Guder, Hays and Barth on the missionary nature of the local church
"The reason Christians are formed into communities is because of
God's work to make a people to serve him as Christ's witnesses. The
congregation is either a missional community--as Newbigin defines it,
'the hermeneutic of the gospel' (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,
222ff.)--or it is ultimately a caricature of the people of God that it
is called to be."
Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 136.
"If we ask, 'What is God doing in the world in the interval between resurrection and parousia?' the answer must be given, for Paul, primarily in ecclesial terms: God is at work through the Spirit to create communities that prefigure and embody the reconciliation and healing of the world."
Richard B. Hays, "Ecclesiology and Ethics in 1 Corinthians," Ex Auditu 10 (1994): 32. Cf. 31-43.
"As an apostolic Church the Church can never in any respect be an end in itself, but, following the existence of the apostles, it exists only as it exercises the ministry of a herald."
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4/1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 724.
Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 136.
"If we ask, 'What is God doing in the world in the interval between resurrection and parousia?' the answer must be given, for Paul, primarily in ecclesial terms: God is at work through the Spirit to create communities that prefigure and embody the reconciliation and healing of the world."
Richard B. Hays, "Ecclesiology and Ethics in 1 Corinthians," Ex Auditu 10 (1994): 32. Cf. 31-43.
"As an apostolic Church the Church can never in any respect be an end in itself, but, following the existence of the apostles, it exists only as it exercises the ministry of a herald."
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4/1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 724.
Convicting to think about a community versus a caricature.
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