I Thessalonians 2:14 “For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: 15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: 16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.”
As our Churches should be, the Church at Thessalonica was patterned after “the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus”. The first criterion is that each Church was a Church “of God”; that is, it is God’s Church, not man’s, not the Government’s, not the possession of some organization or incorporation; if it is a Church, it exclusively belongs to God, and He has direct and immediate and complete authority over it. The second criterion is that it is the Church “of God … in Christ Jesus”; that is, the overriding message of the Church and focus of all functions of the Church are fixed upon the blessed truth that it is God “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:” (II Timothy 1:9-10). The third criterion is that our pattern for Church is the Biblical description of the Doctrine and Practices and Conduct of “the churches of God which in Judaea”; that is, “the churches of God” that were established and taught by our Lord’s Inspired Apostles; we are to pattern are Churches after what the Apostles preached and taught these Churches as it is recorded in the Word of God. We have no authority to make even the slightest alteration to the Doctrine and Practice and Conduct that those Inspired Apostles taught the Judean Churches. People change, societies change, governments change; but God doesn’t Change and neither does His Gospel Change. Remember Jude’s clear exhortation, “it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). The phrase “once delivered” means ‘at one time all was delivered for all’; and that includes us!