As Paul and Barnabas preached in Iconium, there was a division in the city where both Jews and Gentiles who rejected the gospel attacked the preachers. To put this in perspective, we discuss the fact that nowadays it is often people in “Christendom” who attack the gospel. This did not exist as a large category of people during the time of Acts. Now there are innumerable “Christians” who are offended by the gospel itself. The church cannot be the world or have peace with the world because those who know  Christ are called out of the world. “Christendom” is a subset of the world and not the church. The invisible church consists of the truly redeemed who are redeemed because of faith in the gospel. We also emphasize the need for boldness in gospel preaching. The Reformation created a need to for a good definition of the church, since Rome was not it. We discuss the Reformation definition of the church. Then we address the topic of the universal call of the gospel in light of Luther’s debate with Rome. This includes dealing with pertinent passages that arose when Luther debated Erasmus.

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