustain and support the Church alive. That’s why its members must have as a continuo purpose to preserve and keep these pillars strong. The task of maintain, protect, restore, strengthen the five pillars listed here is the essence of what Christianity calls “to serve God”. Observe now what’s involved in each item called here as pillars of God’s Church.

Worship — The true Church is a community that gather together to worship (Acts 2.47; Eph 5.19, 20; Col 3.16). This worship must be directed exclusively to the Triune God. No other human or angelic character can be the object of the worship (Acts 14.11-18; Rev 19.10; 22.8, 9). According to John 4.23,24, the Christian worship should not be just a ritual full of mistakes generally from alleged worshipers opinions, preferences and inventions (Mt 15.8, 9). Rather than that the worship must be focused on God considering who He really is (a Spirit not a place or an object) and it must be done the way that He says it is right and the way He approves (this is the meaning of to worship “in truth”).   

Teaching — The task of teaching the holy doctrine must be maintained by the church as one of the most important pillars (Acts 15.35; 18.11; 20.20). It's because according to Ephesians 4.11-13, teaching makes the Christians mature and capable to church’s edification work besides it makes them more like Jesus (Col 1.28). Moreover, the text in Ephesians highlights that the teaching protects Christians from being deceived by the false teachers and their fraudulent doctrine (Eph 4.14). That’s the reason for the pastor being capable to teach (1Tim 3.2; 2Tim 2.24; Titus 1.9-11) and do it with insistence and perseverance (1Tim 4.13). The teaching’s content has to be the Bible and not human’s philosophy (Rom 15.4; 1Cor 2.1-7; 2Tim 3.16), being certain that each believer has to performance a didactic task in some measure in their relationships among the brothers (1Thess 5.11).

Fellowship — Different from what a lot of people think the pillar of Christian fellowship is not built only with social meetings around coffee and cakes tables; even though these meetings are helpful to strength friendship among believers they do not exhaust the real meaning of the believers’ fellowship that the Bible teaches us. In fact this fellowship comprehends a loving unity where each one cares humbly for the interest of other (Phil 2.1-4) and  practices a task of encouragement and exhortation closed to the brothers (Heb 10.25). The loving fellowship among the Christians is one of the most efficient testimony form (John 17.20-23) and also one of the remarkable proofs of walking in the light (1John 1.7).

Evangelism It’s about the responsibility on Church’s shoulder of making God known in the world (1Cor 9.16; 2Tim 4.5; 1Pt 3.15). In this task the Church has to proclaim the divine attributes (1Pt 2.9) specially Father’s saving  work made in sending His Son into the World to die for sinners and His resurrection on the third day (Acts 13.38-39; 1Cor 15.1-4). So, to be really biblical the Church cannot lose the focus of the evangelism (Acts 5.42) and the missionary work (Acts 13.1-3), the Church has to work for the evangelism pillar never to collaps and the Gospel to reach all those who are closed and those that live in the most distant places in Earth (Mt 28.19; Rom 10.13-15; Rev 14.6).

Purity — The Church that does not watch over the purity pillar will very early see itself invaded from the world’s practices and costumes that little by little will take over it (1Cor 5.6). Then it will have no differences between the Church and any other unbeliever’s association. In fact a church like this will be worst then an unbeliever’s association just because of this church the Gospel will be discredited and the name of Jesus will be blasphemed among the unbelievers    (1Tim 6.1; 2 Pt 2.1,2). If the Church does not strive for purity in its life soon it will become a den of hypocrites and it will lose its spiritual strength discouraging a life of God’s fear and it will drift apart from its fellowship those that are seeking for God with sincerity and will bring upon itself God’s wrath (1Cor 10.21,22; Rev 2.12-25). So, the Church’s purity is a matter of survival! If this pillar falls down the whole Church will fall becoming a bunch of people who maintain the world’s standards sometimes in a more scandalous way (1Cor 5.1). The most important tool to the maintenance of Church’s purity is the ecclesiastic discipline on Matthew 18.15-17 and 1Corinthians 5.1-5.

These five pillars should not be used only as the Church’s foundations as an organization but also as a solid foundation on each Christian’s life is built.  In fact, each brother in their daily life has to worship the Triune God and learn the Truth and teach it to those around them and also keep the flame of the holy fellowship with other believers and proclaim the Gospel to the lost and seek for purity in their life.

Pr. Marcos Granconato
Soli Deo gloria

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