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.

Know for Certain

“Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

These are words God told Abraham way back in Genesis 15. When one looks backwards at prophecy fulfilled there's not a lot of awe. Our natural reaction is somewhere along the lines of, "duh. I saw the Ten Commandments and/or Prince of Egypt. Who doesn't know that?" What we forget is that, Abraham hadn't seen those movies. He was a little behind with Netflix. He was talking to God and God was telling him what was going to happen in the next four hundred years. Wow. That had to be mind blowing. Too bad God doesn't tell us what's going to happen now, huh? Right?

Only he does. God's always telling us what's going to happen. It's one of the ways He proves He is God, in control and immutable. God never saw something happen and said, "Oh myself! I totally didn't see that coming!" Quite the opposite. He warns us all the time what's coming so that we can be faithful and confident in Him and His power. Setting aside even the prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled, we'll deal with them later, let's go back and look at His words to Abe.

"Why?" you may ask. "This prophecy was fulfilled. There's nothing here for us apart from a bit of history and an object lesson. What can five thousand year old words tell us today?"

1. First, they tell us that it's pretty freakin' amazing that we have a recorded conversation that occurred five thousand years ago! That's not really my point, it just now hit me how wild that is. Sorry.
2. This conversation is between God and man. God took some time out of His day to talk to his created child. Don't lose the awe of that! That right there should tell you something vital about His nature. He wants us to know some things. He doesn't want us kept in ignorance. He wants us to know Him and so He talks with us. And what does He say?
3. "Know for certain..." See, don't wonder, KNOW. I'm gonna tell you.
4. "...for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there." He knows our plight. Not only that, but He's allowing it...for a while. For you see...
5. "But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves," He's keeping records and nobody's getting away with anything. You are His and while it may not feel like He's protecting you, He doesn't take lightly anything done to you. Our best guess as to when the Exodus happened was right after Pepi II's reign. A guy named Merenre II, believed to be his son took power for only one year. Archeologists have no idea what happened to him (cause they're not looking on the bottom of the Red Sea) but they know that his reign began something called the First Intermediate Period. A one hundred and fifty year Dark Ages for Egypt that kicked off with famine, plague, looting, chaos, an end of international trade, art and building and civil war. Just the kind of thing you may think would happen after: the Nile turns to blood; having enough of blood, the frogs abandon the Nile for the people's homes; dust becomes gnats all over everyone's faces; God ups the ante and adds flies to the gnats (i'm picturing those freakin greenhead ones that bite you in the center of your back and even draw blood); a disease strikes the Egyptian livestock; boils cover the Egyptians; a hailstorm kills everyone outside; locusts finish off the Egyptian crops; God sends darkness upon the Egyptians, darkness that can be felt (i have no idea what that is but it sounds creepy); all the firstborn who are not protected by the blood of an unspotted, innocent lamb die in one night (remember what i was saying about God telling the same story over and over again?)
6. "...afterward they will come out with great possessions." God compensates his. That generation, who had known nothing but slavery, oppression and poverty, in one day was free and rich beyond they're dreams.
7. "You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age." A lot of times, when God really digs you, He spares you from coming tragedy altogether. (Enosh, Noah, Abe, Lot, Elijah, Daniel, the Rapture)
8. "In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." God's got a plan and a limit. He's merciful. He tolerated the Amorites nonsense for four hundred years until their sin just got so putrid He'd had enough and He wasn't going to let them pollute the rest of the world with it any longer. Many like to paint this as a portrait of God's genocidal nature. Few see it as mercy and justice. What was the final straw for God. How do you know when you've finally pushed Him too far? Seems like a good thing to know right? What is the last recorded act of Pepi II in the Bible? The slaughtering of the Israelite children. What religious rites were the Canaanite's known for? Temple harlotry and child sacrifice. "But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel; indeed he made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had cast out from before the children of Israel." (2 Kings 16) "Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?" (Ezek 16) Is it really psychopathic genocide to wipe out a people who kill their own kids? Would you want to live next door to them? Go to school with them? Have them serve on your town council?

As sexual promiscuity and perversion become the norm and abortion statistics become more staggering and sad, one (one being me) wonders how much more of US will God take?

Next post: What is God still telling us? or How the answer to the last post is probably, "Not Much."