{"id":48,"date":"2011-03-25T23:11:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T03:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/?p=48"},"modified":"2011-03-25T23:11:30","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T03:11:30","slug":"what-is-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/what-is-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the church?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A very controversial question with many,many answers&#8212;&#8212; You know the text in Matthew 16 when Peter made his confession and Christ promised, I will build my church&#8212;&#8211; I decided that the church was whatever Christ meant when he used the word &#8220;church&#8221; and the church is what Christ is doing in history.Whatever Christ meant when he said &#8220;church&#8221;, whatever he is building in the world, that is my definition of the church. Begging the question? I think not. According to his own testimony, Jesus entered history to do the Father&#8217;s will&#8212; an agreement they had arranged before the foundation of the world. He said, &#8220;I will build my church!&#8221; I believe it! The church is the body of Christ!The church is the bride of Christ. It is what he is building in the world. He said something else&#8212;fundamental to understanding the church as He meant it: &#8216;The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.&#8221; In obedience to the Father&#8217;s will He is building something in history that is indestructible&#8212;the church! It is inconceivable that Jesus would refuse to do the Father&#8217;s will&#8212;and it is inconceivable that He could fail in what he is building! What humans build is temporal&#8212;vulnerable&#8212;perishable.  That which Christ is building&#8212;whatever it is&#8212;is permanent and eternal. The Church is what Christ is building in the world. My desire is to be part of that.  Matthew16:17-18  &#8220;Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.&#8221;  Source; Wisdom of the Church by Richard C. Halverson  Published 1995.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A very controversial question with many,many answers&#8212;&#8212; You know the text in Matthew 16 when Peter made his confession and Christ promised, I will build my church&#8212;&#8211; I decided that the church was whatever Christ meant when he used the word &#8220;church&#8221; and the church is what Christ is doing in history.Whatever Christ meant when &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/what-is-the-church\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;What is the church?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[255,248,252,17,14,259,254,256,257,249,156,253,8,250,183,260,261,258,251,149,133],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blessed","tag-body","tag-building","tag-christ","tag-church","tag-eternal","tag-father","tag-foundation","tag-gates","tag-hades","tag-history","tag-indestructible","tag-jesus","tag-jonah","tag-matthew","tag-matthew1617-18","tag-overcome","tag-permanent","tag-simon","tag-son","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godwhoisgod.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}