#18 The Church

In the previous post, I tried to paint a picture of a large number of people, connected horizontally with each other to form a big network of triangles, and each person connected directly to God, making a big network of pyramids. Hard to visualize? Maybe, but it depicts the strength and stability that is possible. Now extend that picture to everyone who claims forgiveness through Jesus' death on the cross - everyone in your community, in your state, in your country, and every country around the world. Some estimates put the number of Christians worldwide at 2.4 billion, or about 1/3 of the world's population. That's a lot of pyramids! The Bible refers to all those people as the "Body of Christ" and equates that with "the Church". Writers refer to it as the Universal Church, or sometimes the Church Triumphant.

Each member of the Church Triumphant is perfectly forgiven (because of Jesus), but none of them is perfect. In fact, each one is a sinner; that is, we all continue to commit sins. But God knew that the Body of Christ would be full of sinners. He knew that we had to be connected - to him and to each other - in order to survive as Christians and to thrive as Christians. So it's important to find a local portion of the Body of Christ (i.e. of the church) where we can be supported and where we can be supportive of others. But in my experience finding that takes some work. https://biblehub.com/colossians/1-18.htm