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Directory of Theology

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Ecclesiology

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Topics in this Category
 9 Marks of a Healthy Church (21 links)
 Audio and Multimedia (45 links)
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 Church Membership (13 links)
 Classic Essays and Articles (28 links)
 Contemporary Essays & Articles (97 links)
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 Finding a Church (21 links)
 John MacArthur, Jr. (8 links)
 The Marks of the Church (7 links)


The church is the community of all true believers for all time. This definition understands the church to be made of all those who are truly saved. Paul says, "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 2:25). Here the term "the church" is used to apply to all those whom Christ died to redeem, all those who are saved by the death of Christ. But that must include all true believers for all time, both believers in the New Testament age and believers in the Old Testament age as well.
Wayne Grudem

The starting point in ecclesiology is the ontological connection between Christ and the church. The church exists as church only insofar as it is Christ’s body, in union with him, meaning also our union in him, both of which are a matter of his free and gracious choice. The church has no other ground of being than Jesus Christ. This means in a primary way that the church is not the church as institution, or a voluntary collection of free, religiously and ethically motivated individuals, or, with its episcopate, as an historically ordered hierarchy that determines what it is and what it does. It is Christ alone who determines the “that” and the “what” of the church, who loves the church and calls and forms it according to his own purpose. The church is what he is in that he is Lord of the church in whom and from whom alone it has life. As such, the church belongs to Christ, not to itself. The church is not self-referenced. In a primary sense, its being is iconic, not institutional, as it points away from itself to Christ.
Andrew Purves Reconstructing Pastoral Theology (pg. 97)

[T]he church in Scripture is composed of all the redeemed in every age who are saved by grace through personal faith in the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ, “the seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15) and suffering Messiah (Isa. 53:5–10).
Robert L. Reymond A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (pg. 805)

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Title Notes
The Biblical Theology of the Church Edmund P. Clowneyicon
The Church J.I. Packericon
The Visible Vs. The Invisible Church Brian Schwertleyicon
Not Replacement...Expansion! Fred Klett - Ethic Israel, the Church and the People of Godicon
A Display of God's Glory Mark Dever (pdf) - Basics of Church Structure Deacons, Elders, Congregationalism & Membershipicon
A Short Class on Living Together as a Church 9Marksicon
Authority: The Church & The Bible Edmund P. Clowneyicon
A Stunted Ecclesiology? J. I. Packer - The Theory & Practice of Evangelical Churchlinessicon
The God-Driven Church Steven J. Lawson (pdf)icon
The Bible and the Church Wallace Benn (pdf)icon
Ecclesiology (.pdf) Gary E. Gilleyicon
Reformed and Presbyterian Denominations: A Primer North American Presbyterian and Reformed Councilicon
The Church And The Preaching Of The Word (.pdf) Sinclair Ferguson (2 Timothy 3:10 - 4:5)icon
A Healthy Church Member is a Biblical Theologian Thabiti Anyabwileicon
The New Testament Church Claude Duval Coleicon
Falling in Love with the Church -- again Derek Thomasicon
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Recommended Reading

The Church
by Edmund P. Clowney

Glorious Body of Christ
by R. B. Kuiper

The Deliberate Church
by Mark Dever, Paul Alexander

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