Question
What is the relationship between the bible & the church? What if the bible is being neglected? Is the bible necessary for the church? I thought the Sunday service (worship) is enough without the bible?
Answer
Yes, there is a direct relationship between the Lord’s church (His assembly of saved people) and the Bible. It is from the Bible that we must seek authority for whatever we can know about Jesus, salvation, how to worship God and how to live a Christian life. Without His word, we would be on our own as far as deciding these most important matters.
Some passages that may help you are found below. They show the importance of the Word to a local church and also some warnings about churches that decried to depart from the word and follow their own way. When looking for a local church, we ought to make sure that they are seeking to follow and teach the Bible, not the traditions of men.
MAT 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
MAT 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
MAT 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. ”
ACT 2:42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
ACT 20:28 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
ACT 20:29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
ACT 20:30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
ACT 20:31 “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
ACT 20:32 “And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
2TI 4:1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
2TI 4:2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
2TI 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires;
2TI 4:4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
2TI 4:5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
EPH 4:11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
EPH 4:12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
EPH 4:13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.
EPH 4:14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
EPH 4:15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ,
EPH 4:16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
By Gary Hunt
