26 - The Nature of the Church

 26 - The Nature of the Church

How can we recognize a true church?  What are the purposes of the church?  What makes a church more or less pleasing to God?

 In part 26 of our 34-part theology series, we learn about the true nature of the Church.  We define the “church” as the community of all true believers for all time. This definition understands the church to be made of all those who are truly saved. Paul says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Here “the church” is used to apply to all those whom Christ died to redeem, all those who are saved by the death of Christ. But that must include all true believers for all time, both in the New Testament age and in the Old Testament age as well.  So great is God’s plan for the church that he has exalted Christ to a position of highest authority for the sake of the church: “He has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all” This Doctrine of the Nature of Christ’s Church is but one of 34 lessons in systematic theology.

 Anyone who reads the Bible on a regular basis has begun to develop a “theology” of who God is and what he has revealed of Himself to man down through history. But is it organized to the point where you can confidently say “this is what the Bible teaches” on a particular topic, or do you just base your beliefs on random verses that could well be misunderstood because they are taken out of context?

 My confidence in going out to share the Gospel with strangers comes largely from my study of “Systematic Theology”, which I’ll define as learning what the whole Bible teaches us about a given topic. I’m confident that I’m not misrepresenting God as revealed in his Word, and I’m confident when people make unbiblical claims about God that challenge my own beliefs. I’m increasingly amazed by the consistency of the Bible, written by so many human authors but without contradiction, that I can only conclude it was written by divine inspiration.

 I’ve gained so much personally from my systematic study of theology that I’m teaching a 34-week class on it at church, based on Dr. Wayne Grudem’s books “Systematic Theology” and “Bible Theology”. I’m excited to dig deeper personally as I prepare the outlines and lessons, and I want to take as many people along with me on this journey as possible. So I am recording the class and posting the videos to my YouTube channel, and making downloadable PDF chapter outlines and audio recordings available on a Google Drive folder as well.

 Care to join me? Links to my YouTube channel and shared resources are as follows:

Video: YouTube.com/c/JeffReiman

Shared Resources folder: https://tinyurl.com/yxy2kb56

Lesson 26 - https://youtu.be/YDHNuIR1wDs