Is a church right because it calls itself a church of Christ?
Question:
How do you know if a church is the right church? Is it because they bear the name "church of Christ"? Isn't it possible that a church might also be a Bible-believing church but might not have a "church of Christ" attached to their church? Or is the name "church of Christ" the only name that a Bible-based church should bear?
Answer:
What makes a church faithful is whether the church obeys the commands of God. The seven churches in Asia had both good and bad churches among them (Revelation 2-3). What distinguished them was whether they did as the Lord directed or not.
There are a wide variety of names used to refer to God's people. Each name emphasizes a particular spiritual aspect of the people who worship God as Christians.:
- Churches of Christ (Romans 16:16)
- Church of God (I Corinthians 1:2)
- Church of the Living God (I Timothy 3:15)
- Church of the Firstborn (Hebrews 12:23)
- Or just plain Church of [name of some town] (Colossians 4:16; I Thessalonians 1:1; II Thessalonians 1:1; Revelation 2:1; 3:14)
- Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 7:21)
- Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 4:20)
- Kingdom of Christ and God (Ephesians 5:5)
- Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Colossians 1:13)
- Kingdom of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (II Peter 1:11)
- Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:27)
While there is no set name for the church, you would expect that a church following the Scriptures would use a biblical name in reference to itself.
