Christ, founder and head of the Church

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• explain the biblical meaning of the word church (ekklēsia);
• show from Scripture that Christ is the founder, the owner and the head of the Church;
• draw some practical consequences for the way you live and serve in your community.

📖 Receive

Slowly read Matthew 16:13-20, the conversation between Jesus and the disciples at Caesarea Philippi. Pause on Jesus’ promise:

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” — Matthew 16:18 (KJV)

Then read Ephesians 1:20-23 and Acts 20:28. Before going on, underline in each passage who is acting: who builds, who is appointed as head, who paid the price.

🔍 Examine

More than a building

If you ask someone what a church is, they will probably point to a building with a bell tower, or talk about a religious institution. The New Testament, however, never uses the word in that sense. The Greek term ekklēsia meant a summoned assembly: in Greek cities it was the assembly of citizens called to gather. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament the same word described the people of Israel gathered before God.

When the first Christians call themselves ekklēsia, they are saying something profound: we are people called by God and gathered together in Christ. Before it is a place or an organization, the Church is a people.

“I will build my church”

In the conversation at Caesarea, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answers with a promise in which three phrases deserve attention:

• “I will build”: the builder is Christ. The Church is not born from a human project, a religious movement or a successful strategy.
• “My church”: Christ is its owner. He does not say “your church”, nor “Peter’s church”.
• “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it”: the Church has a guaranteed future. Neither death nor the powers of evil will be able to destroy it.

Christians have long discussed what the “rock” is on which Jesus builds: Peter himself as the first witness, his confession of faith, or Christ. The rest of the New Testament helps us: Peter will have an important role at the beginning (Acts 2; 10), but the ultimate foundation remains Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). The apostles and prophets are the foundation on which the Church rests because they faithfully handed on his teaching, while the chief cornerstone is Jesus himself (Ephesians 2:20).

Bought at a great price

Paul, saying farewell to the elders of Ephesus, urges them to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood (Acts 20:28). To the Ephesians he writes that Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5:25).

The value of something is also measured by the price someone is willing to pay for it. The Church, with all its imperfections, is worth the blood of the Son of God. This should change the way we speak about our community and about the brothers and sisters who belong to it.

A box to reflect on It is easy to love Christ and criticize the Church. But Christ does not ask us to choose between him and his people: he loves the Church so much that he died for her. Loving Christ means learning to love what he loves.

The head of the body

After the resurrection, God placed Christ above every power and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body (Ephesians 1:22-23). In Colossians 1:18 Paul repeats: he is the head of the body, the church.

The image is simple and powerful. The head:

1. leads: direction for all the members comes from the head;
2. nourishes: the body grows by receiving from him what it needs (Ephesians 4:15-16);
3. unites: all the members are connected to one another because they are connected to the same head.

That is why no human leader, however respected, can take Christ’s place. Pastors and elders are servants under the head, not heads in his place. We will see this more clearly in the lessons on church government.

The good shepherd and guardian

Jesus presents himself as the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11-16). Peter calls him the Shepherd and Bishop (that is, the guardian) of your souls (1 Peter 2:25) and the chief Shepherd who will appear (1 Peter 5:4).

Christ, then, did not found the Church only to leave it to itself. He continues to know it, to lead it and to keep it. In the letters to the seven churches in Revelation we see him walking among the lampstands, that is, among his communities, knowing their works, encouraging them and correcting them (Revelation 1:12-13, 20; 2:1).

Four roles, one Lord

We can sum up what we have seen so far in four roles of Christ toward his Church. The diagram places them all around him, because they are four aspects of the same lordship, not four different people:

graph TD
  C(["Christ"]) --> F["Founder: builds the Church"]
  C --> P["Owner: purchased it"]
  C --> K["Head: leads and nourishes the body"]
  C --> S["Shepherd: knows and keeps it"]

Each role answers a different question:

Role	Question	Key text
Founder	Where does the Church come from?	Matthew 16:18
Owner	Whom does it belong to?	Acts 20:28
Head	Who leads it?	Ephesians 1:22-23
Shepherd	Who takes care of it?	John 10:11

Holding these four aspects together protects us from two opposite mistakes. The first is to think of the Church as any other human organization, to be run with the same logic as a club or a company. The second is to idealize it, forgetting that it is made up of real and imperfect people. Christ knows his Church well, with all its limits, and yet he calls it “mine”, leads it and does not abandon it.

A concrete example

Imagine a church that has to decide whether to start a new ministry for young people. There may be many questions: do we have the resources? Who will be responsible for it? What do the older members prefer? These are legitimate questions. But if Christ is the head, the first question becomes a different one: what does the Lord want for his church, in the light of his Word? This does not eliminate discussion, but it puts it in the right perspective and frees it from power struggles and party logic.

🔗 Connect

The theme of Christ as founder and head runs through the whole of Scripture:

• already in the Old Testament God gathers a people for himself and promises that he himself will be Israel’s shepherd (Ezekiel 34:11-16, 23);
• in Matthew 16:18 Jesus announces that he will build his church;
• in Acts 2:47 it is the Lord who adds to the community daily those who are being saved;
• in Ephesians 2:19-22 the Church is a building that grows around Christ, the cornerstone;
• in Revelation 21:2 history ends with the Church presented as a bride ready for her Lord.

With the BereaWay Method we have received the promise of Matthew 16, examined it in its context, and now we connect it to the rest of the Bible: from beginning to end it is Christ who builds, leads and brings his people to completion.

🙏 Apply

Take a few minutes, on your own or with your group, to answer these questions:

1. When you think of “church”, what image comes to mind first? What changes if you think of it as a people called and gathered by Christ?
2. Are there ways in which you (or your community) treat the church as if it were “yours”? What would it mean to give it back to the Lord?
3. How does the fact that Christ gave his life for the Church affect the way you speak about your brothers and sisters?
4. Write a short prayer thanking Christ, the head and shepherd, for your local community, naming a few people.

📚 Go Deeper

• Read John 10:1-18 and note everything the good shepherd does for his sheep.
• Read Ephesians 1–2 in one sitting and underline every reference to the Church: what has God done to create it?
• In the next lesson we will see how the one Church of Christ becomes visible in many local churches, each with its own face.