Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Book Installment)
The One True Church
Chapter 52 – Conclusion
Having identified the one true church, how do we join it? We can’t join it. Rather, we have to learn from it – by reading the New Testament.
Hebrews 13:7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.
The one true church – the mother of us all – has spoken the word of God to us through the New Testament. Considering the result of their conduct, we imitate their faith.
Notice that Paul does not say, “considering the result of their conduct, imitate their conduct.” Rather, he says, “considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” Their faith led them to church (where the New Testament was being produced in installments); in imitating their faith, we go to the New Testament which they produced.
Just a couple of chapters earlier in his letter to the Hebrews, Paul gave a long list of Old Testament saints and their various faith-filled actions. They included Noah building an ark by faith, Abraham leaving his home by faith, Sarah receiving the ability to conceive by faith, and at least a dozen more examples. The common denominator to all these various actions was the motive of faith.
This is why Paul could say in Hebrew 13:7, imitate the faith that motivated their actions, not the different actions. God probably doesn’t want you to build an ark, leave your home, conceive a child, or pass through the Red Sea. But He surely wants you to have the kind of faith that Noah and Abraham and the other Old Testament saints had. And now we also have New Testament saints to imitate.
Just as you can’t conform to the outward actions required in the Old Testament as if you were a Jew living in Old Testament times, you can’t conform to the outward actions required in the New Testament as if you were a believer living in New Testament times.
We should no more go to church to worship (as they did in New Testament times) than we should go to Jerusalem to sacrifice animals (as they did in Old Testament times). We need to extract spiritual principles to live by from the New Testament just as we already know how to extract spiritual principles to live by from the Old Testament.
Remember: even the one true church could be corrupted. Only by the discipline taught and practiced by the apostles, combined with Jesus’ coming to deliver the elect, was the one true church sanctified, purified, and delivered. By contrast, the kingdom of God is incorruptible. That is why it can be eternal, operative at any time and in any place. It has no human officers.
Living in the kingdom of God means living in the time and place we find ourselves. Our commandments are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves – just as Jesus said. And with that as our motive, do what the situation requires.
Jesus is not coming. HE IS HERE! HE CAME…AND HE CAME TO STAY!
How to do all this will be the subject of my next book: Living in the Kingdom of God. I will start sending you installments of it the day after tomorrow.
In the meantime…
Matthew 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
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