The church is the body of Christ. I am persuaded that to this truth he
will give his hearty assent. This is Paul's over and over. Notice the
following verses.
Acts 2:41, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and
the same day there were added _unto them_ about three thousand souls."
The words "unto them" are in italics, so not in the original, and we
ask "added to what?"
Acts 2: 47, "Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And
the Lord '_added to the Church_' daily such as should be saved." Here
we are beginning to get the truth.
Acts 5:14, "And believers were the more added _to the Lord_, multitudes
both of men and women." This is the truth.
You will see that Christ is the head, the church is his body and we
are, as individual members of the church, just being added to him. One
day the body will be completed and then the Lord himself will appear.
If Christ is the head he must control the body. If his life is
hindered and not permitted to flow through every part of it there is
confusion, strife, unrest and loss of power.
There are certain things which we must do if we are to be in this world
as he would have us.
He must control the preaching. If given an opportunity he will direct
in the choice of a theme, he will quicken our intellect in the
development of that theme, he will give us an insight into the best way
to present it to our hearers, and putting faith in these preliminary
conditions he will take care of the results. He must also dictate the
praying in a church. There is much of it that is meaningless. It is
too formal, too lifeless, and entirely too general in its character.
In Matthew the eighteenth chapter and the nineteenth verse, we read,
"Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as
touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my
Father which is in heaven." It does not mean that if the two should
agree together as touching any one thing, but agree with him, for
wherever you find two in prayer there are three, and wherever there are
three there are four, and the additional one present is the Spirit of
God waiting to help us in our praying and to present our prayers unto
the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.
He must inspire the singing of the church. In Ephesians the fifth
chapter and the nineteenth verse we read, "Speaking to yourselves in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your
heart to the Lord." One reason why there is such a lack of power in
many churches in this country is due to the fact that the singing is
simply used as filling for the services. Hymns are used in a haphazard
way with little thought as to their bearing upon the theme to be
presented. I am quite persuaded that when the preaching, praying and
singing are all submitted to his control, whatever may be man's opinion
of the service, he himself will give to it his hearty amen.