Chapter 15: Believing and Belonging
The church is like a river—many people from different backgrounds joining together into a single powerful flow. Diversity gives way to unity. The church is also like a tree—grown from a single seed, Jesus, and branching off into incredible diversity. Unity generates diversity.
The Church and Its Purpose. The church is like a river with many diverse sources all joining into a single powerful slow. The church is like a tree, or a vine, with many branches. Paul described the church as a body and its members having different parts. Another image is that of family. Except, “God has no grandchildren.” The church doesn’t exist to provide a place to develop spiritually. Nor does it exist as a retreat from the world. It exists to carry out the mission of God—to announce to the world that Jesus is its Lord. “The church is the single multi-ethnic family promised by the creator God to Abraham. It was brought into being by Israel’s Messiah, Jesus; it was energized by God’s Spirit; and it was call to bring the transformative news of God’s rescuing justice to the whole creation.”
Waking Up to the Good News. Waking up as a metaphor for faith. Some people wake up to an alarm (Paul’s conversion); others wake up slowly over time. “The fact that we can’t ever earn God’s favor by our own moral effort shouldn’t blind us to the fact that the call to faith is also a call to obedience.”
Belonging to the Family. It is impossible and undesirable to be a Christian all by yourself. The best scenario is to belong to a small group where intimate prayer and fellowship can occur as a part of a larger body which has a variety of church programs. “The church exists primarily for two closely correlated purposes: to worship God and to work for his kingdom in the world.”
Through the Waters of Baptism. The symbolism of coming through the water to new life is pervasive in the Bible—creation, Moses and the Nile, the Red Sea, crossing the Jordan, John the Baptist, and more. Baptism is important in the Christian life.
Chapter 16: New Creation, Starting Now
The point of Christianity is not to go to heaven when we die. The scriptures clearly tells us that heaven and earth will be one. God’s plan is not to abandon this world, but to remake it. And when he does, he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it.
Living Between Heaven and Earth. Remember the 3 options from earlier. To live in this world is to practice how the new world will be, as best we can.
Renounce and Rediscover. Christian life means dying with Christ and rising again. That means we have to renounce some things and rediscover others. That is, say no to some things, and yes to others. This is hard work and involves many sources of illumination. There are rules in the NT.
Justice Revisted. We are called as Christians to work at every level of life for a world where reconciliation and restoration are put into practice.
Relationships Rediscovered. Relationships are built around love and kindness. Issues we have to deal with in relationships include anger and sex.
Beauty Reborn. Beauty is a baffling thing. It slips away from us and decays. The arts are not irrelevant—they are glimpses into the center of a reality that cannot be grasped any other way. “What I want to propose … is that the church should reawaken its hunger for beauty at every lev-el. This is essential and urgent.”