What Is the Church?

The church is the joyful company of all those who have been redeemed and brought into right relationship with God. Jesus declared that he was going to build a new community known as the church. Jesus did not use the more common expression of a “congregation” or a “synagogue” to describe his new community, but the word “church.” The word in the Greek is the word for being called to a public assembly. It simultaneously reminds us that we have been called out of a life of sin into a new community, and also that this community is a public assembly designed for men, women, and children alike who have been baptized and brought into this new redeemed life. It is not, like the earlier word, limited to Jews, but is now open to the whole human race, Jew and Gentile. It is a community of prayer, of teaching, of training, of discipline, and it is the place where we dwell in the presence of God and commune with him at the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist. We are not merely saved as individuals but we are saved as a people.
As explored earlier, precisely because sin is fundamentally a broken relationship, it is important that we are brought into new, redeemed relationships so that we can demonstrate to the world what it means to be made right before God. The church is designed to be a little outpost of heaven in the midst of a lost world.
Continue reading on Seedbed.com…
Purchase my book 30 Questions: A Short Catechism on the Christian Faith.

Feedback

Please fill out the form below if you would like to provide feedback to Dr. Tennent concerning this blog entry.