the church's mandate

snowneressness

"When Jesus called the twelve disciples he appointed the first Christian congregation. That first congregation was thereafter the standard or norm for all Christian congregations in every era. The mandate our Lord gave to the twelve he therefore gives to any congregation in any era. Needless to say, it's the mandate without which we wouldn't be a congregation at all. We might be a religious group, or a middle class club, or a social circle; but we wouldn't be a congregation called and commissioned by Jesus Christ himself and appointed to the same task and responsibility as our twelve foreparents in faith. In other words, it's the mandate that makes the congregation.

There's a crucial difference, however, between the mandate the government gives a royal commission and the mandate Jesus Christ gives us. The mandate given the royal commission authorizes its members to ask questions and produce reports. They do that. They produce innumerable reports. They make dozens of recommendations. But how much gets done? A great deal is said; very little is ever done. The mandate that Jesus gives a congregation, on the other hand, authorizes us to say relatively little, even as it insists we do a great deal. What's more, what we say and do in obedience to our Lord he then adopts himself, takes it up in his name and uses it to so as to render it his speaking and his doing.

What's the mandate? First the twelve are to announce, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." This is what they are to preach. Thereafter they are to do; specifically they are to do what reflects the fact that the kingdom is at hand. They are to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." ~ Victor Shepherd

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