Ilkley Baptist

I'd like to see more clearly the exciting vision Paul has of the church. When he talks about the church using new vocabulary - the saints, the new creation, being in Christ - he is describing something dramatically new and unprecedented. People are not just changed individually by what God has done in Christ, but are part of a community which is unlike anything that has gone before, unlike any human society. The way they are to relate, the basis of their actions and communal life is all fresh.

They don't fully realise this, of course. Even in Paul's day divisions were sharp and unpleasant. But there is a glimpse of something amazing. A new way of being in relationship, and therefore a new way of being a human person.