Week 2: Comments on Brianna D’s Blog

In her blog, Brianna, appears to disagree with many of the viewpoints that surfaced in Fuellenbach’s chapter on Jesus and the Church. She correctly brings up that Jesus does in fact found his church on the rock of Peter, and that Paul believes that Jesus’ intentions were to in fact, “die for the Church”. I would agree with this point. I see in the Gospel of John where Jesus commands Peter to “feed his sheep”, in my opinion, a reference to Peter’s role as steward and facilitator of church after Jesus’ ascension. I would also go so far as to assert that Yahweh’s choosing the nation of Israel, bringing them out of Egypt, and establishing them as “a kingdom of priests”, which, if we analyze what exactly a priest is, is an obvious reference to their role as a signpost to the divine.

If we view Jesus’ role in the restoration and revitilization of the nation of Israel, and his subsequent destruction of their cultural barriers to include in all people (ie Gentiles), then what we really have to grapple with is the discussion of whether or not Jesus viewed this as establishing “a church” or a structure. I think this is probably a moot point (as I think Brianna would agree), and is representative of what many biblical scholars and seminary students spend their time arguing over, the nuance of language. If we put our microscopes away long enough to see the bigger picture of God in narrative scripture what I think we will find is not the institution of Church that we have created today (due to our fallen natures), but I think what we will find is a group of people, living, working, breathing, and worshipping together…and in doing this, pointing to something greater than themselves. Whether or not you want to call this church doesn’t really change what it is…a representation of God in the world.