The book tonight, First Corinthians, step number one, and in verse number one, the Bible reads,
Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes our brother
and to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
both theirs and ours. So first of all, let me point out a few things.
Paul is writing this epistle and he's writing it with Sosthenes. Sosthenes is the one who is
helping him write it or he's saying this is a greeting from myself and Sosthenes our brother,
and he's writing it under the church of God which is at Corinth. And so whenever we see the term
the church in the New Testament, he's talking about an assembly of believers every single time,
okay? Because the word church means congregation and that's why you'll have geographical locations
like the church at Corinth and then you'll often have it in the plural form, churches,
and many people teach a false doctrine that there is just one church. There's only one church
and I've had a lot of Roman Catholics tell me that when I'm out soul winning. They say,
what's this church is? There's the one true church. There's one church and even Baptist
and Protestants have become wrapped up in this thing thinking that every believer belongs to
the church so-called. Well, that's not true because this is the church at Corinth,
okay? And they say, well, there are churches but then there's also one big church. No,
if a church is an assembly, if a church is a congregation, I'm not congregated with all
believers. I am not assembled with all believers. Therefore, there is nothing on this earth at this
time known as the church which includes all believers. This is not true. It's a false doctrine.