{"id":52393,"date":"2018-01-14T21:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T03:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=52393"},"modified":"2022-08-22T21:34:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T02:34:30","slug":"is-a-church-right-because-it-calls-itself-a-church-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-a-church-right-because-it-calls-itself-a-church-of-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Is a church right because it calls itself a church of Christ?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>How do you know if a church is the right church? Is it because they bear the name &#8220;church of Christ&#8221;? Isn&#8217;t it possible that a church might also be a Bible-believing church but might not have a &#8220;church of Christ&#8221; attached to their church? Or is the name &#8220;church of Christ&#8221; the only name that a Bible-based church should bear?<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>There are a wide variety of names used to refer to God&#8217;s people. Each name emphasizes a particular spiritual aspect of the people who worship God as Christians.:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Churches of Christ (Romans 16:16)<\/li>\n<li>Church of God (I Corinthians 1:2)<\/li>\n<li>Church of the Living God (I Timothy 3:15)<\/li>\n<li>Church of the Firstborn (Hebrews 12:23)<\/li>\n<li>Or just plain Church of [name of some town] (Colossians 4:16;\u00a0I Thessalonians 1:1;\u00a0II Thessalonians 1:1;\u00a0Revelation 2:1;\u00a03:14)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 7:21)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 4:20)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of Christ and God (Ephesians 5:5)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Colossians 1:13)<\/li>\n<li>Kingdom of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (II Peter 1:11)<\/li>\n<li>Body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:27)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: How do you know if a church is the right church? Is it because they bear the name &#8220;church of Christ&#8221;? Isn&#8217;t it possible that a church might also be a Bible-believing church but might not have a &#8220;church of Christ&#8221; attached to their church? Or is the name &#8220;church of Christ&#8221; the only&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[448,998],"class_list":["post-52393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-church","tag-names"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2327,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-do-the-churches-of-christ-insist-that-their-name-is-scriptural\/","url_meta":{"origin":52393,"position":0},"title":"Why do the churches of Christ insist that their name is scriptural?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why does the \"Church of Christ\" insist that their name is scriptural when it cannot be found anywhere in the Bible? The church is referred to as the \"church of God\" eight times in the Bible, but never is it called the \"church of Christ.\" The verse they use\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67110,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-the-churches-of-christ-the-only-correct-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":52393,"position":1},"title":"Are the churches of Christ the only correct church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeffery, In the article \"Wasn't Babel the city of Eridu?\" you mentioned, \"You will not find any claim that the churches of Christ are the only correct church on this site.\" Do you no longer believe in the one true church? I understand that not every church with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25826,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-the-use-of-conservative-non-institutional-or-mainstream-to-describe-churches-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":52393,"position":2},"title":"Isn&#8217;t the use of &#8220;conservative,&#8221; &#8220;non-institutional,&#8221; or &#8220;mainstream&#8221; to describe churches wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Since the \"Church of Christ\" is the only authorized name for the church, why do some take pride in calling it the \"conservative church\" or the \"non-institutional church\"? I also hear of the \"mainstream church.\" Is this not liberalism and denominationalism? Answer: First off, \"church of Christ\" is not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8926,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-should-a-new-congregation-be-called\/","url_meta":{"origin":52393,"position":3},"title":"What should a new congregation be called?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am starting a small church in my home. I have attended the Church of Christ here most of my life and preached there as well. I greatly value your site. I am starting this church because the two churches of Christ here have a nasty reputation around town.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44695,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-the-church-of-god-the-one-true-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":52393,"position":4},"title":"Is the church of God the one true church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day brother Jeffrey, I need your help. Where does the church of Christ get the year 33 AD? What is the basis for this? Another question: Is it true that no religion can save? The Church of God said that the one true church is the Church of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14219,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-address-the-criticism-of-the-church-by-a-family-member\/","url_meta":{"origin":52393,"position":5},"title":"How do I address the criticism of the church by a family member?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I am a member of the body of Christ and it disturbs me greatly that people within my physical family, as well as my spiritual family, are saying that God never founded the church of Christ. Below you will find a few correspondences sent to me by a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}