A letter to the Christians in Ephesus includes this counsel: “Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:17, 18, New Revised Standard Version). The writer apparently understood well the challenges of building church communities in a world that was often hostile to the radical spirituality of the newly emerging religious faith that would soon be known as Christianity.

What also powerfully comes through in the same letter is an astonishing vision of Church in its timeless spiritual purity. It speaks of “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing . . . holy and without blemish” (5:27).

Is it feasible to see and experience today this new idea of church—spotless and wrinkle-free? Yes, if we use our God-given spiritual sense to do so. How do we find and use this sense to see and experience the church described in the verses above? The Apostle Paul says it’s a matter of being “in Christ”: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17).