Today we continue to look at the four tenets of our mission statement. We Love God, Connect to the body, serve with your gifts and engage the lost. (Love, connect, serve, engage). We do not want to use these tenets as mere words; we want to live them out in our daily lives. Last week we looked at what it means to love God. We said we must love God supremely. This is our vertical relationship. We love God with our total being, we put Him first, we desire Him and we obey Him. Loving God also requires a horizontal relationship. This relationship requires us to love our neighbors genuinely. We must love our neighbors unconditionally, spiritually and as ourselves. Today we continue in our mini-series as we look at what it means to connect to …show more content…
(Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians.) However, the image of “the body of Christ” is used differently in Romans and 1 Corinthians than it is in Ephesians and Colossians. Paul used the image of the body of Christ in Ephesians and Colossians to refer to the universal church with Christ as the head. In Romans and 1 Corinthians, He uses the image of the body of Christ to refer to the local church and to highlight the relationship expected among one another. The image of the body of Christ in Romans 12,4-5 show us what it means to connect to the body. 1. Connecting promotes spiritual unity (Romans 12:4a). Paul highlights the fact that the human body is a unit even though it has many parts. All the parts of the body unite to accomplish the work of the body. The members of BCC make up the church. Without the members this is just a building. How can we achieve unity in the church? The key to pursuing unity in the body comes from an understanding of God’s mercies towards us as sinners v.1a, “Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God.” When we understand God’s mercies as outlined in chapter’s 1-11 of Romans, we offer our lives daily as living sacrifices to God v.1b. As we offer our lives daily as living sacrifices to God, our minds are renewed v.2 and as our minds are renewed, we live in humility v.3 Paul says we should not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to
I think the meaning of this passage to the Church of Colosse is to be reminded of who Jesus is and what he went through for them. They needed to be reminded of Christ’s Deity and that there a people who care for them and like Paul are willing to go through extreme percussion for
One view says that ministry, evangelism and city movement is not the business of the church as a unit, but of the individuals of the church in their septate spheres. The other view says the opposite that the church should have it's roots deeply invested in the city, making the city a better place to live, Teaching people to love each other like God commands us to. Both of these ideas are correct. We should both love the city throughout our daily lives and corporately as a church. To have to choose between the two is just poor time management. Should local churches partner with other churches to love the city? I think that this is also a yes. I think that some churches are better at doing this than others. I know that my leadership is really great at connecting with other church leadership around the city. Even though I know my pastors talk to other pastors, I feel like our congregation seldom links up with other churches. We get together for a conference here, or a jazz night there. We only seem to connect with other CB churches inside the church doing CB things. I love the city of Portland prayer multi-church event. Whether we are praying or doing, I would love to see the churches in the city team up more and make
Paul Cathedral inspired me to become more involved with and get to know more people that are associated with my parish and in my community. The message that I took away has to do with the fact that we are all connected with one another through God and our faith. After reflecting, I found a liking to the statement that the person I interviewed established that while we are all from different backgrounds and have different stories, we are connected through our faith. We, as Catholics, are called to love our dear neighbor and to connect with one another through our faith in Jesus Christ and to live out his mission here in our
All of these statements together bring about our true mission; love. Love through community, education, and worship the most Holy One.
We will perceive, into this paper that how St. Paul articulated his upward perceptive of the characteristics of the Church in different images and metaphors; secondly, we will look at it more direct at two of these reflections: the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ; thirdly, we will test the organizational configuration of the Church as mentioned by St. Paul; to end with we will learn how St.
(Mays, James. 213) Paul utilized this imagery because it was something with which his audiences were already familiar; however, he places a different spin on the deeper meaning of a united body. 1st Corinthians explains the body of Christ to be one body with many members, each of value and contributing to the overall success and function of the body. The body of Christ is to create a unity of believers, many different people with different gifts all striving toward one goal in Christ. Continuing to explain that the body of Christ is formed from all believers, baptized in Christ, as that baptism is of one spirit and therefore of one body. (Garland, David E. 590) Additionally, believers are all given different gifts, and different abilities from those gifts; however, the point of the gifts is the glory of Christ. All gifts come from one God, and should in turn, be utilized to bring believers closer to Him. A single gift on its own is not as powerful as many gifts combined; therefore, the body of Christ needs to by unified in order to allow all things to work together for the best results and ultimate glory to God. The Body should be recognized as one whole with many contributing parts affirmed that within the body there is not only unity, but diversity, and that diversity and unity
THE church was formed as A Body of unity! So I'm sorry for being Bold And Stating truth but to tell u what's up..
The passage also has a specific context, which will be laid out in this paper. Context Paul was writing to the Corinthian’s in
The primary message of 1 Corinthians is Paul identifying the problems in the Corinthian church, so he could offer solutions and teach the believers in the Corinthian church how to face the conflict with the concepts and practices of the pagan world. 1 Corinthians is the most varied in content and style of all the epistles of Paul. Addressing topics ranging from schism to finance and from church decorum to the resurrection. Paul writes to elders of Corinth as if he had been present and having a conversation with them. The theme can be called “the doctrine of the cross in its social application” (Tenney 1985, 297–298).
Paul represented “one” which is the first mark of the Church by trying to unify the world as best he could with Christianity. He would take journeys to many different countries and cities to try and convert them. One of the reasons the Church has so many members today is because of St. Paul and his missions. St. Paul showed “one” also by the work of charity. Charity or love binds the Church into one people. He showed charity by going to some of the worst cities to try and clean them up as best he could and turn them into the direction of the Lord. For example, the city called Corinth was
5:8) one should not use this statement as the end of all ends and thereby eliminating the reality of a physical resurrection. On the contrary, this statement made by Paul is inserted among verses that contrast the disembodied theology favored by his opponents. 2 Corinthians 5:1-3 speaks explicitly of the “dissolving of the earthly temple” and “having a building of God, a house not made with hands.” Moreover, he uses terminology such as “clothed” and “we shall not be found naked.” These terms solidify Paul’s position as one fully persuaded of the unification of body and soul through resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, the res-urrection of Christ becomes the central focus due to the infiltration of those who were persuad-ing others against it. Paul’s ultimate agenda in presenting the case for Christ’s bodily resurrection was to incorporate the reality of the future resurrection promised to believers.
The Church has played a significant role in Christianity thought time. Reading thoughts from Irenaeus, Origen, and Cyprian open us up to reason as to why the Church hold such an important role in the history of the Christian faith and why they believe salvation can only be found within the foundation of the church. Tradition is also important to understand when looking into why the Church plays a significant role in Christianity. In looking at the reading from Irenaeus we see how he draws the correlation of the church as the “living body”, which then must uphold the traditions of the apostles from the first church. He directly states in the first line we read that, “True knowledge is the teaching of the Apostles the order of the church as established from the earliest times throughout the world, and the distinctive stamp of the body of Christ, passed down through the succession of bishops in charge of the church in each place.” For Irenaeus the Church was the cornerstone of the apostolic tradition which is of the most importance to him and his beliefs of Christianity.
He wrote to warn the Colossians of the danger of returning to their old beliefs and practices. He also refuted the false teaching that was threatening this congregation. The outstanding Christian doctrine with which this letter deals is Christology which means that Jesus Christ is the high truth and is our savior and nobody outside him can save them. His main purpose was to let the community of Colossae know that Jesus Christ has absolute authority. He invited the Community of Colossae to seek an encounter with Jesus Christ, and when they have the encounter, they will know Jesus Christ is supreme truth. Jesus has to be the center their life. Paul exhorted them to base their trust in the Word of God rather than in human traditions that do not accurately reflect biblical revelation. The matter of paramount importance to the church is its doctrine of Christ. Our Christian life and service will flow from our doctrine of Christ. Not only must Christ take a place in our lives, but our understanding must be exact in Jesus. We can avoid all the errors of which Paul warns us in this epistle by maintaining an adequate perspective of
This discourse causes one to think of collaboration, and true union with each other. In the body analogy, we see how every part is important; we rely on each other’s gifts. The parts of the body do not try to cut one another off, rather, there is a necessity of each part. In 1 Corinthians 12, we can see how Christ is the head and all the parts cooperate in accordance with him. What we can gather from this is that it is Christ is at our center. Since Christ is the head, he knows of our gifts. Keeping this in mind, we can recall the verse: “But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.” This can help one think about the importance of intentionality of communication and collaboration. In staying true to our faith, we should strive to be aware of each our special qualities and characteristics. In doing so, we can be more likely to be understanding of others. It teaches us to be more
They must express objectives that can be tested -- there has to be some way to determine whether or not an organization is meeting its goals.