The Marks of a Faithful Church

What makes a faithful church? That’s a question many have attempted to answer through the centuries, but perhaps the best answer we have is in Colossians 2:1–7. While this text is probably not the first text that comes to mind in attempting to answer that question, William Barclay shows us in his New Daily Study Bible commentary how relevant it is in providing an answer. Let’s see what he has to say about the marks of a faithful church.

Eight Marks of a Faithful Church

Here is Paul’s prayer for the church, and in it we ascertain the great marks which should distinguish a living and faithful church.

(1) It should be a church of courageous hearts.

Paul prays that their hearts may be encouraged. The word which he uses is parakalein. Sometimes that word means to comfort, sometimes to exhort. But always behind it there is the idea of enabling a person to meet some difficult situation bravely and with confidence. One of the Greek historians uses it in a most interesting and thought-provoking way. There was a Greek regiment which had lost heart and was utterly dejected. The general sent a leader to talk to it to such purpose that courage was reborn and a body of dispirited men became fit again for heroic action. That is what parakalein means here. It is Paul’s prayer that the church may be filled with that courage which can cope with any situation.

(2) It should be a church in which the members are united together in love.

Without love, there is no real church. Methods of church government and ritual are not what matter. These things change from time to time and from place to place. The one mark which distinguishes a true church is love for God and for one another in community. When love dies, the church dies.

(3) It should be a church equipped with every kind of wisdom.

Paul here uses three words for wisdom. In verse 2, he uses sunesis, which the Revised Standard Version translates as understanding. We have already seen in our discussion of Colossians 1:9 that sunesis is what we might call critical knowledge. It is the ability to assess any situation and decide what practical course of action is necessary within it. A real church will have the practical knowledge of what to do whenever action is called for.

He says that in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is sophia, and knowledge is gnōsis. These two words do not simply repeat each other; there is a difference between them. Gnōsis is the power, almost intuitive and instinctive, to grasp the truth when we see it and hear it. But sophia is the power to confirm and to commend the truth with wise and intelligent argument, once it has been intuitively grasped. Gnōsis is that by which people grasp the truth. Sophia is that by which people are enabled to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

So, the real church will have the clear-sighted wisdom which can act for the best in any given situation. The wisdom which can instinctively recognize and grasp the truth when it sees it. And the wisdom which can make the truth intelligible to the thinking mind, and persuasively commend it to others.

Hidden in Christ

All this wisdom, says Paul, is hidden in Christ. The word he uses for hidden is apokruphos. His very use of that word is a blow aimed at the Gnostics. Apokruphos means hidden from the common gaze, and therefore secret. We have seen that the Gnostics believed that a great mass of elaborate knowledge was necessary for salvation. That knowledge they set down in their books, which they called apokruphos because they were barred to ordinary people. By using this one word, Paul is saying: ‘You Gnostics have your wisdom hidden from ordinary people; we too have our knowledge, but it is not hidden in unintelligible books; it is hidden in Christ and therefore open to all men and women everywhere.’ The truth of Christianity is not a secret which is hidden but a secret which is revealed.

(4) The true church must have the power to resist seductive teaching.

It must be able to resist those who would deceive it with persuasive arguments. Persuasive arguments translates the Greek word pithanologia. This was a word of the law courts; it was the word used for the seductive power of a lawyer’s arguments, which could enable the criminal to escape from a just punishment. The true church should have such a grip of the truth that it is unmoved by such arguments.

(5) The true church should have in it a soldier’s discipline.

As the Revised Standard Version has it, Paul is glad to hear of the order and of the firmness of the faith of the Colossians. These two words present a vivid picture, for they are both military words. The word translated as order is taxis, which means a rank or an ordered arrangement. The church should be like an ordered army, with every member in his or her appointed place, ready and willing to obey the word of command. The word translated as firmness is stereōma, which means a solid defense, an immovable formation. It describes an army set out in an unbreakable square, solidly immovable against the impact of the enemy’s charge. Within the church, there should be disciplined order and strong steadiness, like the order and steadiness of a trained and disciplined body of troops.

(6) In the true church, life must be in Christ.

Its members must walk in Christ; their whole lives must be lived in his presence. They must be rooted and built up in him. There are two pictures here. The word used for rooted is the word which would be used of a tree with its roots deep in the soil. The word used for built up is the word which would be used of a house erected on a firm foundation. Just as the great tree is deep-rooted in the soil and draws its nourishment from it, so Christians are rooted in Christ, the source of their lives and their strength. Just as the house stands fast because it is built on strong foundations, so the Christian life is resistant to any storm because it is founded on the strength of Christ. Christ is both the source of the Christian life and the foundation of stability for all Christians.

(7) The true church holds fast to the faith which it has received.

It never forgets the teaching about Christ which it has been taught. This does not mean a fixed and rigid orthodoxy in which all creative thought is heresy. We have only to remember how in Colossians Paul strikes out new lines in his thinking about Jesus Christ to see how far that was from his intention. But it does mean that there are certain beliefs which remain the foundation and do not change. Paul might travel down new pathways of thought, but he always began and ended with the unchanging and unchangeable truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

(8) The distinguishing mark of the true church is an abounding and overflowing gratitude.

Thanksgiving is the constant and characteristic note of the Christian life. As J. B. Lightfoot put it in his commentary, ‘Thanksgiving is the end of all human conduct, whether observed in words or works.’ The one concern of Christians is to tell in words and to show in life their gratitude for all that God has done for them in nature and in grace. Epictetus was not a Christian – but that little, old, lame slave, who became one of the great Greek moral teachers, wrote: ‘What else can I, a lame old man, do but sing hymns to God? If, indeed, I were a nightingale, I would be singing as a nightingale; if a swan, as a swan. But, as it is, I am a rational being, therefore I must be singing hymns of praise to God’ (Discourses, 1:16:21). Christians will always praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

Keep Reading the New Daily Study Bible

The title of William Barclay’s commentary on the New Testament, the New Daily Study Bible, is a little misleading. Instead of being a study Bible in the traditional sense, the New Daily Study Bible is a commentary on the entire New Testament. This commentary is written in an accessible style with updated language, making it useful for devotional or study purposes for anyone wanting to understand the New Testament. Purchase the set today!