Monday Morning Thoughts About Sunday: The Church as an End Times Family

Here's the deal about 1 Peter 5.1-5. In order to understand what Peter teaches about elders/shepherds/pastors, we must first understand the world in which Peter imagines the Church.

The Church is an end times family. 

In 1 Peter 5.1 Peter describes himself to his fellow-elders as a fellow-partaker of "the glory that is going to be revealed." This is a provocative statement because Peter has taught not many verses ago about this future reality. "Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed" (1 Peter 4.13, ESV). In this verse the revelation of Jesus' glory is future. In 5.1 however, Peter can describe himself along with his fellow-elders as present partakers of the glory that will be revealed. This means, among other things, that the Church is a family that presently partakes of Jesus' future glory. More specifically, the Church offers the world an advance foretaste, an appetizer so to speak, of what the world made new will be like. So the world to come sets the tone for the present life of the Church. 

Because everyone in the world to come will bow the knee to Jesus, we gather as the Church to confess Jesus is Lord. 

Because everyone in the world to come will have their sins forgiven, we gather as the Church to proclaim and extend forgiveness. 

Because everyone in the world to come will have their needs sufficiently met, we gather as the Church to share resources that provide for the poor. 

Because everyone in the world to come will freely communicate with God as Father, we gather as the Church for the sake of prayer. 

Because everyone in the world to come will believe only truth, we gather as the Church to be shaped by the truth of the Word from God. 

Because everyone in the world to come, regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status, etc. will be reconciled to God and each other, we gather as the Church to celebrate the meal that anticipates that reconciliation. 

This description of why we gather could go on and on, but you get the idea. When we gather together as an end times family, everything we do must point to the hope that will characterize eternity. 

This is why Stanley Grenz writes: 

Our corporate identity lies in the future. What the church is, is determined by what the church is destined to become. And the church is destined to be nothing less than a new humanity, the glorious company of God's redeemed people who inhabit the renewed creation and enjoy the presence of the Triune God. ... Our task is to live according to the principles that characterize God's future goal for creation. Our purpose is to be a foretaste of the glorious eternity that God will one day graciously give us in its fullness. ... In short, the church is a sign of the kingdom. We are to point the way toward the future (Stanley Grenz, Created for Community, 213).      

Does that describe your understanding of "Church?" How about your experience of Church? Brothers and sisters our weekly gatherings, and our mid-week gathering for that matter, are shaped by the Spirit of God to whet our appetites for the age to come. Moreover, they are intended by the Spirit of God to reveal the quality of the age to come. My grandmother used to comment after the Sunday morning service, "I feel like I've been to Church." I always wondered what that feeling was like or was supposed to be like. 1 Peter helps me understand that feeling a little bit more. May the Spirit of God grant that after we have gathered, each of might say, "I feel like I've been to the future."

Listen here to our exposition of 1 Peter 5.1-5.