Tag Archives: body of Christ

What I Believe: The Christian Church

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The Christian Church, as were the Tabernacle and Temple, is intended to exist for a time to fulfill God’s purposes on earth. At the Second Coming, I believe, it will cease to exist, having served its purposes on earth and it will no longer be needed in heaven because believers will have direct access to the persons of the Trinity.

Jesus Christ is in charge of the Christian church as it is the extension of the work he came to do on earth. There is powerful symbolism in the New Testament portraying Christ as the bridegroom and the church as his bride. The meaning of this is, I think, that the Christian church must be prepared, eager, watchful, energetic, pure, and so forth to be ready to give itself to its Lord when he returns. This will not be as an organization or other human entity but as it will have birthed and been the mother of the people of the universal church.

The universal church is the totality of all believers, past, present and future that have been brought into the kingdom of God through the effectual work of Jesus Christ. There is, therefore, one church that is the body of Christ in the world. This is the holy catholic church of the Nicene Creed.

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Electronic Christianity Six

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A couple of days ago I suggested to a friend he might go to my blog to see some of the posts I have put up. A day later I thought “Wait a minute, he’s going to first see my posts on eChristianity. What am I going to tell him about it.”

This turns out to be a good time to consider what I should tell you and him about eChristianity.

What started me off in thinking along the lines that led to the concept of eChristianity was my finding that are many serious, devout and thinking Christians on the Internet who are exploring their relationships with one or more Persons of the Holy Trinity without any acknowledgement, except from their followers, that they were doing so. Thus, it struck me that there was something important going on that was without identity or recognition.

When I thought about a name for this, I thought “how about eChristianity.” My next thought was that eChristianity seemed possibly trite and probably already used by someone. However, when I Googled it I got no results so I decided I would use the term in writing about what I had in mind.

And what did I have in mind? I think it was triggered by something I heard or read about the unity of Christians. This is not surprising since it is in the New Testament a lot. However, when unity is mentioned now, it is sometimes institutional unity and sometimes unity within a local church. It never seems about the spiritual unity of the body of Christ.

Paul wrote about the body of Christ having many different members each with a different function but all necessary if the body is going to function as it should. I think that is what eChristianity is about. We are people of Christ’s body with electronic as well as spiritual connections and we are as important to the work of God as the other Christian institutions, organizations, parachurch ministries and all the rest. We have just not had an identity or a name. Now we do.

 

Electronic Christianity Three

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My most humble apologies to any who may have read my post “Electronic Christianity Two” and thought I was trying to base eChristianity on the Nicene Creed. That was not my purpose at all. What I was trying to accomplish was to show there was something solid at the core of Christianity. What I wanted to point out was that just as there is a reality underlying mathematics, physics, and all other kinds of science so there is a reality to Christianity that cannot be ignored. Please forgive me if I was unclear.

Perhaps I should have used the concept of “mere Christianity” that was used by C.S. Lewis to describe his idea of the root reality of Christianity. In any case, at the heart of our belief is the actual reality of a new life that will endure forever. This is the sure promise and the ultimate certainty yet it is not all there is for us in Christianity. Although most of us have probably had our lives greatly changed through the work of the Godhead in us, what also matters is that we are a part of the body of Christ and the body needs all of us parts to be truly whole. This is why I thought up eChristianity. It is conceived as a way to bring together the many of us who are one-person churches; people who have never found their “fit” in conventional churches and provide us a unity with each other.

I am not sure how eChristianity will work but I think it can use what the Internet has made possible. It is meant to enable the coming together of many parts of the body of Christ so Christianity can better withstand the forces operating to reduce its influence in the world and in people’s lives.

Please let me know what you think.