The New Testament Church – February 18, 2025

    After the baptism of Jesus, He began His work to prepare His people for works of service, so that His Body would be built up until everyone reached unity in the faith and in the knowledge of Him and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness He gave to them. He was appointed and anointed to be the apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher and shepherd. Jesus promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come to “teach them all things and remind them of everything that Jesus had said.”

    None of them were able to fill all the offices that Jesus filled for them, but they were shown how all the “offices” that Jesus occupied could be filled and that was how “Jesus” continued and even expanded His kingdom starting immediately after Pentecost. The written description of how “Jesus”, through the Holy Spirit continued to move forcefully ahead was written by Paul through the epistles and made available to the Body 18-20 years after Jesus was resurrected and went to heaven.

“Now you are the Body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then evangelists and others.” (1 Corinthians 12:27-28). It was in 90AD, after Jesus appeared to John at Patmos and Revelation was written that we were told that Jesus was going to make a “new heaven and a new earth”, and that the first heaven and earth would pass away.  

    For those searching for the “devoted to the apostle’s teaching” fellowship described in Act’s 2 & 4, you will not find your fellow believers in the traditional church fellowship. They will be found in the harvest fields in your own community living sacrificially to bring God glory by unselfishly serving the broken hearted and crushed in spirit not looking for applause, attention or desiring the things of the world for themselves. “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were bring saved.” (Acts 2:47)

    Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of His sheep. The watchman opens the gate for Him, and the sheep listen to His voice. He calls His sheep by name and leads them out. When He has brought out all His own, He goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow His voice. But they will never follow a stranger, in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what He was telling them” (John 10:1-6)