A friend of mine shared with me “three ways to look at the church.” He said that some people see the church as a hospital where they can come to be healed of life’s spiritual or physical issues. Others see it as a private club, a dispenser of goods and services for them and their family. My friend sees it as a barracks, a place where soldiers live, not permanently, but while they are training to be sent into battle. He would argue that the barracks image comes closer to the church’s mission as described in Ephesians 4:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, NIV)

As an equipping station, barracks works.

But as I was thinking of writing this blog, the image Jesus himself used comes to mind. What about battering ram!?

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16.16 – 18, ESV, emphasis mine)

Jesus is clear: the church is a battering ram, breaking down the gates of hell. Not with violence but, as I’ve written before, with deeds of love and mercy, along with proclamation of the gospel.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4.18, 19, ESV)

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Philippians 1.12 – 14, ESV)