Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

/ 2 5 5

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

throughout the ages in various places, Jesus can state that together believers make up one shepherd with one flock (John 10.16), and he prays explicitly for our unity in his high priestly prayer during his passion (17.20-26). In Colossians 3.11 and Galatians 3.27-28 we see that the Church is not known by categories; everyone who believes in Jesus Christ has become one, and none possess distinction based on gender, race, ethnicity, social status, or history. Being one in Christ by faith, however, does not mean that believers will conform woodenly to the same uniform expressions. The Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 ensures that Christian belief need not slavishly conform to Jewish tradition or Gentile sentiment. Churches gather according to the locales, according to different languages and cultures. From the beginning, churches (gatherings) have possessed their own characters, worship, opportunities for mission, persecutions and perils, and expressions. We hold today to the same challenge that churches have felt throughout the age: believers are to live together with love and unity regarding the heart of our faith in Christ, without demanding that all assemblies imitate our expressions of worship, mission, teaching, and structure. Please emphasize with your students that God’s elective choice of his members includes all the branches of the Vine, of which Jesus himself is the Taproot for all of us (John 15.4-5). While every individual Christian assembly could point to its own share of division, conflict, or struggle, God calls his people holy. How so? The biblical language regarding holiness does relate directly to the actual character of holiness which we seek to demonstrate in our personal and corporate purity (e.g., 1 Thess. 4.1-8). But, it also refers to the state or status of being separated from the unclean, the impure, and the profane in order to be separated unto the possession, pleasure, and purpose of God. The fact that the Church is holy, then, does not mean that the Church (nor all the churches and assemblies making up the Church) is free from all forms of sin or immorality. It means, rather, that the Church has, through God’s elective purpose, been set aside for his possession and use, and that she should seek to become all that she is and has been called to through God’s calling. This is completely in sync and illustrated by Paul’s discussion of his own desire to glorify God in Philippians 3.12 where he suggests that at the present, he was neither

5 Page 120 Outline Point I-B