Ecclesiology

Why?

Why do you go to church?

Because it’s Sunday, and that’s what we do on Sundays?

Or maybe because you need something to hang onto if you’re going to make it through another week? A Bible verse, a thought from a sermon, an encouraging line in a song?

I’d like to suggest that you may be doing it wrong. Bear with me here.

Let’s get back to the beginning. God has graciously gathered his people into a body he calls the Church.

Why did he pick that name?

Read Part 1.

Read the series.

We’ve noted that some people resist committing to a local church, and I think we’ve demonstrated that their reasons for doing so are short-sighted. Even in a broken world with broken institutions full of broken people, surrounding yourself with your fellow travelers—and committing to them—is not only worth it, but it’s a mark of personal and social health.

So why get involved? Several reasons.

Here are some thoughts about the relation of the Church to the resurrection of Christ. If this is sound, it destroys any notion that the Church can be found in the OT, and eliminates one of supersessionism’s major arguments for throwing off the label of replacement theology (i.e., that the Church has always existed). This comes from the forthcoming book.

I’d like to begin a brief series on what our relationship should be with our local church. Like any culture, our culture—early 21^st-century American conservative evangelicalism—has its strengths and its weaknesses, its sore spots and its blind spots. I think there are some elements in our church culture that have greatly improved on the way things used to be done—improved in the sense of becoming more in line with biblical teaching—but I think there are also some important elements that we tend to de-emphasize.

So a few posts on some of those.

In Romans 11, Paul finally answers the question he’s been dancing around since ch. 9: what is God’s plan for the people of Israel?