What is the church? Thankful.

What is the church?  And what can we liken it to in Genesis 8?

"So Noah went out, with his sons and his wife, and the wives of his sons with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, and everything that moves upon the earth, according to its families, went out from the ark. And Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and he took from all the clean animals and from all the clean birds, and offered burnt offerings on the altar."

The church is saved and not just it but as we said before, God delights to have His church participate with him in His saving grace.  To extend it even to the beasts and birds.   The church is God's preferred agency upon the earth.  Here we see the grace He gives to his people purposely extended to creation itself.  But that is not my main point today.  

The first thing we see Noah do with his feet once again upon dry dirt is to gather stones together and make an altar.  To worship the God who saved him.  To respond to the God who called him.  To THANK the God who loved him despite the fact that "the inclination of the heart of humankind is evil from his youth."  God's words, not mine.  And this fledgling church of Noah's will prove it before they we are done with them.  But that is another day.  Today they show us that the church are those whom despite their natural bent, God has chosen, made his agents, saved and now...

are purposefully and worshipfully Thankful.

"And it happened that while traveling toward Jerusalem, he was passing through the region between Samaria and Galilee. And as he was entering into a certain village, ten men met him—lepers, who stood at a distance. And they raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” And when he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And it happened that as they were going, they were cleansed. But one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, “Were not ten cleansed? And where are the nine? Was no one found to turn back and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Get up and go your way. Your faith has saved you.”"  Luke 17

What is the church? In the beginning...

What is the church?  What can i liken it to? 

After my last post, someone asked me to define the church.  Not because they didn't think they knew the answer but so that they could find out how i defined the church.  That seemed fair enough except for one thing.

i don't care how i define the church.

It literally doesn't matter what i think.  It only matters what God thinks the church is.  And that is a subject not only too lengthy for a blog post but far too weighty for me to even ponder at length in one sitting.  It's one of those subjects, like God himself, the more i stare into it, the more i see.  So what i've decided to do, because i do feel this is an important subject which merits discussion, is to see what i can see God says about His church in Scripture for the rest of Lent.  i'm not giving up anything for Lent.  i'm taking up something.  

But where to start?  Well, where does God start?  In the beginning.  Genesis one. 

"And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every moving thing that moves upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them. And God blessed them..."

The first thing i see, is God, referring to His glorious self in the plural, creating the church and blessing it for a set purpose.  It is his agency for change upon the earth, the earth is good, yet God orders his people to subdue it, submit it, change it for a purpose.  The church is his agent, his servant, his viceroy, his governor.  Its work is blessed, not a curse.  As Keller puts it, Genesis is less about HOW God made everything but WHY.  

A second thing i see, is God making them diverse from the start.  Male and Female.  Forget races, creeds and tribes, you want diversity?  Have both women and men in the group.  And every creed, tribe and nation has both male and female.  Built in difference in desire, methodology and value.  And BOTH made in the image of God.  God cannot be expressed in only one gender.  

The Church is created, diverse, blessed and purpose built.