Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

/ 1 1 5

T H E O L O G Y O F T H E C H U R C H

The Church at Work

page 253 1

Welcome in the strong name of Jesus Christ! After your reading, study, discussion, and application of the materials in this lesson, you will be able to: • Articulate the various dimensions and elements of the Church, and be able to say how we may detect authentic Christian community through the Church’s actions and lifestyle. • Recognize the dimensions and definition of Church according to the teaching of the Reformation. • Recite the standard of doctrinal unity through the lens of the Vincentian Rule, a helpful guide to understand and evaluate traditions and teachings claiming to be binding upon Christians. • Describe the character of the Church’s works in the world by exploring various images of the Church mentioned in the New Testament. • Provide insights into the Church’s nature and function through the lens of the household of God, the body of Christ, and temple of the Holy Spirit, through the ambassadorship of the Church as the agent of the Kingdom of God, as well as God’s army, the Church’s work as doing battle in the Lamb’s war. Read 2 Corinthians 5.18-21 . Of all the images of the Church that move and challenge, the image of being an ambassador of the Lord is one of the richest and most suggestive. Paul speaks to the Corinthians as an ambassador of Christ, one who represents the interests, policies, and leaders of a distant land, and whose essential task is to simply carry out the edicts and instructions of the home country. Throughout the Scriptures, God envisions his people as belonging to a different land, looking for a new and different city whose maker and builder is God, whose citizenship is in heaven, who set their affections on things above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. We belong to the Lord; we have no certain place here. We are aliens, strangers, and sojourners, representing the interests of the Kingdom of God Learning to Represent God • Discern the marks of the Church according to the Nicene Creed.

Lesson Objectives

4

Devotion

page 253 2