The Mission of the Church: Thompson’s Book Reviewed at Jesus Creed

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Jay F Guin

Eucharist-Mission1At his Jesus Creed blog, Scot McKnight has posted a quick review of James W. Thompson’s The Church according to Paul.

Thompson is right: we need to begin, if we want to understand Paul and the church, with this corporate identity. “I” becomes “We” in the hands of Paul. Many people like this idea today until the “I” is no longer like their “I” and means including some in the “We” who are totally different. Liberals and conservatives, conservatives and liberals all  in a “We” that outdoes the comfortable “I.”

To be church, folks, means to let “my” identity be reformed into a “we” identity in which those in the “we” are not chosen by “me” but by God and brought into fellowship with my “me” to form not a club of similars but a fellowship of differents.

About Jay F Guin

My name is Jay Guin, and I’m a retired elder. I wrote The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace about 18 years ago. I’ve spoken at the Pepperdine, Lipscomb, ACU, Harding, and Tulsa lectureships and at ElderLink. My wife’s name is Denise, and I have four sons, Chris, Jonathan, Tyler, and Philip. I have two grandchildren. And I practice law.
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2 Responses to The Mission of the Church: Thompson’s Book Reviewed at Jesus Creed

  1. Larry Popwell says:
    June 7, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    Paul made this abundantly clear in his letter to the church in Phillipi.

  2. Dwight says:
    June 8, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    I think the scripture of “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another” puts me and we in the perspective of Christ. I join with Christ, then I am joined with others in Christ. There is no club other than Christ. The church is people who are of God, not of me. The only thing that separates another from me is me.

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