Category: New Covenant (Page 2 of 7)
The Universal Church is the body of Jesus Christ. Every person who has been baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit is a member of that body. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).
When the members of His body gather together to celebrate and worship Him, that is a meeting of the local church and it is an important aspect of the Kingdom of God in the earth.
It is also true that the Kingdom of God is manifested everywhere it’s citizens are, whether in their homes, schools, places of employment, or the marketplace. The power of His grace at work in them testifies to the reality of His reign!
We all need close relationships in Christ to thrive and to encourage others. At the same time, nowhere in the scripture do we find any indication that an individual can only be a member of one local congregation. In fact, the closest relationships are often outside the regular place of meeting, along with some of the greatest opportunities to serve.
These days I am thinking about how wonderful it is to be a part of the world-wide community of God’s family. We are greatly diversified in our patterns of worship and thinking, and yet one in Him. I do not have to reject one part of His family in favor of another. I do need to find the areas of service that Christ has prepared for me. It is His pleasure that I live for!
2 Tim 3:14-17:
“14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”
NIV
Like Timothy, I was blessed to have been taught the Holy Scriptures, the Bible from childhood. It is interesting that when Paul wrote this, he was referring to the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, which Christians call the Old Testament. The latter part of our Bible which begins with the title, “The New Testament” had not yet been completed at the time.
Here is the apostle Paul, who wrote more and more emphatic about the grace of God in Christ, and our freedom from the letter of the law, than any other.
It might surprise some today, who mock others who still read and value the Old Testament, that their hero Paul would endorse it so heartily. He would even find it useful for rebuking and correcting believers, which practice many of the same folks find to be unnecessary. In fact they teach that repentance and confession of sin is not a part of the New Covenant in Christ. They say we are only to confess our righteousness in Christ.
As for me, I will take Jesus, Peter, Paul, and James over many popular modern teachers any day!
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