“In a Western culture where institutions generally and the church particularly have fallen out of favor, we’re delighted to award the Book of the Year spot to Brad Edwards’s debut book, The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism.” - CToday
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.
In Part 1, we followed along as the apostle Paul explained that God has not forsaken the people of Israel. Instead, He is temporarily punishing them. Now, he explains why the punishment is necessary. So, Paul deploys a sort of parable to explain God’s divine rescue plan.
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?
“of the nineteen uses of βασιλεία in the NT epistles, fully half of them occur in contexts of church membership, most often that of church discipline.” - DBTS Blog
As we enter into Palm Sunday and Passion Week, it is appropriate that we focus our attention on the discourse that Jesus gave His disciples in the Upper Room—most of it after Judas left (John 13:30)—on the night before His death.
I asserted in the previous installment that Jesus took this opportunity to reveal many new truths associated with the church age to His apostles.
“On one page, Jesus says that he will build his church, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18)…. a couple pages later, the young believer encounters Jesus telling the disciples they should address unresolved sin by telling it ‘to the church’ (Matt. 18:17).” - 9 Marks
