Thinking about Church Part 2

After I got the ball started with my last post, I started reading through some scriptures, jotting down some notes in my journal, and well, started to think this is harder than I thought. It's such a huge topic! But an importance nonetheless.

Anyway what are my thoughts? As I was thinking, I should work out what the Old Testament background to the church is, so I picked up the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology -- by IVP (Great resource by the way!), and read this really helpful little article by D. Tidball. He had this line: the church is the 'consequence of the character and purposes of a trinitarian God.' (p407).

Now as you look at the narrative of the Old Testament you see how this works out. God calls Abram, promises him that he'll be a great nation, and the nations will be blessed through him (Gen 12:1-3). In redeeming Israel (Abraham's descendants) from the oppression in Egypt, Yahweh remembers his covenant with Abraham and Israel's forefathers (Exodus 2:23). They were to be His people and he their God. They were called out to worship Yahweh and serve him (Exodus), in being Yahweh's 'treasured possession' and 'kingdom of priests' (Ex. 19:4-6). The reason for this choosing of Israel was not that they were impressive but because of Yahweh's love (Deuteronomy 7). What was required, was spelled out in the covenant, it was love and loyalty.

However, this is not the picture of the Old Testament people of God. They constantly fall into worship of other gods, and forsake Yahweh. So they get punished for this rebellion with the exile (cf. Deuteronomy 28 for the curses). But the prophets looked forward to the time when God would 'gather' his 'scattered people' to himself. And these people would not just come from the remnant of Israel, but from the nations (cf. Isaiah 2, Micah 4). God's purposes have been to call a people to himself. The Old testament has this huge expectation of an in-gathering of many people to God, to be in relationship with Him under blessing, in fulfillment to the promises made to Abraham way back in Genesis.

Now there is much in the Old Testament that gets picked up in the New Testament, in terms of language used to describe the people of God. it adds depth to our understanding of the church, when see it in this light. The ideas are transformed into a greater reality when seen in light of the person and work of Jesus. But we need the background of the OT. This has been very brief. Next time I'll turn to ponder what the New Testament says in terms of 'what is church?'.

Thinking about Church

Robyn and I are currently on holidays from College, and also after exams, our church (Denham Court Anglican). Last week we decided to go to another church to meet with God's people. As we had another week of Church holidays this week, we decided to go to another church again. It was interesting, and not what we were used to. And so, it got me thinking about church....

What is church? What is important for church? What does the Bible say about how God's people are to gather? And what things should be part of the 'time together'? How much of our culture and the media has influneneced the way we go about 'doing church'? Is that all together bad?

In the next couple of entries, I'll spend some time thinking 'out loud' so to speak, reflecting on church and the things associated with it. I know that greater minds than mine have already written plenty on this, but I guess want to delve into the Scriptures to see if I can start to come up with some answers to these questions... hopefully its a journey that is helpful.