There is only one holy Christian church. We cannot see it, but this assembly brings together everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ as Savior.

That raises a question, doesn’t it? If there is only one true church, then why are there so many churches? We know that there is only one God. We know that the Lord has revealed himself to us in his inspired Word, the Bible. Yet as we look around our neighborhoods, our country, and our world, we see so many different religious organizations and so many different churches. And they all claim to use the Bible.

The Bible speaks of the church “throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria” (Acts 9:31). We hear of churches in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:2) and Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). These passages refer to Christians who were in a specific place and were joined together in a fellowship. The local congregation is a visible organization. Such a gathering is the natural product of obeying God’s command to come together. The purpose of such a visible assembly is to hear the Word and to receive the sacraments.

Once again we are reminded that the word church is used in two different ways. God knows all the members of his invisible church, no matter where they are. But we only know what we can see. We see people gathered together in the visible organizations that we call churches. The visible churches are united into many denominations that we again call churches. Yet these denominations often differ from one another in what they teach. Truth is uncompromising. It has nothing to do with error. A teaching is either true or false. It cannot be both. Churches whose teachings do not agree cannot all be true churches.

Not a personal judgment

To further complicate matters we know people from these other churches. We know that they are committed to their churches. They live lives that from all outward appearances may even put us to shame. Then how can we say that they belong to a false church? How can we say that what their church teaches is wrong? How can we suggest that such people don’t belong to a true church? People might consider us to be arrogant for even asking such questions. We might find ourselves asking with Martin Luther, “How can I be right and the rest of the world wrong?”