THE BODY OF CHRIST

I am presently reading a book by Derek Prince entitled "Rediscovering God's Church", and finding new ways of describing the Church, that I have never before heard. I have studied about the Church for many years, and thought I had heard all there was to hear about it, but I was wrong! The thing that he pointed out about the "Body of Christ", which as you know, is one of the terms used in scripture to refer to the true Church that Jesus said He would build (Matt 16:18), that I had never heard before, is what I would like to share with you. Just in case you had never thought of it like this either!

Several scripture passages compare the Church to the human body, with our head Jesus Christ, from whom we get our directions, located in heaven at the right hand of the Father. And of course we who have accepted Jesus as our own personal Savior make up the various parts of His physical Body here on earth. (1Cor 12:12-28), (Rom 12:4-10). We have spoken about that many times, but Derek brings out the fact that just as a human body rests upon our two legs, so does the Body of Christ! When God designed the Church He set it up in this manner, but then man's structure took over, and this simple truth was lost. One of these legs is the "Apostolic Teams", which we see clearly in the book of Acts by studying the ministry of Paul. These were the mobile, or traveling part of the Church which planted new churches, and the other is the "Presbyteries of Elders" that these Apostolic Teams always set in place in every local church they planted. (Titus 1:5). In other words one was meant to be the outreach to localities where the good news of the gospel had never gone, and the other was the permanent leadership team that governed the churches that were established by the Apostolic Teams. Notice these men always worked as a team of at least two, and often three or more. The only time you see an apostle mentioned alone is when he was in prison!

The title of Elder is an OT term that was carried over into the NT Church. They are always mentioned as "Elders" (plural), and functioned as a team. Local Elders could also be prophets or teachers, but then become "Apostles" when they were sent out by a local church. (Acts 13:1-3). Here we see the first case of prophets and teachers in a local church being sent out as apostles at the direction of the Holy Spirit. Elders always sent out apostles, who reported back to the church that sent them. Then when new churches were formed, the apostles always set in place elders. These Elders in turn would later on, at the direction of the Holy Spirit, send out apostles. So in this way we see God's "Reproduction Cycle" in action! All this has been lost because man decided he could come up with a better system of structuring the church! As I see it the church today needs a complete restructuring, and a restoration back to the original plan! But are our present church leaders willing to implement such a change, which might affect their security, by way of current position, pensions etc? These are questions that need to be seriously addressed, in my opinion!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp