The "called-out ones." This is the essential meaning of the original Greek word translated "church" in the New Testament. Christ Jesus had literally called his students to leave behind their old lives and follow him. In accepting that calling, his followers would come out from the usual material expectations of life and, in the eyes of the world, appear as something quite different from what they had been before. They would appear as new men and women, with a new purpose.
In extraordinary ways, these reborn men and women would even "become as little children"—as they grew unabashedly to honor God as their Father and to accept with humility His will in directing their lives. They would become spiritual pioneers on newly opened frontiers of the heart, mind, and spirit. They would become disciples and healers. They would, in fact, be the Christian Church.
Obviously, this "calling out" has never meant that Christians were to separate themselves from humanity or hold the world at arm's length. And while true Christianity certainly does bring on a spiritual and moral confrontation with worldliness —even a kind of warfare with gross materialism, ignorance, and sin—to be Christ's church necessarily requires embracing one's fellow men and women in unselfish love. The Church, both then and now, finds its very life in ministering to the needs of mankind, uplifting the world through the divine power of prayer, showing with spiritual conviction God's perfect way of salvation for everyone.
