Church sent into the world

David Bosch writes, “The involvement in the world should lead to a deepening of our relationship with and dependence on God, and the deepening of this relationship should lead to an increasing involvement in the world.” Tod Hiestand writes: " the individual church must see itself as sent into the world, it must also see itself as sent into the world along with the church catholic."

The mission of the church is derived from Jesus' call to gather together. also the apostle Paul called us not to neglect our own congregational meetings which form the church, (Hebrews 10:25)
The church’s call to be a “sign, witness and foretaste” of the coming Kingdom may not be overlooked.

God has sent the church so that in His mission His “love and attention are directed primarily at the world". God has given His son as the foundation of the Church.

We are all part of the world but God and His son Jesus have given us the task to distantiate from the worldly matters. The church that “goes” is the church that finds its primary identity detached from the world and set apart as holy.  The separate and untainted church rightfully understands that it needs to be a witness for the gospel.
Missiologist David Bosch writes: “Spirituality or devotional life seems to mean withdrawal from the world, charging my batteries, and then going out into the world. The image is of an automobile that runs on batteries only.”
Jesus light of Israel, but also for all people, states the need for us to remain set apart in their sentness, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”(John 17:18) We can hope to reap which shall only be possible if we properly reflect the teachings of Christ Jesus. Christ means ‘Messiah’, the  anointed one. He was anointed in order " to preach the Gospel" (Luke 4:18); and we too have been anointed insofar as we are in Christ, the anointed one (2 Corinthians 1:21). Therefore as He was ordained a preacher of the Gospel to the world, we too share that honour (as we do all His honours, to some extent). He was anointed (‘oiled’) by God in order to give the oil of joy to His people; He shared His experience of anointing with us, and we must go out and do likewise (Isaiah 61:1,2) (cp. Luke 4:18).

Isaiah’s description of the beauty of Christ’s preaching in (Isaiah 52:7) is quoted by Paul concerning every preacher of the Gospel (Romans 10:15); the “he” of (Isaiah 52) is changed to “them” in Romans 10. And Paul is quoting this Old Testament prophecy about Jesus to prove that we are all “sent” to preach the Gospel. The validity of our commission to preach is quite simply that Jesus Himself preached; in this way we are all personally “sent” to preach, simply because He was sent to preach. As the Father sent Him, so He sends us.  We should be ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20) and we should show the world that we are united in that one Body of Christ. Jesus prays that they would remain unified, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” With Jesus’ prayer as a foundation for understanding the nature of the church we see that the Church finds itself in the world, yet set apart and unified.

We as brothers and sisters in Christ do have to be unified if we desire to have an effective witness in the world and to build a true church of Christ. We can not be monads or private disciples going our own way, out of love for our fellow believers we do have to share the love of Christ and our own love with the whole community.

We need to speak out against the suburban value of extreme individualism and call Christians back to community. We should prepare the ground, fertilise the field, and plant Bible based structures.

We need to deconstruct the value of consumerism in a way that leads instead to sacrificial living and we need to understand how our individualism and consumerism lead us to neglect the hurting and needy people in our neighborhoods and cities. We cannot stay together in a closed or isolated cocoon. It can help everybody if we can move from an individualized witness to a more robust and powerful communal witness.

Jesus was not about sending his disciples out by themselves into their individualized world to “share the gospel” so that people could “go to heaven when they die.” Rather, he was sending them out to be a communal, public witness to the Kingdom that he was announcing and inaugurating. We need a Church that rejects the lone ranger mentality and lives in sacrificial and compassionate community.

(Based on ideas from Todd Hiestand and Duncan Heaster)

Making church

That God our prayers wants is sometimes found strange even by Christian believers. But our Creator has His eye on us and would like to have it tht His creation loves Him as their father. We should show our presence, our gifts and our service as the expression of our gratitude to God. Jesus gave us the task to pray to His Father as well instituted he at the Last Supper, just a few hours before his dead, the Memorial Meal.

As such we do have received the task to come together, regularly meeting to remember the dead of Jesus.It is our presence our physical presence, our attendance, that we have to give to God. As part of the limb of Christ we should become thriving blood and give the community warmth and health to live and grow.
Remember the old story about the blind man who also had great difficulty hearing? He couldn't see and couldn't hear, but he never missed church. He was there every Sunday. Someone asked him, "Why? You can't see what's happening and you can't hear much of what is being said, but you are always here at church. You are always here. Why? Why do you come?"
He answered, "Because I want the world to know whose side I'm on."

It does not have to be every Sunday or even on Sunday, but we should have to be able to find a day in the so many hours which lay for us. Every one of us who finds himself a believer should be courageous enough to come out in this world as a follower of Christ and show it by his attitude.The world should tell by the way you live, by your love for the church, by your devotion to the church, by your church attendance record, whose side you are on. In the spirit of gratitude to God for his inexpressible gift of Jesus Christ, we can give our prayers and our presence.

When we as believers would unite and come together we shall be able to create church. We can become church.

We can pray, too, that God will be with you and will use you as His instrument of love and peace and grace. But then you have to be prepared to be willing to give yourself as an instrument in the hands of God.

Then it becomes important that we ask God to create His instrument here on earth for us. We can pray that we can form with others a church where we may be faithful in continuing the preaching, teaching, healing, caring ministry of Christ. Please pray for your church. The church needs your prayers.

In the articles Opbouw van een ecclesia en verbonden kosten & The Ecclesia in the churchsystem we go in to present the possibilities and difficulties we have to face forming an ecclesia.

We show that the point is that we are all needed. But, you know, there is another thing to be said that is even more important: We all need to give. Giving is good for our souls. It's the spiritual expression of our gratitude and commitment to God and it is so important to our spiritual health. Virtue is its own reward and so is giving. The real reward is in the giving. And this giving can be in different ways. Everybody has something in which he can excell. that what we can do well we can use for the community. We can give our service to all the believers who want to become united.

When we join hands in grateful service to God we are making the church together. When in gratitude to God for His inexpressible gift of Jesus Christ, we give our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service. We are making the church together. Let's do just that - for our own sakes, for the good of others, and for the greater glory of God.

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Read more >  The Ecclesia in the churchsystem

For the Dutch version go to  / Nederlandse versie: Maken van een kerk

Dat wij allemaal samen kunnen werken in het verwezenlijken van een ware kerkgemeenschap kan u vinden in  Opbouw van een ecclesia en verbonden kosten & uitgebreider in de Engelse versie The Ecclesia in the churchsystem

The Soul not a ghost

From

BIBLE VS. TRADITION (1853):

THE SOUL NOT A GHOST. 17 

without measure." The same reasoning would show that 
man himself, as existing in this life, is a ghost, for God is 
called a man, Exo. 15 : 3, " The Lord is a man of war." 
The same principle of false reasoning would convert a 
man's heart and eyes, as well as the heart and eyes of 
beasts into so many ghosts, for they are called by the 
same name as the eyes and heart, hands, and feet of God. 
And a tree must have sense and feeling, because it is said 
to have life as well as men. But what sort of theology 
is this ? Cannot God possess an attribute that may be 
entirely spiritual, yet called by the same name as one in 
man that may be entirely corporeal ? If he cannot, then 
how shall he be able, out of these stones, to raise up 
children unto Abraham ? Matt. 3 : 9. Surely the souls 
of these children would be corporeal, if made out of stones. 

Again, God's soul cannot be separated from himself; 
for if it can, then is he two Gods. " But to us there is 
but one God." 1 Oor. 8 : 6. Allow God's soul to be him- 
self as nephesh when applied to God, is twice translated. 
Jer. 51 : 14, " The Lord of hosts hath sworn by his ne- 
phesh" (by himself). Also in Amos 6:8; or him, as in 
Pro. 6 : 16. " These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, 
seven are an abomination of his (nephesh,) of him ;" and 
we obtain the correct idea. As nephesh, the soul, com- 
prehends the whole being of God, so does the same term 
comprehend the whole being of man ; and never means a 
principle that can live independently of the man or beast, 
to both of which the term nephesh is indiscriminately ap- 
plied ; and is twenty -five times correctly translated " them- 
selves." Let two examples suffice for the present. " He 
teareth (his nephesh) himself in his anger." Job 18:4. Did 
Job tear his immaterial and immortal ghost ? u Back- 
sliding Israel hath justified herself, (her nephesh) more 
than treacherous Judah." Jer. 3:11. Has a nation a 
ghost ? 

Nay, but every nation has a being. Here, then, the 
arguments of Luther Lee, and those of like (" ptrecious .?") 
faith, are overthrown by the translators themselves, though 
they were believers in the immortal-soul theory. It is 
vain to endeavor to array the soul, which is the man him- 
self, with the attributes of independent conscious existence, 
spirituality, immateriality, and immortality, against the 
plainest declarations of God's Word. 


> BIBLE VS. TRADITION: IN WHICH THE TRUE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE IS 
MANIFESTED, THE CORRUPTIONS OF THEOLOGIANS DETECTED,
TRADITIONS OF MEN EXPOSED BY AAEON ELLIS 
SECOND EDITION. PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF BIBLE EXAMINER. 1853  

Theology without spirituality sterile academic exercise

A theology without spirituality would be a sterile academic
exercise.

      -- John Macquarrie