Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

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

The Church as Witness

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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: • Outline the most significant aspects of the doctrine of election as it applies to Jesus Christ as the Elect Servant of God. • Describe how God’s election relates both to his chosen people Israel as well as to the Church. • Explain the relationship of God’s election of individual believers “in Christ,” that is, in connection to Christ as they cling to him by faith. • Articulate how the Great Commission provides an overall outline for the Church’s threefold witness in the world to make disciples. • Recite how the Church fulfills Christ’s commission by obeying Jesus’ call to evangelize the lost, by baptizing new believers in Christ (incorporating them as members into the Church), and by teaching true converts to observe all the things Christ commanded. Read Mark 16.14-20. There is something very significant about last words. What do you say to a person when you are seeing them for the last time? Surely your instructions are chosen with great care. In the last words that Jesus spoke to his disciples prior to ascending into heaven, he was very clear. Your most important priority, he tells them, is to preach the good news about Jesus to everyone in the world. And then, knowing that they will face persecution and disbelief, he adds that as they preach the Gospel they should depend on the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1.8) to protect them and to verify their preaching by visible displays of God’s power. The Church has taken those last words to heart. Every century since Jesus ascended the Gospel has been taken to new parts of the world— to new groups of people, to new languages and cultures—and has resulted in the steady and often spectacular growth of the Church so that today more people name Jesus as Lord than at any point in human history. We can thank God for what has happened, but our task is not Preach the Gospel

Lesson Objectives

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Devotion

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