6: The Church Trimester 3 (Part One): Re-Birth Pangs
The Lion Is In The Way From our last discussion : “The Church Trimester 2: The Functionality of the Church – part 3” , we focused on how the church’s vital organs work together to keep it alive describing its functionality like the end of a 2 nd Trimester marked by the assessment of how well the heart developed along with how well the lungs, kidneys and brain functioned. We compared this trimester’s benchmarks to the Church’s vital organs, metaphorically, as its doctrine: The teaching or instruction is the heart ; its five-fold ministry is the lungs ; its ordinances of Baptism and Lord’s Supper are the kidneys ; and its Steps to Salvation and Stages of Sanctification is the brain . No institution is perfect on earth, especially the Church. But it is in the Church where we get a second chance, new life, Re-Born to do the will of God and to be saved from sin and its wages. In the Church, we receive the constant nourishment our souls need to overcome the influ