Ecclesiology in the New Testament

The earliest Christians thought of themselves in communal terms. They did not simply make individual commitments to Jesus as God's messiah; they constituted themselves as communities shaped by the in-breaking of God's realm. They likely learned to do so from Jesus himself. When he summoned an inner circle of his followers and numbered them twelve, he signaled that his ministry had the character of a reform movement within Israel.

In his work of preaching, healing, exorcism, and prophetic sig...