When the King James Bible uses the word church, we should believe what it says. The problem arises when Bible students assume that every time the word church appears, it must refer to the Church which is Christ’s Body. It does not. The Bible uses the word to describe different assemblies in different settings, and those assemblies are not necessarily doctrinally identical. If we allow the Scriptures to define its own terms and rightly divide the word of truth, we can identify at least four kinds of religious assemblies in the Bible.
The first I would like to discuss is found in found in Acts 19:37: “For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.” The Bible says “churches,” and that is exactly what it means. The context concerns the pagan worship surrounding Diana of the Ephesians. These were certainly not assemblies worshipping the true God, yet the Bible calls them churches. This immediately establishes an important principle: a church is not necessarily the Body of Christ, nor is every church necessarily of God. Acts 19 itself repeatedly uses the word assembly for the gathering at Ephesus. There can be true religious assemblies and false religious assemblies. The word church identifies an assembly; the context identifies what kind of assembly it is.
This week on our podcast, Unmovable Apologetics, I discuss this church along with the other three types of churches found in the Bible: the church in the wilderness, the Church which is Christ’s Body, and the churches, or assemblies, of the Tribulation. For a fuller examination of these four churches and their dispensational significance, click the link to listen to the latest episode of Unmovable Apologetics, “Rightly Dividing the Four Churches.”
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