About a hundred years ago a famous biblical scholar coined this dictum: "Jesus preached the kingdom,

but what came was the church." Theologians have long attempted to define the precise relationship
between the church and the kingdom. For now, perhaps it will suffice to suggest that the church is the
beachhead or vanguard of God's reign, or alternatively as both sign and agent of God's reign. In this way,
church and kingdom are not equated, but a strong continuity is proposed.

The UCCP Statement of Faith (1986) has the following affirmations:

**"We believe in the Church, the one Body of Christ, the community of those reconciled to God through
Jesus Christ and entrusted with his ministry."

**"We believe God is working to make each person a new being in Christ and the whole world God's
kingdom. The Reign of God is present where faith in Jesus is shared, where healing is given to the sick,
where food is given to the hungry, where light is given to the blind, where liberty is given to the captive
and oppressed, where love, justice and peace prevail."

What is crucial is that the NT story is about the story of the emergence of a new people, which both
"signs" and "works to establish" God's reign. God's act in Jesus is about the creation of a renewed people
of God; it is not the story of God and the individual. In fact, Jesus called an inner circle of twelve to
symbolically illustrate the renewing of a people. Even the notion of resurrection, which has usually been
interpreted individualistically throughout church history, is a communal notion--resurrection in scripture
is always the resurrection of a people, not the individual ascent to heaven, not the individual immortality
of the private soul.

The primary term in the NT for this renewed people is "ekklesia," which has come down to us through the
translation "church," which unfortunately is closely tied to the idea of a distinctive building. The Greek
term "ekklesia," however, is a much more potent term--it literally signifies "that group which has been
called out" and is most commonly used in Greek contexts to describe the "called out political assembly"
of a city's citizens.

What are some of the marks of this new people, or God's "civic assembly," in the NT?

**It is a community of the Spirit. One of its chief marks is the experience of the outpouring of the Spirit
of God in renewal and power. Jews in fact anticipated the Kingdom of God as the age of the Spirit.
Accordingly, the early church is not initially institutionalized, but charismatic, spontaneous, flexible, and
empowered.

**It is an inclusive and diverse community. All peoples, regardless of race, ethnicity, social status,
nationality, are welcomed into one family of faith (e.g. Gal 3:26-28; Rev 5:9-10). It is a people that
affirms all cultures and yet is incarnated in a specific culture (i.e., always takes a particular cultural form).
Naturally, this creates practical tensions which have to be addressed from time to time (e.g. Acts 6; 15;
John 17; Eph 2).

**It is a community of worship. It is a community which acclaims Jesus as Messiah and Lord in worship,
but which also sees all of life as one of worship (Rom 12). Community life is marked by regular
gatherings and celebrations, especially in house church contexts. At the heart of these gatherings is a
festive meal, a symbolic ritual of partnership and solidarity (with Jesus and with each other), of the
ending of old boundaries, of unity, and of the very presence of Jesus. Significantly, worship in the early
church was a political act, insofar as it celebrated allegiance to only one Lord, instead of to other
claimants to total allegiance.

**It is a healing and forgiving community. It is the place where social and physical infirmities and
conflicts are transformed, where forgiveness and grace from God and with one another is experienced.

**It is a community of character, a "holy" community. The biblical term "holy" signifies being "set apart"
for a special function and purpose. The community perceives itself as a distinctive community, posing an
alternative to prevailing social norms--it is a "new humanity," a new society under God, perhaps even a
counter culture (even as it is incarnated in and affirms diverse cultures). In this sense, too, it is a "called
out" community. At the same time, it is a healing and forgiving community as it fleshes out the poles of
God’s grace and God’s justice. For Jesus followers, there are fewer individual requirements (rules,
regulations), but a greater overall demand (love of God and neighbor).

**It is a serving, sharing, and inviting community. The new people of God is a community in mission, in
service to the world, sharing and proclaiming and promoting God's gift of renewal of all things. The
community is not withdrawn or isolated, creating walls and boundaries, but is marked by solidarity with
the poor and all creation.

APPENDIX: THE ENTIRE BIBLICAL STORY

Introduction

Although the Bible consists of two Testaments (=covenants), it contains, for Christians, one coherent
story. This is the story of our faith, the story that gave rise to the Church, the story that continues to define
and shape our identity as Christians, and the story that impels us into service toward all of creation.

There are many ways to tell the biblical story and many levels of the biblical story. One could focus on
the "meta-story," that is the overall divine drama of God and creation. Its primary characters are God,
humanity, and creation; and its basic episodes are: creation, bondage ("fall"), liberation ("deliverance,
salvation"), and re-creation ("consummation"). Others have an interest only in the critical history of
historical reconstruction. On the other hand is the surface drama, Israel and the Church's own confessional
story (with its various biases), which will be outlined below. The following summary is intended to
provide you will a framework for the entire story and for further study of selected sections and themes
from the Bible.

Old Testament

The story begins with God, who created the world and everything in it through the word. Human beings
(Adam and Eve, male and female) receive a special place in God's creation as God's administrators and
co-regents. The human attempts to be like God initiated the story of sin ( that is, rebellion and error) and
judgment (expulsion from the Garden, Cain and Abel, The Flood, the Tower of Babel). Nevertheless, God
also showed mercy in preserving God's creation.
God chose Abraham and Sarah and their descendants as instruments of salvation and blessing for the
world. God called them to leave behind all human securities and to set out trusting in God alone. God
would multiply their descendants and give them a homeland (Canaan); circumcision became a physical
mark of the covenant between God and this people. After several generations (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) of
wandering in Canaan as strangers, Abraham's descendants--now called "Israel"--were driven to Egypt as
refugees by famine (Joseph story).

In Egypt, they became a numerous people, as God had promised, but they were eventually oppressed as
building slaves of the Pharaoh. In response to their oppression, God called Moses and used him as an
instrument to confront Pharaoh with signs and wonders (Plagues), to liberate the people out of bondage in
Egypt (Crossing the Sea; Exodus="way out"), and to lead them through the wilderness. In this act of
liberation, God was revealed to Israel by the name of Yahweh; and this event was commemorated in the
most important festival, Passover and Unleavened Bread.

In the wilderness, God provided for Israel in wonderful ways, but also punished them when they were
unfaithful. At Mount Sinai (Horeb), God appeared to Israel in an awe-inspiring theophany, gave them the
Torah (Law, Ten Commandments), and entered into a covenant relationship with the people
(commemorated in the feast of Pentecost, Shavuoth). This covenant was to guide Israel towards a new life
under God, particularly enshrining protection for the weaker in society, in the new land God would give
to them (Promised Land). Israel proved unfaithful immediately (Golden Calf), but God provided for a
covenant renewal. After further wilderness wanderings, Israel encamped on the plains of Moab, by the
Jordan. Here Moses made a last passionate appeal to the people to keep the covenant (Deuteronomy)
before he died. Later, Israel would remember this time both as a time of trial and as a time of special
relationship with God (feast of Booths, Succoth).

The conquest and settlement of Canaan was led by Joshua; though some Canaanite enclaves remained,
among them Jerusalem (Jebus). Israel's success was not due to their strength, but to God's help in giving
them the land promised to Abraham. The land was understood as owned by God, on loan to the people as
a gift, not to be compromised or abused. For some two centuries, the twelve tribes of Israel lived in a
loose tribal league held together by a common faith, social structure and history. At various times their
unfaithfulness was punished by God through enemy attacks. When Israel repented, God sent them a
"judge," a spirit-filled (charismatic) leader, who defeated the enemy (Deborah, Gideon).

In the context of political uncertainty internally and externally (especially the mounting pressures from
the Philistines), the people asked Samuel, the last judge, to give them a king, like the other nations. Seen
as a defeat for earlier ideals, Samuel complied reluctantly, anointing Saul as king. Thus begins the
Israelite monarchy. Saul soon acted independently of God, however, so that Samuel--now as a prophet--
brought a message from God rejecting Saul. Instead, David was anointed king. His life was marked by
great gifts (e.g. Psalms attributed to him), but also by major sins (David and Bathsheba).

A major feat of David was to conquer Jerusalem (Jebus), the last Canaanite stronghold. With that, the
land promised to Abraham was fulfilled. God, however, through the prophet Nathan, extended a new
promise to David: God would give him a son to succeed him (an Anointed=Messiah) and would establish
his kingdom for all time. This is the beginning of the messianic expectation--hopes for the perfect
regent/liberator. David's successor, Solomon, was renowned for his wisdom and his building projects,
including the Temple. His reign was marked by peace and economic prosperity, but also be heavy
taxation and forced labour. With the monarchy begins a restructuring of the earlier tribal-based egalitarian
social structure.

After Solomon's death, the people met at Shechem to protest royal oppression. When his son, Rehoboam,
refused to yield, the ten northern tribes, under the leadership of Jeroboam I, established a separate
kingdom, called Israel (a coup d'etat). Rehoboam retained a reduced Southern kingdom, Judah. For two
centuries, these two kingdoms existed side by side, sometimes fighting, sometimes allied to each other.

Jeroboam I established rival worship centers at Bethel and Dan (the story is told from the southern,
Jerusalem perspective). The northern kingdom was also plagued by unstable government, violent coups,
social-economic injustice, and a tendency to drift into Baalism, the nature religion of the Canaanites. The
fight for covenant loyalty to the God of Israel was led by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and a century
later, Amos and Hosea. Covenant breaking persisted, however. As a result, God took away the land, the
tangible sign of the covenant relationship, through the Assyrian Empire. Its army besieged and captured
Israel's capital, Samaria, led many Israelites into exile, and incorporated territory into the Assyrian
Empire.

The kingdom of Judah was governed by the Davidic dynasty for over four centuries. Like Israel, it
experienced strong trends towards covenant unfaithfulness in form of politics heedless of God, idolatry,
and the oppression of the poor by a newly emerging upper class. As in Israel, a line of prophets kept
bringing God's pleas for faithfulness. Sometimes king and people responded. Josiah's reformation stands
out. Eventually, however, Judah also forfeited her covenant claim to the land.

Increasingly, the prophets announced God's inevitable judgment. Prominent among them were Isaiah and
Jeremiah. God would remain faithful to the promise to David, however. If the Davidic kings failed to
establish God's rule, judgment would follow, but a remnant would remain. Eventually God would send an
Anointed (=Messiah) to bring in the Day of the Lord (the reign of God).

Judgment came when the northern kingdom was subjected by the Assyrians, and when the southern
kingdom was finally brought to an end by the Babylonians. Jerusalem was captured and destroyed, its
temple and wealth were plundered, the elite of the population was taken into Babylonian exile, many of
the population became refugees to other parts of the world (thus begins the Dispersion, the Diaspora,
literally the "scattering"), and the peasantry ("people of the land") remained impoverished in the land.

While the exile began with much suffering, the half-century in Babylonia proved a time of revival for the
remnant of Abraham's descendants. Chastened by their history, and encouraged by the prophets Jeremiah
and Ezekiel, they resolved afresh to be faithful to God's will. Babylonia became of center of Jewish
religion and culture. This was the time of the emergence of Judaism, with its emphasis on the study of
Scripture (Torah) and the strict observance of the law (especially circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and
kosher food laws).

Toward the end of the exile, a great prophet (in the tradition of Isaiah, and now called Second Isaiah
because we do not know his name) promised deliverance through a new exodus transcending the exodus
from Egypt. He projected a new, inclusive vision of the reign of God in the land. His words were fulfilled,
in a limited way, when the Persian Emperor Cyrus took Babylon and allowed the Jews (a term appropriate
only from the exile on, which literally means Judahites) to return and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.
A small group returned, and eventually, against many odds, the Temple and city were rebuilt (Haggai and
Zechariah 1-8). The land, now a Persian province, was poor and beset by enemies, however. In addition,
the plight of the poor peasantry was not improved, since the restructuring was in the hands of the
returning elite, especially the high priests and the landowners. The people are now referred to as Judeans
(Jews), not Israelites. About a century after Cyrus' decree, a turn for the better was achieved when
Nehemiah supervised the rebuilding of the city walls and initiated economic reforms to aid the poor, and
when Ezra initiated a covenant renewal (albeit a somewhat defensive and conservative one) on the basis
of the book of the law (probably our Pentateuch). A number of the later books of the OF come from this
period and (e.g. Zechariah 9-14, Malachi, and others). Here, however, the Old Testament's official story
line breaks off, though some biblical writings probably originated later.

The Intertestamental Period

We call the following era, up to the coming of Jesus Christ, the Intertestamental Period (otherwise, the
period of early or formative Judaism). It was marked externally by foreign domination. The Persian
Empire gave way to that of Alexander the Great and his successors, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the
Seleucids of Syria (the Greek-Hellenistic Empires). Under the latter, Jews who remained faithful to
ancestral ways by not compromising faithfulness to the law (against the attraction of Hellenism,
accommodation to Greek culture on the part of the ruling high priests), and who resisted Syrian-Seleucid
control of the land, temple, and religion were severely persecuted. The book of Daniel refers to this. This
"Hellenistic Crisis" led to the revolt under the Maccabee family (and the cleansing of the temple
commemorated by the festival Hanukkah), and about a century of Jewish independence, until the Romans
violently subjugated the land. During the Intertestamental period fervent expectations of the coming
Messiah and the Kingdom of God were kept alive, and an awareness of oppressive, demonic powers
allied under Satan emerged (apocalyptic eschatology). In the wake of the "Hellenistic Crisis" various
religious/political "parties"/movements emerged: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and others, each
visualizing hope for the Kingdom of God--the new society under God--in a different direction.

The New Testament

In the context of political, economic, social, and religious turmoil, the expected deliverer (Messiah,
=Christ) came in the person the Jesus of Nazareth. His coming was prepared by John the Baptist's
preaching of repentance, in which context Jesus received his call to mission. Jesus was born into a family
of poor refugees, in Bethlehem, the city of David. After temporary exile in Egypt (like Israel earlier, a
"type" episode), Jesus grew up in a backward, and unknown village in rural Galilee. Apart from one
momentous family pilgrimage to Jerusalem, we hear nothing of his life until he began his public ministry
focusing on the rural poor of Galilee ("sheep without a shepherd") at approximately age 30.

At his baptism by John the Baptist, a voice from heaven proclaimed him the beloved son of God, after
which, he was led into the wilderness, where Satan tempted him by suggesting interpretations of Jesus'
Messiahship that Jesus rejected. Instead of power and pragmatic compromise, Jesus' self-understanding
emphasized Israel's own sonship, a calling to obedience to God alone and to suffering service

During a brief ministry, perhaps up to three years, Jesus preached mainly in Galilee and then in Judea,
proclaiming that the Reign of God was at hand. Announcing good news to the poor, encouraging the
dispirited, healing the sick, especially those in bondage to demonic forces, and welcoming the
marginalized ("tax-collectors and sinners"), he challenged prevailing notions of the Reign of God held by
the ruling elite and religious leaders. He argued that the "weightier things of the law" must be held as
central--justice, love, and mercy--not detailed observance of religious laws that hold common people in
bondage. He called the circle of followers around him to a new life in which old rivalries and statuses
were erased. Twelve of his followers formed the core group to whom he entrusted the continuation of his
ministry of renewing Israel. He also implied that the Rule of God would eventually be manifested to all,
when all anti-Godly powers would be defeated and God's full will would reign supreme.

Opposition to Jesus and his movement grew among the elite; but facing the conflict head on and his likely
martyrdom, he proceeded to Jerusalem for Passover and challenged the ruling powers directly in a final,
prophetic act (cleansing the temple). The threatened Roman and Jewish ruling establishments converged
and brought about his execution on a Roman cross, the primary means of political terror by imperial
Rome. This death was understood, both by Jesus himself and by the early Church, as an event of highest
significance--the culmination of the work of the powers of evil, and paradoxically the very defeat of these
powers, and thereby the fullest expression of God's self-giving love for others.

On the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead, thereby vindicating Jesus and his ministry and defeating
the powers of death. Jesus appeared to his discouraged disciples and commissioned them to become
emissaries (apostles) and agents of the good news (=gospel) of God's gracious liberation to the whole
world. After they were empowered by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, they proclaimed Jesus as the awaited
Messiah and gathered a large community of believers in Jerusalem. One of the key marks of this
community, in response to spirit-infusion, was the sharing of material possessions, in order especially to
assist the poor, a sign of God's reign.

Persecution by the Judean ruling establishment (Sanhedrin)--that is, not by all Jews--as well as missionary
motivation led to the spread of the good news of Jesus. Initially, these Jesus-believing communities were
part of Judaism, but tensions over the interpretation of the Law and over the Messiahship of Jesus kept
growing, however, resulting in further persecution. Stephen, a Greek-speaking Jewish believer, became
the first martyr. The somewhat liberal, Greek-speaking community of believers was especially targeted
for persecution; as refugees, this wing of the church was responsible for the spread of the gospel to new
areas, especially to those Gentiles ("nations," non-Jews) who had no background in Judaism. It was in this
context of Gentile believers that Jesus-confessing people were first called "Christians."