The Loveliest Place: The Beauty and Glory of the Church. Dustin W. Benge. 2022. 208 pages. [Source: Review copy]
First sentence: The church is beautiful. Beautiful is not a phrase we often associate with the church. Words like organization, mission, vision, and even body come to mind, but not beautiful.
Dustin W. Benge's newest book is on the church. It is a comprehensive book. It is wider and broader than many other books about the church that I've read in the past. (I hope this makes sense.) Instead of focusing on little bits here and there, we see a much bigger and more inclusive picture of what the church is. And what ties it all together is this notion or concept that the church is lovely and beautiful. Again, not many books about the church chime in with that exact message.
Benge writes, "This book has one aim: to set before you a thoroughly biblical portrait of the church that derives its life from the sweet fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit, creating a community of love, worship, fellowship, and mission, all animated by the gospel and empowered by the word of God. By beholding such radiant beauty and loveliness, may we lift our collective and worshipful cry, 'Indeed, the church is the loveliest place on earth.'"
The chapter titles:
- You Are Beautiful
- The Household of God
- Our Father and Friend
- Our Savior and Head
- Our Helper and Beautifier
- A Pillar and Buttress of Truth
- In Spirit and Truth
- Shepherding the Flock
- Feeding the Flock
- Good News
- In Remembrance
- Walking Worthy
- Blessed Persecution
- We Are One
I read this book slowly. (That's a good thing.) It wasn't what I was expecting. Not really. So many books about the church either focus on the many, many, many ways the church is failing (in one way or another) OR focuses on how to do something (how to improve small groups, how to evangelize in your city, how to reach more people with your sermons, etc.) OR about worship wars.
This book takes the focus off of us, if you will, and keeps it centrally--no, exclusively--on God (the Father, the Son, the Spirit).
I love how it uses quotes from so many classic theologians.
Quotes:
- The church is beautiful because the lens through which Christ regards her is his cross--the focal point of blood, righteousness, forgiveness, union, justification, regeneration, and grace. His cross makes her beautiful. His perfection makes her beautiful. It is his sacrificial, substitutionary, sinless blood that washes her garments as white as snow. The cross of Christ makes her beautiful not only inwardly by justification but also outwardly through sanctification. From giving second birth to final glory, the righteousness of Christ creates a beautiful church.
- Christ is beautiful to the church because he rescued her from her enemies and set her in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Christ is beautiful to the church because he freely offered his life as payment for a debt she owed. (John 10:11). Christ is beautiful to the church because he satisfied God's wrath against her sin and victoriously conquered death (Romans 3:24-25). Christ is her Savior. Christ is her Redeemer. Christ is her beauty.
- As believers, we never move past the love of Christ. We never tire of the love of Christ. A true believer is one who never gets over the profound words of the childhood song "Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so."
- The church cannot exist for one moment without Christ as her life. Christ is the church's ventilator--consistently filling her lungs with life-giving spiritual breath animating her, gifting her, and empowering her. This means that we who serve in the church serve her only as Christ empowers and enables us to do so.
- The beauty for which we are saved is accomplished only through an intense, heartfelt stare at Jesus.
- Regeneration is literally God breathing the eternal sweet air of salvation into the corpse of a fallen sinner. (John 3:3-8). You see, all of the Christian life is powered and animated by the breath of God.
- Authentic biblical worship occurs only when the very core of our being is employed in worshipping God.
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