1 / 22

The Metaphors of the Church: Body, Building, Bride

Explore the biblical metaphors of the church as a body, building, and bride in this insightful study. Discover the importance of commitment and community in shaping our ethics and behavior as members of the church.

hollyadams
Download Presentation

The Metaphors of the Church: Body, Building, Bride

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. 1 Heart Church Membership Renewal Mind “We become what we are committed to!”

  2. “Community shapes our ethics and the spoken and unspoken rules that guide our behavior. Far more of the ethical prescriptions are addressed to us as a community than as individuals. The Ten Commandments were given to Israel at Mount Sinai to form them into an alternate society that would be a light to the nations. The call of Romans 12:1-2 to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices” is usually interpreted as a call to individual consecration, but it is actually a demand that we commit ourselves to a corporate body and not live as an autonomous individual any longer. --Tim Keller--

  3. The Bible offers God’s people three metaphors to show us how to be a church

  4. The Body: A collection of parts is not a body

  5. Col. 1:16-18 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.

  6. Col 2:19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

  7. 1Co 12:12 For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 1Co 12:18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.

  8. The Building: A pile of materials is not a building

  9. Hebrews 3:4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.

  10. Psa127:1a Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; …

  11. Mat 16:18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

  12. The Bride: A dress, a veil, and some jewelry does not a bride make…

  13. John 3:29 "He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made full.

  14. 2Co 11:2 For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

  15. What makes a body a body but a creator who will create? What makes a building a building but a builder who will build? What makes a bride a bride but a bridegroom who will betroth?

  16. Every creator begins with a concept, every builder with a blueprint, and every bridegroom with a covenant.

  17. In 1649, three Puritan Ministers; John Cotton, Richard Mather, and Ralph Partridge, champions of congregationalism, published a document entitled, "A Platform of Church Discipline". Quote from: Chapter IV Articles 1-3

  18. Saints by calling must have a visible political union among themselves, or else they are not yet a particular church, (1 Cor. xii. 27; 1 Tim. iii. 15; Eph. ii. 22; 1 Cor. xii. 15, 16, 17,) as those similitudes hold forth, which the Scripture makes use of to shew the nature of particular churches; as a body, a building, house, hands, eyes, feet and other members, must be united, or else (remaining separate) are not a body. Stones, timber, tho' squared, hewen and polished, are not an house, until they are compacted and united: (Rev. ii.) so saints or believers in judgment of charity, are not a church unless orderly knit together.

  19. 2. Particular churches cannot be distinguished one from another but by their forms. Ephesus is not Smyrna, nor Pergamos Thyatira; but each one a distinct society of it-self, having officers of their own, which had not the charge of others; virtues of their own, for which others are not praised; corruptions of their own, for which others are not blamed.

  20. 3. This form is the visible covenant, agreement or consent, whereby they give up themselves unto the Lord, to the observing of the ordinances of Christ together in the same society, which is usually call'd the "church covenant." (Ex. xix. 5. 8; Deut. xxix. 12, 13; Zec. xi. 14, and ix. 11,) for we see not otherwise how members can have church-power over one another mutually. The comparing of each particular church to a city, and unto a spouse, (Eph. ii. 19; 2 Cor. xi. 2,) seemeth to conclude not only a form, but that that form is by way of covenant.

More Related