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Image is Everything: Christianity and the Church
Mark Dever - Pastor, Author

[Editor's Note: The following article is an excerpt from What is a Healthy Church? (Crossway, 2007).]

In fashion, movies, and marketing, image is everything. Did you know that image is everything in the Bible, too?

I want to look briefly at six moments in the storyline of the Bible that will help us to see that we want churches that increasingly reflect God's character as it's been revealed in his Word. The Bible does tell a story, you know. Our goal here is to see if we can discern what God wants for the church in this storyline.

Image Is Everything

1) CREATION

In Genesis, God created the plants and the animals "each according to its kind" (ESV). About humankind, Scripture reads, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness" (1:26). Man is not patterned after every other man. He is patterned after God. He uniquely mirrors, or resembles, God.

Given that we've been uniquely created in the image of God, humans must uniquely image God and God's glory before the rest of creation. Like a son who acts like his father and follows in his father's professional footsteps (Gen. 5:1ff; Luke 3:38), man is designed to represent God's character and rule over creation (Gen. 1:26).

2) FALL

But man decided not to represent God's rule. He revolted against God and went to work representing his own rule. God therefore gave man what he asked for and banished him from his presence.

Did humans preserve the image of God in the fall? Yes, Genesis reaffirms the fact that man is still made in God's "image" (5:1; 9:6). But both image and imaging are now distorted. The mirror is bent, you might say, and so a false image is portrayed, like a grotesque carnival mirror.

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Christian Living

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ORIGINAL: TnTX

Truth!!

We want (and I believe have now found) a church that focuses on growing Christians and not strictly reaching out to the unsaved.

We want a pastor who KNOWS God's Word and teaches line by line. We want a pastor who is not there to add his personal opinions but is there to speak God's Word and takes that seriously to the point of absolute reverence for God and absolute reverence for the position God has placed him in. We want a pastor willing to walk what he preaches.

We want a church that is focused on assisting the family in growing godly children and youth and not just entertaining them.

We want a church that is not there to tickle our ears and tell us what feels cozy.

We want a church that is serious about missions and outreach but doesn't make that to be the crux of the church service itself, i.e., reaching others is done through "Outreach" and not teaching dumbed-down messages to any unsaved people who might be there on any given Sunday. A pastor speaking a true, deep, Word-centered messages will reach both the saved and the unsaved groups.