11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until 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.
14Then 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 men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From 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.
Dig Deeper
Many times over the years, I have asked people what the core job of a coach is, or for that matter any sort of leader. I have heard many different responses such as telling people what to do, organizing people, inspiring them, and many other answers. Although I believe there are elements of truth to all of those, I don’t believe that is the core of coaching leadership. The key is to put people in the right situations to that they can succeed in contributing to the team. I can think of many players that I coached over the years that got upset with me because they wanted to play more but I always felt it was my job to put them into situations where they could be successful, otherwise I was not doing my job. The key thing that the players had to learn was that the abilities they had only mattered in so much as they could contribute to the team. Once they grasped that concept, most issues of their individual egos or having a poor attitude about not being in the game during certain situations went away.
Paul wants his readers, which presumably included many young Christians, to realize that as well (although we should point out that there is no specific controversy that is being addressed). God has given gifts, abilities, and a measure of grace to each Christian but they have to learn how to develop those gifts so that they can build up the entire body. Christian gifts are not given to keep each person busy or to satisfy the ego of each individual. They are given so that those who have been given certain qualities of God’s grace can, under the direction of the Spirit, build up and contribute to the overall health and success of the body of Christ.
Despite the efforts of some to occasionally argue otherwise, Paul is not trying to catalogue a complete list of spiritual gifts or even of so-called ‘offices’ of early church organization. There are several problems trying to identify a specific structure and organization in the early church, including the facts that there appear to be overlapping functions attributed to the New Testament offices (for instance, it is not clear how bishops, presbyters, and elders are to be distinguished form one another); It is also true that churches may have differed in their organizational structure from place to place. Rather than a blueprint for church organization, Paul is making a point. His point is about the continuing gifts that God has given his people. Not only has He blessed His people with unparalleled access to Himself both in the present age and in the ability to enter God’s presence in the heavenly realms while waiting for the consummation of the resurrection. He has also given gifts to His community in the Messiah through individual messengers.
Thus, God gave some to be apostles, the eyewitnesses of the resurrection of Christ and the foundation of the Church; some to be prophets, those commissioned with speaking the word of God, and guiding and directing the Church particularly before the completion of the New Testament; some to be evangelists, those who announced the resurrection and kingdom of the true king of the world, and planted churches; some to be pastors and teachers (the structure of the sentence implies that these words are connected, like teaching pastors, rather than two different categories), those who shepherded the young churches and trained them in the word of God. It is the job of these gift-receivers, not to exalt themselves, or to think of themselves as more important than others, but to prepare God’s people for works of service. The point of having leaders with these kinds of gifts is to put everyone in the Church in a position to succeed, to do the work and live the life of the age to come while still in the present age. This, in turn, builds up the entire community.
Their are several key components that Paul describes in this aspect of building up the Church. First, there is an intellectual aspect as believers strive to reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. Paul implies that reaching unity is a process that comes, in part, through increased knowledge and understanding of Jesus. The emphasis is also made clear that this unity that we all reach is a corporate process rather than stressing individual personal growth. Second, is to become mature, a word that means perfect or complete. The goal is to become like Christ, the perfect man, as a community, so we see that Paul is still thinking in terms of corporate unity. The final aspect is to attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. This is the final step of a maturing Church, one that truly has become mature and learned how to live the full life of Christ in every area of life.
This fullness of life will keep the Church safe from the waves of teaching that toss small children back and forth, believing one thing one day, and another the next, or being swept along by the winds and waves of false teaching that surges them further and further away from the shores of truth. The knowledge of the teachings and life of Christ will guide those in Christ into the maturity and fullness of life that will keep them from being taken in by the deceitful scheming of crafty men.
Rather than being fooled by false teachings and false visions of the Christian life, Paul wants them to speak the truth in love. It would be to badly take this verse out of context if we reduced it to Paul saying that Christians should simply tell each other the truth or be open and honest with one another, although those are certainly good things. Nor is Paul referring to telling someone when we think they have fallen into sin, although that is certainly biblical and good. The NIV, and many other modern translations, actually add the word "speaking," which is not at all in the original language. What Paul actually says is "truthing in love" or "being truth in love." This conveys the idea of living out the truth in a manner and ethic of love, because love is the destiny of those in Christ (1 Cor. 13). Truth is not merely an intellectual concept, or information to be shared, it is something that must be lived. Rather than being fooled, like small children, into counterfeit ways of life, the mature Christian learns to live a life characterized by truthing in love. When we grasp that as the goal and destiny of the Christian community then we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.
As Christian communities go through this maturing process they will be joined and held together by every supporting ligament. Paul’s overall point in this passage is that as the community grows and builds itself up in love, it will become in reality what we already are in principle, which is the body of the Messiah. Paul gives one final reminder in this section. Just like a regular body, the whole thing is one, but each individual part must do its own work. Although the body of Christ should become increasingly one, that must never become an excuse for some to sit back and assume that everyone else can mature and grow in Christ, while they can just remain immature and enjoy the benefits of being in a community of mature believers.
Devotional Thought
Paul discusses the idea of truthing in love in the Christian community. Are there any aspects of the Christian life in which you understand what is right intellectually but do not truly live it out? How would Paul categorize a Christian that knew something but didn’t embody it? If you do need to make some changes, how would you go about doing it?
No comments:
Post a Comment