The material offered in this book, refined over four decades of ministry and further thought, is the result of seeking to find an authoritative answer to this question. The book is largely interaction with and reflection upon the Word. It relates some highly surprising and significant insights into the biblical nature of the church and of God's kingdom plan. Ephesians gives us a model for the church perhaps the clearest, most profound and concise picture of the church in all Scripture. Yet this is not an idealized picture floating somewhere in space or "in the heavenlies" which never really touches down to earth to our nitty-gritty lives. Rather, here is a picture of what the church most profoundly is, and what it can be in actual space and time.