Tools of the Trade

Build & Fight, Part 2

God’s blueprint design

Christians have been commanded, by Christ, to build churches that endure suffering and persecution, churches that offer worship that is pleasing to the Lord, and churches that are grounded upon truth well enough to stand against the waves of lies. But if this is what we have been called to build, what are the plans or instructions for our building? What are the materials at our disposal? What are the tools we must use to build well?

We’ll begin with the instructions first. The reason for this is because if you’ve ever built anything according to plans, the plans will commonly include the materials and tools needed. This should come as no surprise to anyone, but the inspired Word of God, sufficient and authoritative, is our instruction manual on building godly churches. Everyone loves 2 Timothy 3:16, but verses 14, 15, and 17 help hold the whole thing together. “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:14-17).

The primary reason why churches dissolve into insignificance is because they abandon the primacy of the Scriptures. If you disregard the Word of the living God, your church will be unfruitful, irrelevant, and inadequate to stand firm in the day of fire. The majority of the New Testament is written to local churches, by men who loved these churches, desiring to see these churches grow in spiritual maturity, and preparing these churches for the suffering and persecution that are part and parcel of following Christ in costly obedience.

Jesus Himself affirmed this truth during His earthly ministry. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27).

Biblical brick and mortar

Now that we have the instructions, what are the materials to be used? “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). “You are God's field, God's building… Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:9b, 16)?

The people are the materials. The people are the stones. We are, first, built upon the Cornerstone that is Christ Jesus, and second, the foundation that is the Apostles and the Scriptures. This is why the New Testament is filled with the “one another” commands. Without people loving and serving one another, using their gifts, and submitting to the Word of Christ, there is no building, no strong local church. This is also why actually meeting in person is so essential. You can’t livestream stones and form a temple; the stones have to be together, side-by-side, supporting one another, or else you don’t have a building, you have an idea. You have a temple in your mind’s eye, not a real spiritual house being built up in Christ.

Spiritual hammers and saws

We have the plans, and we have the materials. What are the tools? What is at our disposal to build strong churches? “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.” (Acts 2:42-47a).

The tools are what are known as the “means of grace” available to the believers in the local church as the church gathers together. From the passage above, we can clearly identify six of these means of grace, or six of the tools. 1. The preaching of the Word of God, 2. True Christian fellowship, 3. The Ordinances (the Lord’s Supper and baptism), 4. Corporate prayer, 5. Receiving offerings, 6. Praise and worship of God. If the church is not participating in these practices, or availing herself of the means of grace, then they are using the wrong tools, or no tools at all, in their building. These are the gold, silver, and precious stones Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 3, the things that make churches strong enough to withstand persecution.

Time to get building

Now, if you consider what has transpired over the last several years and the decisions certain churches have made, you can see what I asserted in this blog post series that whatever many churches have been building, it has not been spiritual temples that will endure the day of fire. First of all, to suspend corporate worship indefinitely, relegating it to Zoom calls, or even heavily restricting the Sunday gathering, is to prohibit the people, the materials, from coming together to be built up. It is to starve the people of the means of grace, the tools, to build up the church. How can you Zoom a baptism? How can you sing to one another over a livestream? How can the one body share the one bread from behind computer screens? They cannot, which shows that not only have both the materials and tools been disregarded, but ultimately the instructions, the very Word of God, have been at best neglected, and at worst abandoned, out of either fear or pragmatism.

What is the way forward? How can churches move forward and build strong and healthy churches, churches that will stand firm when the day of fire comes, and when persecution and suffering are upon the church?

We must submit our lives and doctrine to the eternal Word of God as our building plans. We must care for the people within the local fellowship as the materials God is using to build His temple. We must obey Christ and avail ourselves of the means of grace, which can only happen when we meet both in person and unhindered, which are the tools we use to build God’s house. Until/unless this happens, churches will persist in building themselves up with wood, straw, and hay. And when that dreaded day of fire arrives, when real persecution and suffering come upon the church, they will burn up into either insignificance or apostasy.