One And Many: Divine Church Design of Ephesians 4

In Multiply by Francis Chan, the second section, "Living As The Church", begins with "Life In The Church".  That chapter mostly wraps around Paul' description of church in Ephesians 4:1-16.  It's a passage well worth some detailed study.  Paul puts a ton of stuff in a small amount of space.  I'm going to walk through the passage as it broke down for me.

First, there is the call.  The call should inspire us to live in humility and enduring patience; essentially a shorter list of the Fruit of the Spirit (i.e. Galatians 5:22-23).  But here Paul makes much of 'unity', providing a long list of 'ones'; one body, Spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, and Father.  This unity is part of the response to the call.

Then Paul contrasts the unity and 'ones' with what we each have.  So to each of us was given a gift; and rather than one gift, there are many.  He then cites (perhaps incorrectly) Psalm 68:18, inferring that not only did Jesus give us gifts, but also fills all things; therefore has authority over all things.  The point Paul makes is that these many gifts come from one Source, and that Source is Supreme.

Paul then lists some of these 'gifts' specific to 'roles' or 'positions of leadership' in a church rather than the typical list of 'Spiritual gifts' he lists elsewhere.  These gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  It's not a list of leaders; overseers, elders, and ministers (deacons) are missing and would be expected to be here if this were a list of leadership positions.  Instead it's a list of gifted 'roles'.

The work of these many roles is equipping for service and enabling growth as the body of Christ. The goal progresses through unity of faith and knowledge of Jesus into complete maturity of all that Jesus is.  What happens then is that outside influences of erroneous teaching and perspectives don't create chaos in the church.  Instead, speaking the truths of Scripture, we all grow into that mature submission to Jesus, the One uniting us, holding us together in love.

This is a great picture of how local churches can function.  I don't think it happens very often.  I know I fail in at a few places along this progression.  I'm pretty sure others struggle in the same areas and a few others.

First off, all this stems from living inspired by my call.  This is the first place I struggle.  I'm not 'inspired' by my call.  I know I'm called, and I worship within that call, but my actions aren't driven by it as they should be.  In other words, that the Creator of the universe has specifically called my name to relate to Him has little influence in my life.  Others around me, just as frail and silly as I am are more inspiring to me.  I worry about what they think, what they want, or what they do; rather than being driven by what my Master thinks, what He wants, and what He does.  It's totally backward and ludicrous.

The second area this falls apart for me is in the short list of 'fruit'; humility, gentleness, patience, and so on.  Those are impossible without the inspiration of my calling.  They are also the only way the unity of the Spirit can be maintained, so I'm hung there as well.  Because of this progressive failure, when I do teach, even the content of the 'ones', it fails to build and equip because I don't have those other qualities that validate my teaching.  Clearly I'm not living out what I teach, so why would others learn from me?

So, my goal is to find that inspiration.  The content of my personal study and my corporate worship needs to be full of wonder of this calling, and I need to be focused on the One calling rather than the noise of those around me.  This is what will transform me, and with me, my church, and with us, our community.  And then the world.  I'm in.  I'm on it.

How Do I Change My 'Want To'?

The first sentence in the third chapter of Multiply by Francis Chan is a question, "Why do you want to make disciples?"  Am I the only one who reads that and thinks, "I'm not sure I want to make disciples"?  I have two issues running parallel here.  One, I'm scared of getting that deep into people; and two, I struggle loving people in general.

Okay, I'm going to revisit the entry from yesterday a bit here.  I look a the list of what love is, and I really struggle to consider it seriously.  I can break it down more specifically if you like (I'm sure you'd love that...), word by word, but really the essence of it is completely self-less.  In fact that makes up two of the actual words used, "self-seeking" and "self-inflating" both of which love is not.

I'm caught in the trap of saying I don't believe this world is about me, but then behaving as if I'm the one who has to make the wise choices to protect myself, my family, and my stuff.  I say I love, but I'm skeptical of others, I hope warily and sparingly, I provoke others (often for my own amusement, often for revenge), I keep records of wrongs others have done to me so I can classify them as 'safe' or 'unsafe', and more.  I'm impatient with others when there's something else I'd rather do I consider more fun.  I'm more often nice (acting) than kind (genuinely interested in the well-being of others).  I am even envious of others life situation, stuff they have, or the way people treat them.  And I hate to say it, but I brag; you know, I'm humble about it and all, but I do brag...

The reason I don't necessarily want to make disciples is that I'm not sure I want disciples like me.  Well, except for one thing; there is one thing I'd like to give to disciples.  When I mess up, which occupies a lot of my time as you can tell, I come back to my Master.  I return to Him, even covered in the mess of my mistakes.  In a sense I repent, even if temporarily before running back into the same stupid stuff I was just in.  I come back.  That is something I would like to teach others.  Because of that, I am one of those who never really give up; not for long anyway.  I may be tore up pretty good, have my armor on backwards, be holding the shield upside down, and my sword with poor grip; but I still stand up after being knocked down.

I'm sure there are people who might prefer I give up since I don't present a very 'nice' picture of a disciple, and therefore of a 'disciple-maker'.  I'm not pretty, I get that.  I totally get Paul's reference to 'treasures in jars of clay' reference in 2 Corinthians 4:7; I'm not a pretty pot, not much suited to treasure, more for a small shrub or herb, or something.  If you don't want the treasure found, I might make a good hiding place; who'd look in me for my Master's treasure?  But pretty or not, looking the part or not, I'm His.  And I'm not going anywhere else.

Unfortunately for me, I can't really 'teach' that as it were; it has to be 'caught' by being around people and them seeing it me and adopting that perspective or quality.  Which really sucks for the disciple I might make because they will also run the risk of 'catching' my other stuff as well.  "I don't love much, but I'm persistent about it!"  Lovely.

But maybe, part of the purpose of making disciples is so I might learn to love, to finally get out of myself and consider others.  What if my Master wants to bring me (and so 'catch' the quality from Him) into contact with others on a messy base level so I will learn to love them as He does?  Do I think in actually being responsible for someone besides myself I will gain this quality?  No, because being a spouse and a parent hasn't done that (much to the chagrin of my wife and daughter).  It comes from being in close contact with my Master as I struggle to obey and wander out of my comfort into His frontier found in the lives of others.  There I find the capacity of love my Master builds into me.  There He pours His love into me and I do what I can't, what I don't want, and what He has designed me to do.

Adrift in a Sea of Tranquility?

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NASB)

This is a familiar passage.  It fits in the middle of Paul's discussion of love in one of his letters to a church in Corinth, and that discussion fits within a larger discussion of the place of various gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they were to be used in the context of a church.  So this is a kernel within a kernel; a 'heart' if you will.

When I read this, I can't help seeing all my faults and immediately start trying to justify and explain myself.  I'm suddenly an adolescent again, and it's the 'shark tank' of high school all over again.  You may have a different response.  Whatever your response, I have a suggested one, one that just dawned on me this morning, one I don't remember having before.

Read just this all at once without stopping or thinking about the individual pieces (there's no period until verse 7 anyway).   Don't think about yourself, think about what this would look like if you were to see it.  Think about someone with these qualities.  You may first have to get through the images of 'pansy', 'weakling', and 'idiot', but once through those, what do you see?

I see something really amazing.  After the 'dust' of fighting, fear, and anger settles is this person who remains unperturbed in middle of it all.  The last lone survivor; the very picture of tranquility when all is chaos around them.  But the picture is really a 'video' for when the dust settles, this tranquil person begins binding the wounded, and comforting the hopeless, even the ones who persecuted and tormented them.

The only way I can imagine this as a possibility is to think that such a person does not see the world as we see it, but rather as a small part of a larger whole of the Kingdom of my Master.  Then these 'acts of war' are understood as mere teacup tempests.  But what my King has done for us overshadows all the darkness dispelling whatever obscures and casts wicked shadows.

Imagine waiting patiently, not provoking those who provoke us, not remembering wrongs suffered, covering everything, believing everything (choosing to be naive), never loosing hope, and never giving up.  It sounds foolish, like totally opening myself up to the damage others do intentionally or not.  Where are the protective boundaries?  How are these wise decisions that protect myself and my family?

Yet it is a demonstration of unwavering faith in Jesus, and all that He has done for me.  After that, nothing else really matters, like my own boundaries to protect myself, protecting my family, and so on.  It sounds dangerously foolish, but it's not.  Jesus said that no one can be His disciple unless he hate his own family and even his own life.  What do we think He meant by that?

This really unsettles me, disturbs me, and I don't like it at all.  It scares me to expose myself like this to an unfriendly world.  But then there's this tranquility that I really crave at the core.  I really want that.  The way I'm working in this world is wearing me out, and I'm stressed.  I really do crave the peace and tranquility within the chaos this passage describes.  But am I willing to give up my fears in exchange for faith?   Am I willing to trust my Master so implicitly, so thoroughly?  Are you?

What Is My Life About?

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20 NASB)

So, we're studying "Multiply" by Francis Chan in our church small groups, including mine.  We're using materials for the first time, and I'm not wild about that.  It's good stuff though.  The basic premise is that we as individuals and as churches are supposed to be about discipling others.  The basic passage to base such a base upon is the Great Commission.

So, I studied Matthew 28:18-20 in some detail (part of which I posted over the weekend).  So, here's what I found:

Jesus' authority substantiates the command to disciple others in the midst of living a life of submission to Him, discipling made up of obtaining the disciple's commitment through baptism and teaching them to guard everything Jesus taught through Scripture, all carried out in the presence of Jesus.

That's what I got from the passage.  What I'm getting from the book is that this is fairly easy to understand, and fairly difficult to carry out.  The element that disciple-making is every believer's job is repeated throughout because it's never really accepted by believers.  It's weird why that is, but it's so true in our Western, especially American, culture.  As I write this lying on my couch in front of the TV...no, just kidding.

The inescapable element supporting all the rest is Jesus' declaration that all authority (in heaven and on earth) has been given to Him.  Why all the arguments inspiring believers to do this don't also focus on this central element is odd to me.  Not to intentionally beat a dead horse, but it's all about obedience and submission.  I don't think that horse is anywhere near dead unfortunately.

It is still about me dying to myself, my desires, my wishes, and my dreams; and rising again to take on Him as my Master, His desires, His wishes, and His dreams as my own.  I want my stuff, what's wrong with my stuff?  Besides the fact that it's empty, without substance, uninformed, and lame; nothing's wrong with my stuff.  Compared to the riches of the Master of the universe, though, the question should be why wouldn't I want His stuff?  I don't ask that question enough, except the form of, 'what was I thinking?'  I ask that one a lot, often accompanied by a slap to the head (also known as a V-8).

If I'm reading this correctly, the purpose of my life as defined by my Master is to obediently make disciples as He guides the course of my life lived in His presence, getting the commitment of baptism from them, and teaching them to guard Scripture.

That's my purpose.  So when I have to decide what to do, I should be holding up the 'stick' of obediently making disciples' to see which choice fits within that boundary.  Once I have that set of options, then I can follow whatever process to determine which one of those my Master has for me.  The first unit of measurement, though, should be disciple-making.

Now, about my job...hmm.

Traveling or Being Traveled

Mat 28:18-20 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “ All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
http://olivetree.com/b3/Mat.28.18.NASBStr

I have a dilemma.  The verb 'go' in verse 19 is a participle, but is passive.  Participles are already 'flexible' in their range of meaning since they are both verbs and adjectives.  But that it is passive adds another complex problem, because 'go' here isn't transitive in nature, at least not here.  Consider how you can be acted upon (passive voice) and the action is to move from one location to another.  As I see it, essentially, you are carried by someone or something without being the one in control.  That's the passive sense of this word as best as it can be achieved in English; and I admit it's not great.

Now the participle piece,  typically the imperative of 'disciple' or 'make disciples' is 'borrowed' by the participle, rendering the participle as a command to 'go'.  This is not required, even though very common.  I think that I lean another direction.  Participles can support other verbs, lending a sense of context of the action, and I think that is what this one does.  The command to make disciples is to be carried out in the temporal setting of going.  But this temporal setting of 'going' is in that passive sense in the previous paragraph; as in 'being carried along.'  So the obedience to the command 'make disciples' happens as we are carried along from place to place.

So, now all sorts of excuses come up.  What if I'm not 'being carried'?  Why do I need to be carried?  I'm waiting to be carried.  My life isn't going anywhere at the moment. I'm going to fast and furious to do anything else.  And so on it goes.  But if my Master is doing the driving in my life, then there's no excuse for me not doing my part in discipling.  The truth is I do way too much of the driving, that's why I'm too busy; I'm too busy doing His job.  That's not life lived in submission.  And therin is my problem.

'Household Images' and a Heart Like God's

Then Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, in order to put him to death in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, saying, "If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be put to death."  So Michal let David down through a window, and he went out and fled and escaped.  Michal took the household idol and laid it on the bed, and put a quilt of goats' hair at its head, and covered it with clothes. When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, "He is sick." (1 Samuel 19:11-14 NASB)

 One of the things about David that is often pointed out is that he is considered by God to be a man after His own heart.  In other words, David has a heart like God's heart (1 Samuel 13:14).  It's not a pursuit, it's a quality of David's heart already.  I think it's interesting that having a heart like God's doesn't mean that David doesn't make mistakes.

The other thing most pointed out about David is his sin; usually David, Bathsheba, and Uriah the Hittite.  But what about the issue of David having an idol in his house while God is using him with Saul and the armies of Israel?  That's one we don't bring up much when we think of David, sin, and having a 'heart like God's heart.'

Samuel condemns these 'household idols' before Saul, and the implication is that he had wiped them out in Israel (1 Samuel 15:23 'idolatry').  So it's not likely that Michal brought it from her father's house.  I think this is David's 'household image'.  This term is one of those Hebrew words which is translated differently depending upon the context, but I think it's a common term used for a fairly common item.

I find a few common things:  1) they are condemned from Judges to Samuel to Kings, and into the prophets.  2) they are common in Israel and Judah.  Those are really somewhat odd when you think about it.  How can they be condemned and still be common?  I have a theory (go figure).

I suspect that the term used (which is not the normal term for 'idol'), is more of a common term for a category of object.  It's not an object from or used in a sacred site or temple.  Rather I think it's a common object used in a house or home.  I also suspect that it was an image of some sort of animal or bird or person.  Like a picture on a wall we use now.

Because of that, whether it's used for worship or other purposes may not be necessarily consistent. I'm not saying it was a paperweight for David, but Saul worshiped his (at least not according to 1 Samuel 15:23).  I'm saying that these household objects were a problem in that they were a violation of a basic command of God: not to make an image representing any created thing (Exodus 20:4).  I think that was the problem.  It was a compromise.

So here's what I learn from this:  A heart like my Master's heart is still a human heart, and not without compromise.  So, I know that I sometimes discover areas of my life and heart that I have been blind to; that are contrary to my Master's commands.  What I do with that discovery is where the character of my heart being like my Master's heart becomes evident.  Do I repent?  Do I change my mind to agree with the mind of my Master?

I have to remember that the 'heart' as Scripture uses the term is different than we typically use the same term.  It's not the same as 'mind' and it's not the seat of the emotions (like it is for us).  A heart like my Master's doesn't mean I 'think' like Him, it means that I pursue with dogged determination what He pursues to the same degree.  I'm faithful to the end, I'm patient to wait for Him, I never waver in my belief in His goodness.  But I may have 'teraphim' in my life that need to go.

Keep in mind that this 'household image' wasn't so precious to David that he takes it with him when he leaves.  So, what will I do when I find these things in my life, these unknown compromises with my Master's commands?  That's the question I have to ask myself from this passage.  I'm not sure David ever recognized the problem with his, Scripture never says.  But that's beside the point.  What will I do?  When his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah was pointed out, David repented (although I'm sure he was aware of that one).  What will I do when I discover my own?

Saul's Lonely Quest Against His God

Now Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants to put David to death. But Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David.  So Jonathan told David saying, "Saul my father is seeking to put you to death. Now therefore, please be on guard in the morning, and stay in a secret place and hide yourself." (1 Samuel 19:1-2 NASB)

Then Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, in order to put him to death in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, saying, "If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be put to death."  So Michal let David down through a window, and he went out and fled and escaped. (1 Samuel 19:11-12 NASB)

This chapter of  1 Samuel is really about how Saul can't even get cooperation from his family against David.  It is about his failure to relent with God, his obvious sinful aggression against David, and the support and love Saul's son and daughter have for David.  In a sense this chapter is linkage to the final failure of Saul and eventual rise of David.  That is a long story though.  In the next chapter and following, we will focus entirely on David, and Saul fades to a secondary character.  This is his last chapter as a main character.

Saul is a tragic figure, classic long before Greek was classic.  Whatever he tries fails because he is fighting the One having called Israel into existence.  He can't rule the country of ones called by their God, and yet fight against the One having called them.  His attempts to hold on to the kingdom are futile.  It's obvious, and it's sad.  There's nothing to be done, no council to give, no comfort, for Saul is beyond all that.  The only solace he could find he drove off when he turned against David, his harp player.

But isn't it interesting that this One having called Israel, guided them, and led them now places His new chosen one in the court of his rejected one, and makes him indispensable.  David becomes the best military leader and the one who can relieve Saul of the evil spirit sent by God.  The God of Israel put's David in Saul's face.  It sounds cruel, or even petty, but I believe it is another act of grace as God calls on Saul to relent.  It's only as he is able to acknowledge David's ascendancy that he has any peace, that the harp playing has its effect on him, that all is well with the nation. 

So where is my opportunity to relent?  Where is my Master placing me in a situation where I am to relinquish some power, authority, or position to another?  Peter seems to in Acts.  One moment he leads the Jerusalem church, the next, without explanation, it's James the brother of Jesus.  No explanation, and Peter doesn't seem to mind.  Where's my opportunity?  I wish it were at work.  I'm tire of my work.  I just don't think I've learned the lesson my Master has for me.  I hope I don't learn it the hard way.

Perhaps it's at church, but I don't really have much to give up there.  The coffee bar?  I think I could let that go.  The marriage mentoring program is just getting off the ground, but I'm hardly the motivating factor there.  I don't know.  And I know I don't have to.  This may not be a lesson for me now.  This could be a lesson that my Master wants me to know for later.  Or it could be a lesson He wants me to write about for someone else.  I don't know.  But this is what this chapter is about; giving up my plans for His, even when they don't include me.  Maybe I'm supposed to relent to my Master's use of this entry.  I suppose it doesn't have to be about me at all.