Howard Snyder, who is a prominent author specifically on the topic of the life of the Church, wrote the following in his book called The Community of the King…
Jesus’ mission was to tell the good news of the kingdom, show what God’s reign was like, demonstrate its works, tell how to enter it, and establish the messianic community in embryonic form.
What did Jesus talk about after his resurrection? He appeared to his followers “over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
But we need to define the kingdom of God more precisely. The kingdom is the dominion or reign of God and not primarily a place or a realm. Biblically, the kingdom “refers first to a reign, dominion, or rule and only secondarily to the realm over which a reign is exercised.”
Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God; Paul spoke of God reconciling all things through Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:19; Col 1:20). These are two ways of saying the same thing, for God is reigning and reconciling through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Start with Jesus
When it comes to the life of the Church, Snyder helpfully points out that we must start with Jesus when he was in his first body. You start there to get a primer for what Jesus wanted to do in his second body (the Church). Why? Because nothing has changed.
Jesus expanded from living inside of one body to living inside of many (with the purpose of being one).
What Jesus spoke about the most and perfectly demonstrated was the Kingdom of God. We say “preach the gospel,” but really it was the gospel of the Kingdom. I’m not sure when “the Kingdom” started largely being left out of the discussion, but it has.
Jesus’ mission was the reunion of heaven and earth. It’s where everything is made right on the earth. In the language of Paul, things were “reconciled.”
How the Kingdom of God spreads
In Ephesians, Paul unpacked the eternal purpose of God and he said it was to…
…bring all things together (reconcile) in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. (1:10)
This reconciliation is what the Kingdom of God is all about. How will this happen?
He goes on to say…
…so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
So how is the Kingdom of God going to spread?
Jesus is going to leave His first body and go into his second body. Now the church is the vehicle of this story of all things being reconciled in Christ. This is happening as you read this.
Not only has nothing changed in terms of the purpose for God’s people since Jesus. Nothing has changed since God’s original dominion mandate at creation…
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Notice the Kingdom language.
This is a must different view of church than what I covered in the past post 5 Traditional Understandings of Church That Aren’t Biblical.
Displaying and expanding God’s Kingdom is the end game of becoming a part of the Church. To do that, it demands what Snyder calls a “kingdom consciousness.”
The Church and the Kingdom
Understanding the Church is closely bound to understanding the Kingdom of God. In fact, is there any separation between the two? The Church is the people of God and the Kingdom is the relationships of the people of God. So they seem inseparable.
A church is a visible community of God’s reign. The end game is that when you see a church, you see what it’s like when the God of the Bible reigns as King on the earth in a group of people’s lives.
There are views of church that don’t demand a new way of life with others learning and pursuing God’s reign as King of their community life together. Jesus is Savior, but is he Lord and King?!
Snyder also points out…
If the kingdom of God represents the definitive reconciliation between God and humanity, between individuals, peoples, sexes, generations and races and between humanity and the rest of creation—a promise that will be fulfilled in the second coming of Christ—then the communion of God’s people is an overriding necessity, in order that the world might understand what the salvation that God offers in the gospel really is.
Being a member of the Church is an overwhelming calling to a mission to provide evidence that the Kingdom of God exists and to advance its takeover of the earth.
From biblical perspective, a church is a community of the King and agent of the Kingdom of God. To have a biblical view of the Church, it really starts with understanding how the Kingdom of God operates, which is what this blog (and the podcast) aims to unpack with every post published.