The Bible begins and ends with God dwelling with his people, from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, to the great multitude in the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. At each step, God gathered his people together, to speak to them, hear from them, and change them to be more like him. God assembling his people, whom he loves, is what the Bible calls ‘church’.
The church should aspire to be a group of vibrant, loving, risk-everything people who are passionately committed to living out the values of God’s Word and looking forward to the new creation. Churches and their pastors and leaders need to hear what the Bible says about who they are and what they are to do.
Chris Green takes ‘the message of the church’ to mean, first, that the church has a message, which is that God has saved his people through Christ; second, that the church is the created and saved result of that message; and third, that the church is a message, which is that he has saved broken people like us, and by belonging to his people we are trying to respond to him in the ways he requires. His stimulating and insightful exposition begins with a survey of the church ‘from eternity, to Eden, to exodus, to exile, to eternity’, and then focuses on various dimensions of the church’s life and ministry, including its worship, unity, maturity, servants, gifts, holiness, boundaries and future.
Cuprins
Contents
General preface 9
Author’s preface 10
Abbreviations 11
1. Introducing the church 13
2. The church from eternity to Eden (Ephesians) 19
3. The church from Eden to exodus (Genesis 17:1-27;
Galatians 3:15-29; Colossians 2:11-18) 40
4. The church from exodus to exile (Exodus 19;Hebrews 12:18-29) 60
5. The church from exile to eternity (Matthew 16:13-20) 78
6. The church’s life (Acts 2:41-47) 95
7 The church’s compassion (2 Corinthians 8 – 9) 111
8 The church’s meal (1 Corinthians 11:17-34) 130
9. The church’s praise (Colossians 3:15-17) 148
10. The church’s unity (Ephesians 4:1-6) 163
Putting it all together: Part one 176
11. The church’s maturity (Ephesians 4:7-16) 180
12. The church’s servants (1 Timothy 3:1-13; 5:1-25) 197
13. The church’s gifts (Romans 12:1-13) 223
14. The church’s holiness (1 Peter 2:9-12) 242
15. The church’s boundaries (2 and 3 John) 259
16. The church’s future (Acts 11:19 – 20:38) 277
Putting it all together: Part two 297
17. The church for eternity (Revelation 21:1 – 22:5) 299
Study and action guide 315
Despre autor
Christopher Green, BD, is vicar at St. James in North London and formerly vice principal at Oak Hill College, London. He is coauthor of The Message of 2 Peter and Jude and coedited a book on preaching entitled When Gods Voice Is Hear
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