The primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically.... I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information...she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God. (Preaching & Preachers, 30)
Not that I disagree with the good doctor but I think he did not say enough here. Eph 3.10 tells us God's cosmic plan is that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” The following thoughts (possibly even quotes) are from The Community of the King by Howard A. Snyder.
Paul is telling us in Ephesians that Jewish and Gentile believers are reconciled both to God and to each other. They have joined in a reconciling relationship to Jesus that transcends and destroys their old hostility toward each other. No longer enemies, they are now brothers and sisters. In Christ, God acts with such redemptive power that He is able to overcome hatreds and heal hostilities. The mystery of Christ (Eph 3.4) is not merely that the gospel is preached to Gentiles; it is that through this preaching, Gentile believers are now “heirs together” and “members of one body.” In 1 Corinthians 1:23-24 Paul says, "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Christ crucified for the unification and glorification of Jews and gentiles in the church is the mystery of God and the wisdom of God.
The church is the fruit this reconciling love, and thus the revelation of God's manifold wisdom. The church, as Christ's body, shares Christ's reconciling work. The church is more than God's agent of evangelism or social change; it is, in submission to Christ, the agent of God's entire cosmic purpose. What God is doing in Jesus Christ and what he is doing in and through the church are part of the redemption of all creation.
The reconciliation of all in Christ is why Paul can say that now “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God” is “made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3:10).
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