Jesus and the Church

Today in class, we began the discussion about "Jesus and the Church." We began with a brief rundown of Jesus' counter-cultural focus: a re-definition of what it means to be the people of God. This new definition was encapsulated in Jesus' ultimate theme--the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus' theme has dramatic implications for what it means to be the church. In a sense, the church becomes a tangible representation of God at work in the world. This made sense to his Jewish audience, whose structures of church (temple, synagogue, home) made all space sacred. Today, folks who desire to re-create this sacred space attempt to utilize the practices of their predecessors in the same way--reconnecting to the tangible witness that the church and synagogue can be in new cultural settings.