Baby Steps: Step 1, What is the Church?

It has been brought to my attention that there are a lot of things I take for granted.  I assume, and I don't mean to, that people have some foundation in Christian theology.  I don't know, I guess I don't think globally enough sometimes to have a blog on the 'World Wide Web'.  Please accept my sincere apology and allow me to try to remedy this.

So, let's start with the Church.  We'll start here because I have covered the fall of man (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3) and the Gospel before, so what's next?  Well, let's answer this question. What is the Church?  

First let me tell you what it is not.  The Church is not a building.  It is a body of believers.  Peter says we (Christians) are living stones being built into a spiritual house, I Peter 2:5.

The second question to consider is why does the Church even exist?  Aren't the Jews God's chosen people?  If you remember, I have said several times that God will re-write your map if you mess up ("Does God Really Have a Specific Plan for Your Life? and "Insight from 1 Samuel").  Well, the Jews as a nation, messed up and rejected their Messiah.  So, God rewrote their map.

From the very beginning, God revealed, little by little, His redemptive plan.  In Genesis 3:15, God said to the serpent, 

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed and He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.  

This is the first prophesy of a redeemer.  Man had fallen, God had a plan to pick him up and reveals that here.

All through the Old Testament we have prophecies of the Messiah of Israel.  The problem is, sometimes these prophecies revealed the 'Suffering Servant" (as in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53); but, most of the prophecies of the Messiah are for a delivering, restoring and conquering king (Psalm 72:11, Amos 9:11-15, Isaiah 11, 59:20-21, 61:1-6, 63:1-6, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Hosea 3:4-5, et.al.).  The Jews expected a political figure, a king.  Jesus is that King; it is just that He had to take care of the sin problem, also known as the death problem, first.

This is how history could have gone.  The Jews could have seen that Jesus was:
1. Born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14)..........................................Check
2. Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)......................................Check
3. Born of the House of David (Jeremiah 23:5)..................Check
4. Born of the Family of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1)........................Check
5. The blind see and the deaf hear (Isaiah 29:18)................Check
6. The Good News is preached to the poor (Isaiah 29:19)...Check
(Jesus fulfilled over 300 Old Testament Prophesies)

They could have said, "Hey, Look! Prophecy is unfolding before our eyes! Looks like our Messiah has arrived.  Let's see what He has to say."

To which Jesus would have said something like, "Okay, Guys.  I have to take care of this sin problem and put the redemptive plan for your souls in place. You know, the plan that almost everything in the scriptures alludes to, like Passover!  That means, I'm going to fulfill the Suffering Servant prophecies first, by dying.  But, when The Father raises me from the dead, we are going defeat the devil, I'll set up My Kingdom, and then bring the Gentiles in like I promised Abraham way back in the beginning.  Death, Burial, Resurrection, Armageddon....Boom! The King is crowned and the Millennial Reign begins right then and there. 

Jesus came to His own, the Jews, "but His own received Him not", John 1:11-13.  There is a story, not a parable, but an account in the Bible I think many people forget about.  It involves a Canaanite woman who was following Jesus and His group around.  She was constantly crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon."  It was so bad that the disciples asked Jesus to send her away.

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  The woman came and knelt before Him, "Lord help me!" she said.  
But Jesus replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it the the dogs."
"Yes, Lord," she said, "even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."
"O woman," Jesus answered, "your faith is great!  Let it be done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.  Matthew 15:21-28 (Berean Study Bible, words of Jesus in red)

Here we have the very words of Jesus telling us that He was sent to the Jews.  I mean, He had mercy several times on non-Jews, but the fact remains, His greater mission was the "lost sheep of Israel".

Yes, the Gentiles would have still been saved.  The Bible is full of prophecies of salvation for non-Jews.  Hosea 2:23 is just one example.  As a matter of fact, Gentiles were saved all along.  It's just that in the Old Testament, they were saved by the sign of circumcision and keeping all of the Law.  They were called proselytes.

When the Jews rejected Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus, they they rejected the next aspect in God's plan.  The Gentiles (non-Jews) believed.   God set the Jews aside for a season (Not Forever!) 'til the fullness of the Gentiles has come.  I encourage you to read Romans chapters 9 through 11.  There is so much in there, but in Romans 10:19-20, we find a couple of quotes Paul uses from the Old Testament that are relevant and speak to our point:

"I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation without understanding." Deuteronomy 32:21

"I was found by those who did not seek Me; I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me," Isaiah 28:16.

That's us, Hallelujah!

Jesus came for a bride.  He paid the bride-price by dying on the cross.  He sealed the marriage contract and proved Himself by rising from the dead.  He has gone to His Father, as was the custom, to prepare a place for His bride and He will return with a shout and the sound of a trumpet (1 Thessalonians 4:16), again as was the custom.

So, the simple definition of  'The Church', is- a body of believers who believed in the next aspect of God's plan for mankind.  Jesus didn't just die for the Church.  He died for the world.  The Church is made up of people from every corner of the world, every color, every background, and every heritage (including many Jews) who believe it.