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The Witnessing Community

其他書名	The Biblical Record of God's Purpose
出版	Westminster Press, 1958
主題	Religion / Theology
ISBN	06642419999780664241995
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=jrMPAQAAIAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋"What does it mean to belong to God's people today? In our time the hunger of mankind for meaning sets the problem of the Christian church in bold relief. What is the witnessing community? What is it now and what should it be? This clear and stirring book brings a new perspective to the continuing question of how God's People should face the world of their time and how they should fulfill their function in it. Using the methods of Biblical theology, Suzanne de Dietrich traces the record of God's purpose to make the church the witnessing community, as seen in the story of his People. Over the years of this record a two-fold temptation has remained in many ways the same: the temptation to live in self-contented isolation. Today these temptations are recognized in all quarters as threatening both the individual and society. For several thousand years God's purpose for his People has also remained the same, however; they are chosen, set apart, and given a mission--their goal a world reconciled with God. In her book Miss de Dietrich traces these themes of election, separation, and mission in the patriarchal stories, showing how each figure embodies some aspect of Israel's calling. And what of God's people today? Miss de Dietrich's book asks in firm tones, "Who will resist the trend to conformity? Who will stand firm if not the Christian church?" The gospel sounds a radical challenge--and in echoing it, this author asks, Have the churches in their weakness dulled its sharp edge? As the prophets lived responsibly in the midst of the turmoil of history, so the church today has an unmistakable vocation--set apart for God, its people are set apart only in order to be sent to the world. The call of the hour is to "be" the church--not only as individual members of a family or congregation, or as members of a certain profession--but also as responsible citizens of a given country, and of a wider world of nations. We are one with our world--and we are responsible together with our fellow men for the evils of the society in which we live. As the witnessing community of God's people, the church has the solemn task of rediscovering its corporate vocation and of setting its sights straight on the goal. It has the prophetic mission today of projecting "the clear light of God's word on the conditions of our time"--the task of God's People in every age. This book, with its unique presentation of the record of God's people, documented through the scientific methods of Biblical theology, will be extremely useful to students, teachers, and ministers interested in Bible study. Scholarly and accurate, yet easy to read and provocative in style and manner, it will be valuable as textbook or collateral reading in beginning courses in Biblical theology, or in a course of Sunday school teacher training in the Bible" - Publisher