The Kingdom of God, Mentor Guide, MG02

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T H E K I N G D O M O F G O D

authorship for much of the New Testament, including the four Gospels, Acts, James, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. Serious questions remain among biblical scholars regarding the Pauline authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus and Hebrews. Yet, in spite of what academic study of religion or so-called biblical scholars believe and assert, and also regardless of who the exact authors are in regards to the Gospels and letters in the New Testament, the confessing Church canonized our current books as apostolic, granting them the weight and authority of the Apostles, and because of that, they are worthy of our complete trust and confidence. What this example demonstrates is that the Church, regardless of science and/or scholarship, has through the centuries anchored their commitment and faith on what they discovered to have originated from or was authorized by the Apostles. The Church, therefore, has both defended the doctrine that the Apostles argued, and has historically allied itself only with those documents, doctrines, teachings, and practices which can be shown to have originated with the Apostles’ teaching and practice. To defend our faith is to understand that the message and the mission of the Apostles is the final authority for the faith and practice of the Church. As mentioned before, the signal evidence of the Church being a locus of the Messianic age and power of the Kingdom is the Holy Spirit in the midst of the Church. As the very temple of the Living God, believers are today being built together into a dwelling place fit for our God to dwell, as a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph. 4.22). Through the spoils of Jesus over the enemies, he has endowed every believer with grace according to Christ’s own determination and measure (Eph. 4.7; cf. Rom. 12.3). Furthermore, Paul suggests that God has proffered gifted persons upon the body of Christ; apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Eph. 4.11) in order to equip the saints for the work of the ministry in order that the body might grow, both in number and spiritual vitality. In sync with this purpose, the Holy Spirit has given diverse gifts of spiritual ability to various members of the body for varied callings and kinds of service, for the good of the body corporate (1 Cor. 12.4-11). These manifestations of grace, power, and blessing are associated with God’s kingdom rule now being demonstrated through the new

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