The Church Reimagined – It’s Not A Building!
In my first post on this topic, I urged readers to imagine the Church Jesus is building. My reference was Ephesians 4: 4-13.
Every verse and passage in the Bible has a context – usually the book or letter as a whole. Often, as with most literature, simply reading the immediate context, is a useful rule-of-thumb for providing clues to understanding the relevant verses; so too, the Word of God.
Often reading one or two verses before and after any verse or short passage, proves most illuminating. For this reason I want to encourage you to do the same with your reading of Ephesians 4:4-13.
Back to today’s topic on the Church reimagined. Understandably, but regrettably, both history and theology tended to muddy rather than clarify and amplify (magnify) the truth of God’s Word, clouding it with controversies, intellectual doubts, disputed meanings, heresies, and even gross deceptions at times. Obviously, these did not end with “Has God said …?” and “If you are the Son of God …?”
What we did establish from both Matthew 16 and Ephesians 4, was that neither Jesus nor Paul ever referred to a physical building – unlike our otherwise un-renewed imaginations would have it! Hence there is a critical need to reimagine the Church today.
Like it or not, Paul the Apostle picks up where Jesus left off (lifted off, would be far more accurate). So reimagining the Church Jesus is building, requires a serious reread of the Book of Acts and the various New Testament Epistles (Letters), at the very least. Reimagine the Church:
- Expressing the Truth in Love;
- Growing up into Christ;
- Closely joined together as both the Head and Body of Christ; and
- Every part working effectively to build up the Body in Love.
That, my fellow brothers and sisters, is the Church reimaged from Ephesians 4:15 and 16. In my next post, I tie the Church Jesus is building, together with the Church reimagined. DV.
