Driving up and down the beautiful highways and parkways of Long Island, one notices a myriad of church buildings. Almost like a grocery store, one has so many choices, but the buildings are only the immediate packaging. The choices range from the old to the modern, the classic to the hip and structurally unusual. Signs of church even adorn school buildings (although recently an issue in New York), store fronts, and movie theaters. Obviously most do not choose a church because of the building. Nonetheless, the idea of church in America is associated with a building, a locale, and an address.
The New Testament, however, presents a rather different view of the church. Greg Beale in his The Temple and the Church’s Mission (Intervarsity Press, 2004) presents the serious student of the bible with “A Theology of the Dwelling Place of God.” Beale moves the reader away from the structures and places we call “church” to a more biblical framework. The Temple and the Church’s Mission, is a great example of the work of exegesis, and as well, how such exegesis works into a biblical theology. This book is worth the read simply for the methodology it presents.
The Temple and the Church’s Mission is also a work on the nature of the Church, and although not entitled in this way, it is a biblical theology of “Church” as well. As a master exegete, Beale harnesses the exegetical process to develop a biblical theology of God’s ultimate plan in creating the Garden of Eden, the Temple, Jerusalem, and the Church. He makes the difficult exegetical process readable, so the average pastor can wade through the material. His method should be imitated. As a biblical theology, The Temple and the Church’s Mission traces how the progressive revelation from the Old Testament to the New informs the pastor/teacher regarding the nature of the Church and, ultimately Church life and the Christian life.
This book impacts the Christian community’s view of its mission and purpose and will lead to a wide range of practical considerations for the wise pastor and wise church leader. The volume is for, obviously, serious students of the Word and of Christian theology, but more so for pastors who need to think biblically about the church, the purpose of Christian outreach, evangelism, and even church planting—and how the Christian worldview should influence the world (read, local communities) around the church. Pastors and preachers should put down those exegetically weak and theologically shallow popular Christian junk food books on church growth and ministry and pick up Beale’s book to feed their Christian mind so they can feed their flocks a more nourishing diet of the Word.
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