Scripture… As We Live It #199
This is the 199th passage in “Scripture… As We Live It.”
But you your ordained leaders have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all they have knowledge. (1 John 2:20 re-mix)
(Please read the first post for an explanation of this series.)
Replay: Defining the Church
Five and a half years ago (in September 2006), I had only been blogging for a few months. But, I wrote one of my first (of many) blog series tackling the difficult topic of defining the “church” (or ἐκκλησία – ekklesia) from Scripture. Actually, in this series, I primarily looked at a few passages in the Gospels and Acts. But, hey, it was a start.
The first post (“replayed” below) was called “Defining the Church 1 – Matthew 16:15-19.”
It’s interesting reading back through the series now. I would probably say a few things differently, but, for the most part, I think I was heading in the right direction.
Here is the first post in the series. Links to the other posts are at the bottom of this post and each of the other posts.
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Defining the Church 1 – Matthew 16:15-19
I plan to post a series that I am calling “Defining the Church.” My desire is to examine passages of Scripture that define/describe the church; and, through that examination, to develop a basic definition of the church.
The first passage is Matthew 16:15-19 –
He (Jesus) said to them (His disciples), “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
There are several things that we can learn about the church from this passage:
- The church belongs to Christ.
- Christ will build His church.
- The church will be built upon Peter.
- Death will not defeat the church.
- The church will be granted authority from Christ.
The church belongs to Christ. This seems obvious. Jesus says, “I will build my church.” The community (ἐκκλησία = “assembly, community”) of believers will be the possession of Christ himself. This is demonstrated throughout Scripture, especially when the church is called “the church of God” (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor 1:2, 10:32, 11:22, 15:9; Gal 1:31; 1 Tim 3:5, 15; 1 Pet 4:17).
Christ will build His church. Again, Jesus accepts responsibility for building his community. He does not place this responsibility on anyone else. He does not assign this responsibility to anyone else. Does this mean that people play no role in building the church? No. But, it does mean that people must understand their role in relation to Christ’s role. As Paul stated: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:6-7; i.e., 1 Pet 2:5).
The church will be built upon Peter. There are three interpretations of this passage. 1) The church will be built upon Peter who becomes the first bishop of the church. 2) The church will be built upon the confession of faith that Peter makes. 3) The church will be built upon Peter – and others like him – because Peter is a believer and follower of Christ. I believe the third explanation comes closest to explaining this passage. The church is built of believers and followers of Jesus Christ. Again, Paul explains this in 1 Cor 3: You are God’s field, you are God’s building (1 Cor 3:9).
Death will not defeat the church. This is another contested passage. This could indicate that the church will wage a spiritual warfare against the “forces of Satan,” but the church will not be defeated. Or, it could indicate that death (Hades) will not defeat the church, whether death comes naturally or as a result of persecution. The one who dies will not be separated from the church. The church that remains will not be defeated by death or persecution. I believe this latter explanation is most valid. The church is not frail, nor is it on the verge of destruction. The existence of the church is promised by Christ himself.
The church will be granted authority from Christ. I will discuss this and the phrase “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” in the next post.
From this passage, we learn that the church is built and owned by Christ. He builds his church with those who believe and follow him. We also learn that Christ grants some type of authority to the church, and that death will not defeat the church.
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Series:
- Defining the Church 1 – Matthew 16:15-19
- Defining the Church 2 – Matthew 18:15-20
- Defining the Church 3 – John’s Farewell Discourse
- Defining the Church 4 – Acts 1-2
- Defining the Church – Implications
Replay: Edification as Worship
“The church gathers for worship.” That seems to be a given these days. And, by the term “worship,” people typically mean singing, listening to singing, praying, listening to praying, preaching, listening to preaching, and perhaps giving.
I examined some of these ideas three years ago in a post called “Edification as Worship.” The post is actually as response to a lecture given by one of my favorite authors, David Peterson. The primary point in the lecture/post is that, to quote Peterson, “It’s silly to make artificial distinctions between the vertical and the horizontal,” and “Edification is the lost factor in alot of our discussions about worship.”
When we are building up others, we are worship God. If we are not building up others when we come together, we are not worshiping God, regardless of what activities are going on around us.
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Edification as Worship
JT at “Between Two Worlds” points us to several lectures concerning worship in his post “Lectures on Worship“.
I was delighted to see that the first few lectures were given by David Peterson, author of one of my favorite books Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (IVP 2002). (If you haven’t read this book, you should.) I was also delighted to see the title of Peterson’s fourth lecture: “Meeting God in the Gathering of His People“.
Then, as I started listening to this lecture – hoping to hear what I had read in his book – I was thrilled when Peterson says at the very beginning, “Edification is the lost factor in alot of our discussions about worship”. Yes!
Later in the lecture (around the 34 minute mark), Peterson begins defining “edification”:
And in Christian terms, “building” means founding, maintaining, and advancing the church in God’s way. Now that definition needs to be set aside of what I think are some fairly common misapprehensions.
First of all, a lot of people think that edification purely has to do with education – that it’s a purely intellectual activity. And so you say, “Was that an edifying sermon today?” “Yes, I learned alot”. hmmm… well, that’s not exactly what the Bible means by edification as we will see.
Or, I’ve heard people come out of a symphony concert, “That Beethoven was very edifying tonight”. And what they mean is, “I felt good about that Beethoven. My that was exciting!” I feel good. That’s not edification either.
Edification is a corporate concept. It has to do with founding, maintaining, and advancing the church in Gods way.
Peterson goes on to exegete several passages of Scripture to demonstrate that edification means both adding to the church in number, and also increasing the maturity of the church corporately. Edification of a process of growth and development for the whole church. He says, “Edification is a corporate motion. It occurs when Christians minister God’s truth to one another in love, seeking to express and encourage a Christ-centered faith, hope, and love.”
At one point in the lecture, Peterson talks about the blurring of distinctions between the vertical aspect of worship (between God and us) and the horizontal aspect of worship (between us and other people). He says (around the 21 minute mark):
So the three things can be happening together: 1) God can be speaking to us. 2) We are ministering to one another. 3) And we are responding to God. It’s silly to make artificial distinctions between the vertical and the horizontal…. Is not worship also listening to God, ministering to one another, declaring his greatness, preaching, testimony, singing. The whole thing needs to be thought of as intricately interconnected – the vertical and the horizontal… That’s really at the heart of what I’m trying to say to you this afternoon.
As John told his readers (1 John 1:3), our fellowship with one another is truly fellowship with God the Father and the Son. Its time for us to recognize that we usually demonstrate our love for God by loving others, and we serve God by serving others – especially in a corporate context.
As we build up one another – as we exercise our gifts to serve one another and as we speak to encourage, instruct, and admonish one another – we are worshiping God. The horizontal aspects of worship and the vertical aspects of worship become blurred. However, if we fail to edify one another, then we have neither the horizontal nor the vertical aspects of worship – regardless of what we do or say.
As Paul told the church in Corinth, whenever we come together as brothers and sisters in Christ, everything we do should be for the purpose of building up one another – that is, seeking to express and encourage a Christ-centered faith, hope, and love. If we are not edifying one another as the church, then we are not worshiping.
Helping people who are relying too much on a leader or leaders
Sometimes, people become too dependent on one or more leaders among the church. Sometimes people expect leaders to do specific tasks or answer certain types of questions. This kind of dependency is not healthy for the leaders or for others.
In his post “Raising Up Leaders in House Church,” Keith at “subversive1” offers some good advice when this is happening. Keith’s post is actually an email that he sent to someone in reply to a question about “raising up leader.”
While Keith’s answer is given in the context of “house church,” I think he offers some good advice for people meeting in different ways, assuming that any of the questions or interaction is allowed.
For example, at the beginning of the post, Keith writes:
[T]he secret, if there is one, I’d say is to get out of the way and allow the Holy Spirit to do as much as possible. At first our house church always looked to me or to my wife to do everything – answer every Bible question, lead the communion, baptize the people, etc. So, sometimes I would just leave the room during prayer or after worship to let them figure things out together. Other times if someone asked me a question about the Bible I would lean back and say, “I don’t know. What do you guys think?” and allow people to discuss this question without my interference. Sometimes I would ask another person, maybe even a child or a teenager, to lead us in communion, or to read a scripture to everyone. You can do this on the spot, or you can ask them ahead of time if they would do this when the time comes. That way you don’t have to be the one to ask them but they will just do it because you’ve already asked them in advance. The hope being that, eventually, they will feel confident to read scriptures on their own and to take initiative when it’s time for communion, or prayer, etc.
This is only one part of Keith’s post, so I would recommend reading the whole post.
When people are specifically looking to one person or one group to do everything for the church, Keith’s advice is sound: the leader(s) may need to get out of the way. Stop doing what others think you should do. Give others opportunities as well.
What do you think about Keith’s advice? How do you think it would be beneficial to the church and the leaders? Could their be any problems?
Using Spirit Gifts as an Excuse or a License
When I was growing up, I was given a spiritual gifts test. I didn’t study for it, but I aced. I got the best gifts. How did I know they were the best? Because they were exactly the things that I cared most about.
Then, I was told how to use those gifts to volunteer in the various church programs. I thanked God that day that “Nursery” did not show up in my list of possible jobs. But, unfortunately, I was actually too young to do anything that was on the list. So, I could look forward to the day when I grew up and I could finally use my spiritual gifts.
Someone told me about an opportunity to serve someone, but I informed that person that service was not my spiritual gift. I encouraged him to ask someone with the more appropriate spiritual gift. Service was not my responsibility.
There was another opportunity to help someone with administration. No. Trust me. I am not gifted in administration. Someone with that spiritual gift should handle that problem.
Meanwhile, I would wait for an opportunity to teach. I mean, I was gifted by the Holy Spirit of God in teaching, so that’s what I was going to do. Eventually. One day. I mean, when I got older.
Oh, but then an opportunity presented itself! It wasn’t like an official position in the church; not even a small group or Bible study leader. But, there was someone who needed teaching. It was obvious this person needed teaching, and I was a teacher. So I jumped in and pointed out where this person was wrong, and I set them straight. I was teaching. It was so exciting. (That person didn’t talk to me much after that though…)
Sure, the examples above are hyperbolic, and exaggerated, and fiction (sort of). But, they demonstrate the way that I typically hear people explain spiritual gifts. When someone has a certain spiritual gift, they then have a license to function in that way, and an excuse not to function in any other ways.
But, when I read Scripture, that’s not the distinction that I read. Yes, people have one or more spiritual gifts. And, of course, people who are gifted in a certain way should function in that way – in love, for the purpose of building up others, and under the direction of the Holy Spirit. But, guess what? According to the authors of Scripture, that same person should also function in other ways as well.
I mean, we know this about the “lesser” spiritual gifts like service, helps, encouragement, giving, etc. We may even add evangelism to that list of spiritual gifts that all followers of Jesus are responsible (and privileged) to do.
But, what about teaching? No. Leave that for the teachers. Prophecy? That’s just for the prophets. Pastoring? Of course, only the pastors are supposed to pastor (shepherd).
But, what if we actually thought that God could use us to do any of those things… even if we are not specifically “gifted” in that way?
I think we would see a different church… one that’s closer to what we read about in Scripture… a church that would be more focused on what God could do through us for the sake of others instead of focused on what we can do.
Examples of Christians working together in spite of disagreements
We disagree. It’s a fact of life. If you spend time with someone else, you will find something that you disagree with them about.
For too long, the church has allowed disagreements that are not gospel related to separate brothers and sisters in Christ from one another. In his prayer in John 17, Jesus said that the world would know that the Father sent him because of our unity. I wonder what our disunity tells the world…
Anyway, Felicity at “Simply Church” has written another excellent post called “Blurring the distinctives.” In this post she talks about Christians working together in spite of their disagreements.
Here’s part of her post:
Another set of distinctions that is increasingly blurring is that between simple/organic church and legacy churches. It used to be that legacy churches viewed those in simple/organic churches as rebellious, rejecting authority, unsubmissive. In turn, those in simple churches tended to view others as not really on the cutting edge of what God was doing.
Thankfully, this is no longer the case. Small and large churches are working together. The Kingdom has become more important than what we ourselves are doing.
Imagine that. These people still disagree with one another over what form and structure the church should take, but they are willing to set those disagreements aside, accept one another in Christ, and work together for the sake of the kingdom.
What is this world coming to…
Is God opening a door of opportunity for us in The Congo?
It looks like God may be opening a door of opportunity for us to serve in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And, when I say us, I don’t mean just me and my family. I mean that God may be providing an opportunity for the church to connect with other believers and other churches in the Congo.
Let me explain. First, as you can probably guess (for those of you who know that Dave Black is my PhD mentor), I’ve been greatly influenced by Dave and BeckyLynn Black’s work in Ethiopia. (You can find more information about that in their “Ethiopia Files.”)
As a church and as a family, we have worked with the Blacks to serve the people of Alaba, Ethiopia for several years. I even spent a couple of weeks in Alaba two years ago. I love the way they work through existing relationships and in the work that God is already doing in Ethiopia.
(I hope this relationship and working partnership continues! One of our brothers from Ethiopia is even planning to meet with us in a few weeks.)
Now, some friends of ours are planning to move to the Congo. Their work will primarily be in the area of Bible translation, but they will also be meeting and working with local believers. Hopefully, if God leads us to continue in this direction, they will be able to connect us to our brothers and sisters in that area of the Congo. I see this as being a two-way partnership, so I’m just as excited about what we can learn from them as what we can do for them.
We’ve looked into partnerships like this before. But, this time, there’s something present that has always been missing before: an existing relationship!
For example, I think about Paul getting ready to go to Rome. He had never visited Rome before, but there were brothers and sisters in Rome (at least Prisca and Aquila) with whom he already had an existing relationship. When he traveled to Rome, he would be continuing that relationship as well as building new relationships with people that they introduced him to.
If we travel to the Congo, we will be continuing our relationship with our friends, and at the same time, building new relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in that area.
So, this could be an exciting time for us. We will learn more after our friends move in a few weeks and as they get settled in and begin learning about what God is already doing in that area of the Congo.
It is easy to talk about New Testament church life. It is much harder to practice it.
This morning, I was minding my own business when I ran across a new post by Dave Black. Once again, in a few sentences, he directly expresses something that I’ve been trying to express for months – maybe years.
In my previous post, I wrote that life in Christ together as the church is not about being perfect. Instead, it’s about continually changing and maturing as we seek Christ together. Dave’s post is a great example of this:
Aren’t you amazed by the book of Acts? I am. Its principles for Christian ministry and church structure are so radically different from what is taught and practiced in so many of our churches today. (Can you really see Peter and his wife on a rooftop promoting their new book on sex?) Here’s the problem. It is easy to talk about New Testament church life. It is much harder to practice it. I am very grateful for pastors at Bethel Hill who have taught us the major themes of Acts, including biblical eldership. It gives me renewed hope that things can actually change. So what if we fail? It’s better to try and fail than to sit around and do nothing. Acts has so much to say about church planting, missions, evangelism, church polity, and so much more. No book is more relevant for our times. But with knowledge comes responsibility. Obedience to Christ must be wholehearted. Jesus cannot work through disobedient disciples. If we want to see a genuine Great Commission resurgence in our day, we must get serious about obeying our risen Lord. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin either by commission or omission and are not quick to repent. The first Christians sought not only to understand as much as they could the “apostles’ doctrine” (Acts 2:42) but to obey it, whatever the cost. If they were here today, I imagine they would be watching Bethel Hill Baptist Church very closely. They would tell us not to be afraid of the Holy Spirit, of His sensitive touch, of His guidance and power, of His desire to empower the church so that we might believe and obey. Their example stands like a lighthouse to us in our drifting. They would remind us that obedience is not a luxury. It is a top priority if a church is to grow and prosper.
Will you agree with everything they are doing? Probably not. But, hopefully, you can be excited, like me, that they are seeking to follow their Lord, even when it means changing their practices. (I’d prefer they seek to follow Jesus than to follow anything that you or I might say, right?)
In fact, the point here is not about agreeing with the changes they are making even. I don’t even know what those changes are. But, it’s exciting whenever any group of believers recognizes that they are not perfect and that there is room to grow closer to patterns and practices that we see described in the New Testament.
Like I wrote at the end of my previous post: “There are no perfect churches. But, there should be no static churches either.”
There are no perfect churches
I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve been part of a conversation about the church, when the other person seeks to end the conversation by saying something like, “Well, there are no perfect churches.”
The point, I assume, is that since there are no perfect churches, then there is no reason to seek to be perfect. Usually, of course, these conversations center around the differences between what I understand about the church and what the other person understands about the church.
The other person, at some point, might admit that there are problems with his or her understanding of the church, but, as is often said, “there are no perfect churches.”
I agree with that statement. Churches are gatherings of people. There are no perfect people, and so there are no perfect churches. I have no problem with that statement. Instead, I’m concerned about what is typically meant by that statement: since there are no perfect churches, then you should not expect us to change, even if we are imperfect.
But, there’s a huge difference between imperfect, and seeking to grow and change and become more like the church that is described in Scripture.
Believe it or not, I’m not surprised when people disagree with me. I’m not taken aback. I don’t separate from people or stop fellowshiping with them because they disagree with me about the church. As long as someone is in Christ, then I accept that person as a brother or sister, and attempt to treat them as such.
But, I think there’s a problem with accepting imperfect churches without seeking to grow and change.
Paul addressed many imperfect churches. He wrote to churches among which there were many different kinds of problems; some with problems understanding who God or Jesus Christ is; some with problems understanding how to respond to the gospel; some with problems understanding the end times; some with problems concerning the church itself.
The only group of believers that he almost separate from were the churches in Galatia. He almost separated himself from them because they were walking away from the gospel. However, he did not separate from them right away, but instead wrote to them to help them understand their error.
For the others, he accepted them as brothers and sisters as they were. He called them saints (holy ones). He called them children of God. He recognize that they were indwelled by the Holy Spirit. In spite of the fact that they were imperfect churches, the accepted them.
But, he did not want them to stay the way they were. He wanted them to grow and mature in their relationship with God and also in their relationships with one another. He knew they would never be a perfect church, but he wanted them to continue growing, changing, and maturing.
I think this should be our view of ourselves as well. We are in Christ, but we are still growing in our understanding of him and what it means to live according to the Spirit that is in us. We are not perfect, but we should be maturing.
In the same we, churches are not perfect either. However, we should be surprised if we are not continually growing and changing and maturing as individuals and as churches.
No, there are no perfect churches. But, there should be no static churches either.
A great example of denying self in order to love others (even enemies)
Last week, I read a great story by Chad at “Captain’s Blog.” The post is called “The Forgiveness and Reconciliation Train.”
I don’t want to say too much about this story. It’s filled with heartache and pain, and forgiveness and love. Plus, it’s a story about giving up something that’s important in order to care for and demonstrate the love of God to someone else – even someone who may consider you an enemy.
I’m not even going to quote from this post. You need the read the whole thing. Trust me.