I ran across Jonathan Pennington when I reviewed his book on Flourishing found in the Sermon on the Mount. When I saw a paper he had written on Church as Community Gathered, I had to read the article!
Maybe his firm planting in the book of Matthew intrigues me. Maybe my early memorizing of the same book while in high school pushed me to explore his thoughts. Perhaps I’m just curious since I’m constantly trying to understand what the church is.
Pennington makes it easy. Three pictures. That’s all (OK, academic papers are never that easy!)
* the church is a family,
* the church is a school of disciples
* the church is citizens of a kingdom not of this world.
Start from there and see where you end up.