My fourth and final point is this: when we take this olive tree theology to heart, it provides a much-needed, renewed understanding of what Jesus meant by the word “church.”

Based on a complicated history, there is, for us, plenty of confusion about the church.

For our purposes, we want to better grasp what Jesus had in mind when he said, in relation to Peter’s revelatory confession, On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [Read Dwight’s in-depth series on the subject: Stop Going, Start Being the Church.]

Jesus, who is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, saves and gathers a people for his purposes, just as, in Exodus 12, his Father gathered the congregation (edah) in the wilderness. There is a direct correlation. We are to be the redeemed community of faith, bearing witness to the world that there is but one God and one Lord. The Hebrew word edah comes from the word ed, meaning “a witness.” You shall be my witnesses, God says to Israel through the prophet Isaiah.

With the Greek word ecclesia, used in the NT for church, you can assemble citizens for any reason. Just get the word out about the time and place, and then gather for that purpose. But the church is so much more than a meeting; it is not a place you go to, it is a people you are called to join for the Kingdom purposes of worship and mission.

The olive tree imagery is intended to unite believing Jews and non-Jewish believers in Rome so that, with one mind and one voice, they can live appropriately for the glory of the holy God of Israel, thereby bearing witness to Jesus. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 15:5-6).

In Ephesians 1, Paul expresses it like this: God put all things under Jesus’ feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. We are to be the fullness of him who fills all in all. And the only way we can do that, dear friends, is in the same manner in which he did. In the power of the Holy Spirit!

In the power of the Spirit, Jesus was born. By that same Spirit, Jesus’ body on earth—the church—is born, lives, moves, and has its being.

In the Spirit’s power, Jesus went forth from the wilderness, proclaiming the kingdom of God, healing the sick, casting out demons, and working miracles, such as raising the dead. “It’s the economy, stupid” became a famous statement in American presidential politics. That sounds like Paul in Galatians 3: Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? It’s the Spirit, stupid.

Therefore, we must always be on guard against legalism, thinking that we can do in the flesh that which God commands by the Spirit. We must always be on guard against any kind of pride or arrogance that wants to rise up against another because we have biblical insight or because we know or do things that others do not. May it never be! Unity is what the community needs, and that is found in the Spirit.

Paul brings this out so clearly later in his letter: Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4-5).

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus dwelling within us individually and among us collectively. So all that we do, we must do like Jesus did, in the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the glimpse of the earliest churches in Acts 2:42 is so valuable: And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

God’s Word, modeled by Jesus and lived in the power of his Spirit, equips and forms you into your priestly calling: as men and women, as husbands and wives, as mothers and fathers, as productive members of a faith community.

The reason behind the plurality of elders approach in Scripture is to exemplify how spiritual maturity and servant leadership are to function in community. Those with more years are to show others how to walk, and to assist them in their developing ministry. The ongoing task of the church, from Paul’s point of view, is very simple. It is nothing less than increasing conversion to the Lordship of Jesus in both quantity and quality.

Read every one of Paul’s epistles with this point in mind, and you will see it and feel his passion. Be converted more and more and more to the Lordship of Jesus. Be conformed to his image more and more and more to the glory of God the Father. Paul knows that the increase of God’s governance, one life at a time, answers the petition, Thy Kingdom come.

Do you want to live like the early church? Have the Lordship of Jesus as a preeminent goal. Seek the Spirit to think like Jesus thought—to have his mind, his worldview, his love for Scripture, and his love for people. Jesus reveals the heart of the Father. God loves people who don’t know the Good News, people who are responding to Jesus, and the Jewish people who brought us both Yeshua and his Gospel!

Our Lord lamented out of love for Jerusalem. Paul describes him in Romans as a servant to the Jews: For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy (Romans 15:8-9). We, too, should have a servant heart for Israel.

All of this and more manifests the power of the Spirit to destroy the works of the devil.

Here is the bottom line of this study. The prophets saw, in the Spirit, that in the end God’s kingship, his shalom, and the blessings resulting from his redemption and forgiveness of sins would cover the whole earth. In the resurrection of Jesus, the future has broken into the present. Followers of Jesus, both Jew and Gentile, are those, says Paul, on whom the end of the ages has come.

How should we then live?

Ours is a life to be cruciform in its pattern. The Spirit shapes our life after the manner of Jesus, our cross-carrying Savior. He is the ruler of the new creation, of which we are the first fruits. He is the last Adam, author of a new humanity, and we are his progeny. This is what it means to have an olive tree theology.