Continuing in unity
This week's post-holiday goodness comes from Ephesians 4:7-16:
In the distant pre-Christmas past, before most of our collective memories still hold substance, we talked about the unity of the Church, and sinfulness of setting ourselves apart as modern pharisees, claiming to be just a bit more righteous and more Christian than the other Christians. None of us is perfect. All need grace and all have a role to play in God's plan. It is fatal to lull yourself into a less humble position on that.
These verses continue that thought, and do so in such a clear fashion that I thought it would be good to sort of continue the lesson from last time. The plain truth is that Christ died for our sins, and that all of us who claim to be Christians depend on His gift to us. That sets the stage for the rest of it. On our own, we are all broken, incomplete, obnoxious, fallen creatures. It's Christ who completes us, who repairs us and makes us serviceable. It is not our doctrine, our good works, or our innovative groundbreaking philosophy of ministry. It is Christ.
So, in that context, God has raised up workers, such as pastors, evangelists, prophets, and teachers to equip his people. Chew on that for a minute and see how sweet that is. He didn't appoint them as middle managers, as shining examples to take the place of Christ, or as stunt doubles to live out our Christian lives for us. He appointed them to equip us. They're servants. If our Christian life is a marathon, like the apostle Paul sometimes describes it, these people are the guys handing out water, yelling to us with bullhorns, directing traffic, etc.
These people do not stand between us and God as mediators. To pretend they are is to put them in Christ's place. That is idolatry. I do not exist to read the Bible for you, for instance. My role is to show you how beautiful it is, and encourage you to tear into yourselves. You should be asking the Holy Spirit to show you its meaning, not asking the weird Internet Bible guy to tell you what it means, or your pastor, or the street corner evangelist. All of us can help, but you've got to approach God yourself or it's meaningless.
The pastor doesn't exist to pass notes between you and God or to be a Christian for you. You can do that yourself. The prophet doesn't exist to tell you what God is saying. You need to figure that out yourself. Both of them help, but they are not there as your spiritual stunt doubles. The evangelist doesn't exist to be God's sole representative in society. All of us should be, even if it's just to our friends.
God wants us personally, and as a collective Church, to have a relationship with Him. It's direct, without mediators, and without hierarchy. Church leaders serve an important purpose, initiated by God to help us, but are not "above us" in some chain of command. If anything, they are below us, behind us, pushing us towards God. Some of the worst Christians I've met are leaders in the church, but God uses them as good servants.
You don't have to be perfect to give a good sermon, or visit the sick, or pray for healing, or share the gospel with large crowds. These are job functions and sometimes people who are otherwise stunted can be exceptionally skilled in some of these areas. Nobody's perfect, and that's why it's folly to look to other men and women to be as much of a role model as Christ or as faithful a mediator as the Holy Spirit. God wants us, not some designated spokesman we appointed because we can't be bothered to show up in person.
So these Christian workers are not perfect, and are not Christ himself, but they are very useful for equipping us to become better Christians. Christ himself called these people the same as he called us, but many of them are specialists. The evangelist is a Christian with a real gift for sharing the Gospel. The pastor has people skills and a patient heart and some charisma. He holds a flock together and disciplines them. The prophet has a sensitive ear and a good way of faithfully passing along a message. The teacher has a way of distilling truth out of life and scripture. All of them exist to help us become better Christians, not through us following them as they follow Christ, but by encouraging us to seek out God ourselves and by making a place where that can happen easily.
As we tune into God's message, and we become better Christians, we're less likely to get swayed by heretical teachings, greedy immoral cult leaders, false religions, faithless humanistic messages, etc. Our roots go into the source of life, God's spirit, not into the person next to us or in front of us. We are the Church, not just consumers of the church. We don't follow Christ's representatives, we are his representatives. Christ is the head, and the rest of us collectively are his body, his Church.
So, as the new year starts, be thankful for the Christian workers, but consider that your race to run is yours alone. Follow Christ yourself, both personally and as part of a group heading in that direction. Don't pay someone else to do it. Stand up and be a Christian.
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”
(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
In the distant pre-Christmas past, before most of our collective memories still hold substance, we talked about the unity of the Church, and sinfulness of setting ourselves apart as modern pharisees, claiming to be just a bit more righteous and more Christian than the other Christians. None of us is perfect. All need grace and all have a role to play in God's plan. It is fatal to lull yourself into a less humble position on that.
These verses continue that thought, and do so in such a clear fashion that I thought it would be good to sort of continue the lesson from last time. The plain truth is that Christ died for our sins, and that all of us who claim to be Christians depend on His gift to us. That sets the stage for the rest of it. On our own, we are all broken, incomplete, obnoxious, fallen creatures. It's Christ who completes us, who repairs us and makes us serviceable. It is not our doctrine, our good works, or our innovative groundbreaking philosophy of ministry. It is Christ.
So, in that context, God has raised up workers, such as pastors, evangelists, prophets, and teachers to equip his people. Chew on that for a minute and see how sweet that is. He didn't appoint them as middle managers, as shining examples to take the place of Christ, or as stunt doubles to live out our Christian lives for us. He appointed them to equip us. They're servants. If our Christian life is a marathon, like the apostle Paul sometimes describes it, these people are the guys handing out water, yelling to us with bullhorns, directing traffic, etc.
These people do not stand between us and God as mediators. To pretend they are is to put them in Christ's place. That is idolatry. I do not exist to read the Bible for you, for instance. My role is to show you how beautiful it is, and encourage you to tear into yourselves. You should be asking the Holy Spirit to show you its meaning, not asking the weird Internet Bible guy to tell you what it means, or your pastor, or the street corner evangelist. All of us can help, but you've got to approach God yourself or it's meaningless.
The pastor doesn't exist to pass notes between you and God or to be a Christian for you. You can do that yourself. The prophet doesn't exist to tell you what God is saying. You need to figure that out yourself. Both of them help, but they are not there as your spiritual stunt doubles. The evangelist doesn't exist to be God's sole representative in society. All of us should be, even if it's just to our friends.
God wants us personally, and as a collective Church, to have a relationship with Him. It's direct, without mediators, and without hierarchy. Church leaders serve an important purpose, initiated by God to help us, but are not "above us" in some chain of command. If anything, they are below us, behind us, pushing us towards God. Some of the worst Christians I've met are leaders in the church, but God uses them as good servants.
You don't have to be perfect to give a good sermon, or visit the sick, or pray for healing, or share the gospel with large crowds. These are job functions and sometimes people who are otherwise stunted can be exceptionally skilled in some of these areas. Nobody's perfect, and that's why it's folly to look to other men and women to be as much of a role model as Christ or as faithful a mediator as the Holy Spirit. God wants us, not some designated spokesman we appointed because we can't be bothered to show up in person.
So these Christian workers are not perfect, and are not Christ himself, but they are very useful for equipping us to become better Christians. Christ himself called these people the same as he called us, but many of them are specialists. The evangelist is a Christian with a real gift for sharing the Gospel. The pastor has people skills and a patient heart and some charisma. He holds a flock together and disciplines them. The prophet has a sensitive ear and a good way of faithfully passing along a message. The teacher has a way of distilling truth out of life and scripture. All of them exist to help us become better Christians, not through us following them as they follow Christ, but by encouraging us to seek out God ourselves and by making a place where that can happen easily.
As we tune into God's message, and we become better Christians, we're less likely to get swayed by heretical teachings, greedy immoral cult leaders, false religions, faithless humanistic messages, etc. Our roots go into the source of life, God's spirit, not into the person next to us or in front of us. We are the Church, not just consumers of the church. We don't follow Christ's representatives, we are his representatives. Christ is the head, and the rest of us collectively are his body, his Church.
So, as the new year starts, be thankful for the Christian workers, but consider that your race to run is yours alone. Follow Christ yourself, both personally and as part of a group heading in that direction. Don't pay someone else to do it. Stand up and be a Christian.
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