Space-Filling Thoughts

Image from WikiMedia Commons "He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."   (Mt. 16:15-18) What is the church?  That is to say, what is the identity of the church?  More particularly, what is the identity of this church?  What are we?  This is an important question because it’s hard to know what we are about if we don’t know what we are.  This is what I want to talk to us about today.  This is going to be a message where we bring together both conservatism and change.  I’m going to talk about both today, in light of what the Bible has to say about our fundamental ident...