Gospel as Center: chapter 12

This chapter describes the people of God, Christ's body, the Church.

• God works through families - husband + wife + children. That is the way He ordained it, and nothing in Scripture espouses a different form. The Church is modeled after and built of copies of this unit, since it bears God's image (Genesis 1:26-27).
• We as the Church manifest this image of God through unconditional love exhibited and shared, springing from and imitating how He has already loved the whole world unconditionally!
• Why the family/body language? "To limit the fruit of Christ's work to the salvation of single hearts is to read the Bible through the individualistic lens of our day" (p. 217).
• Another point for Lutherans especially to consider: "No [spiritual] gift should ever be played down; each represents a mammoth benefaction. . .[gifts] are given by the Holy Spirit in order to be given away, to be lavished on other members of the body for the growth of the body" (p. 219, note Ephesians 4:12).
• What about outreach? We are to maintain the pure faith without compromise, deny ourselves, and give people not what they want but what they need - the law and the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. We ourselves must never take our eyes off of Christ and His cross.