June 3 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

What is the catholic church? Most people equate it with the Roman Catholic Church. You wouldn't consider someone who attends a mainline Protestant church to be catholic. Ironically, both Protestants and Roman Catholics recite the Apostles’ Creed which states, “I believe a holy catholic church.” This begs the question, “What is it that makes a church catholic?”

Catholicity is a characteristic of the true church. The word catholic literally means: the whole or the total. The church is catholic in four aspects. First of all, there is the geographic aspect. Christ gathers His people from all nations under heaven. Before His departure from earth to heaven, Jesus commissioned His apostles to “make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19) His work is not confined to one place but is spread over the whole inhabited world. Secondly, the church is catholic in an ethnic sense. The promise of salvation in Christ (together with the command to repent and believe) is to be proclaimed universally and without discrimination to all peoples to whom God in His good pleasure sends the gospel. Thirdly, there is a temporal aspect to catholicity. The church’s existence stretches across the ages from the beginning to the end of the world.

The first three aspects are bound together by a fourth. The church is catholic when it adheres to and preaches the whole truth of the Bible. A church is no longer truly catholic if it does not proclaim the whole counsel of God, if it permits or tolerates those who doubt the authority of Scripture, or if it teaches views contrary to the Bible.

As a local congregation of Christ we should be a catholic church in the fullest sense of the word. The catholic church of Christ “is not confined or limited to one particular place or to certain persons, but is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world. However, it is joined and united with heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith.” (Belgic Confession, Article 27) May the Lord be pleased to keep our eyes open to the catholicity of Christ’s church.