No Lone Rangers

Posted on by korgrocker
People praying in a warm church while a man sits alone outside in the rain.

“Nor do we boast and claim credit for the work someone else has done. Instead, we hope that your faith will grow so that the boundaries of our work among you will be extended. Then we will be able to go and preach the Good News in other places far beyond you, where no one else is working. Then there will be no question of our boasting about work done in someone else’s territory.”
2 Corinthians 10:15-16 NLT

Paul established the Corinthian church during his second missionary journey, around about 50 AD, and he spent about eighteen months there establishing the church with the help of a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla. He started his mission in the local synagogue, but, not getting very far, he left and went next door to the home of Titius Justus, a Gentile believer. We can read all about it in Acts 18. But in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul addressed the issue of divisions and quarrelling, “Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ”” (1 Corinthians 1:12). From this, we can assume that Paul was not the only preacher in Corinth, with Apollos and Peter making their contribution. In our verses today from his second letter, Paul was clear to point out that he was not going to take any credit “for the work someone else has done”. Instead, generously, he recognised that “the boundaries of [his] work” would be extended by different men ministering there. It is a fact of life that people will follow leaders whom they can relate to, and that is not always the same person, and the men we know about, Paul, Apollos and Peter, each had their own followings. In fact, Paul effectively told the Corinthians that it was good to have an open pulpit, because it would free him to pioneer the preaching of the Gospel in places where people had not heard about Jesus. On the one hand, Paul was very jealous of his church plant in Corinth, but on the other, he realised that he couldn’t be in all places at the same time. Paul’s basic motivation was being an Apostle to the Gentiles, which was the driving force behind his mission to preach the Gospel. 

Today, we pilgrims go to churches that may or may not have an open pulpit. I have been in a church where there was only one preacher, someone who was very good, but inevitably, the delivery style and subject matter skewed the reception amongst the congregation. In another church I attended, back in the early days of my faith, the congregation was ministered to by three men: one a pastor and teacher, one a prophet, and the third an evangelist. A good mix of messages followed, and the congregation grew in a more balanced way. 

In Ephesians 4:11-12, we read about the different ministry gifts present in God’s order: “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ”. We call this the “Five-fold ministry”. It is obvious, really, that if the church of which we are a member only has one of these gifts, then some aspects of spiritual teaching will be neglected. The church, which I described as having one leader, mainly heard teachings on the Christian life, with an emphasis on healing. So the other ministries were neglected. In some cases, the church leader has more than one gift and fills in some of the gaps, but, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, the purpose of these ministries is to “equip God’s people to do His work” and “build up the church”. 

I suspect Paul would have been the first person to admit that he did not hold the positions of all these ministries, and visits from Apollos and Peter would have filled in a few gaps. Titus was another gifted man who visited Corinth, as we read earlier in the second letter, and Paul was not going to claim credit for their work.

The church of Jesus Christ, in its universal sense, is not there for individuals in splendid isolation, but it is a “body” of people who are being built into a spiritual temple. 1 Peter 2:4-5, “You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honour. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God”. Paul wrote, “So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord” (Ephesians 2:19-21). Paul went further about this “body” when he wrote, “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love” (Ephesians 4:16). It is also a fact that Jesus is coming back a second time to meet His bride, the church. Ephesians 5:25b-27, “… Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault”. 

We pilgrims are part of a much larger body of people. Some we will get on with; others we won’t. But together we make up the “body of Christ”. In this body, we are all responsible for acts of service, and with these the body grows “without a spot or wrinkle”. And it is our leaders who help us in this process by their teaching and encouragement. We must always encourage them in their ministries and help them in any way we can. As Paul said in his first letter, there will be different leaders with different gifts, but through them “[our] faith will grow”. Yes, it is possible for Christians to be individuals outside the body: in fact, there are some of our brothers and sisters who have little choice in the matter, and for them God provides a special blessing through His Spirit, but for the majority of us, we find out that we are in a body of believers, all heading in the same direction. We will all be at different stages in our journeys, but we are all looking forward to the day when we will meet the Lord Himself, glorified and home at last.

Dear Heavenly Father. You have kindly placed us in a family, made up of Your children. Please help us to build up our spiritual siblings, and support our leaders as they do the work You have asked them to do. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Gog and Magog

Posted on by korgrocker

“He will go out to deceive the nations—called Gog and Magog—in every corner of the earth. He will gather them together for battle—a mighty army, as numberless as sand along the seashore. And I saw them as they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God’s people and the beloved city. But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them.”
Revelation‬ ‭20:8-9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The devil has been released from prison, the bottomless pit, and he wastes no time. He is the master of deceit and he goes out and convinces the nations, called Gog and Magog, to form a mighty army. 

Firstly, who or what was Gog and Magog? We know that Magog was a grandson of Noah and he is thought to have moved north of Israel, possibly to what is now Europe. And in Ezekiel 38;1-2 we read, “This is another message that came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, turn and face Gog of the land of Magog, the prince who rules over the nations of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him”. But whoever Gog and Magog were, and there has been much conjecture and quite a few suggestions, the facts are that a huge army was put together, comprising people from “every corner of the earth”. Who were these people? They must have been all those alive during the latter stages of the millennium, who were still rebelling against God, and had been deceived by the devil, who had promised them that they could defeat Jesus and His people, thus being able to enjoy their evil and sin-filled lives once again. There were many of them – John, in his vision, saw that they were as “numberless as sand along the seashore”. As John watched, they “surrounded God’s people and the beloved city”, which was of course Jerusalem. But God’s solution to all of this was to burn them all up with fire from Heaven. We read in 2 Thessalonians 1:7b-9, “… He will come with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power”. Hebrews 12:28-29 reads, “Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire”. Fire appears throughout the Bible as the instrument of God’s judgement on those who reject Him and His grace. 

We pilgrims work for God. We build on the foundation, the corner stone, that is Jesus. We hope and pray that the work we do is of value to God, but in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 we read, “But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames”. ‭‭‭‭God is the master builder. He teaches us all well. But the implication is that we can get involved in much that is of no value and one day it will be destroyed by fire. Only the work that God wants us to do will last. Pilgrims like us can easily get involved in things that don’t fit in with God’s will and purposes for us. And the result can be overload and burnout. I often think about Jesus and the incident in the Pool of Bethesda, where there were many sick people, all waiting for bubbles to appear (they believed that an angel with miraculous healing powers occasional stirred the water and the first one in got healed). Jesus only healed one person that day – a man who had been sick for thirty eight years. But He didn’t heal the rest. Why? Because Jesus only did what His father wanted Him to do. The Amplified version of John 5:19 reads, “So Jesus answered them by saying, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself [of His own accord], unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever things the Father does, the Son [in His turn] also does in the same way.” 

A problem in Christian churches can be that about ninety percent of the work required seems to be accomplished by ten percent of the people. And in many churches, it is the minister who tries to fulfil the five fold ministries described in Ephesians 4:11-12, “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” So a question we pilgrims must ask ourselves is this – is the work I am doing for God what He has asked me to do? And, conversely, the second question – is there work that God has asked me to do and I’m being disobedient and not doing it? Questions we must bring under the gaze of the Master Builder. He will enlighten us, I’m sure.

Father God. Thank You that we are part of Your master plan for the human race. Please lead and guide us through our daily lives, helping us do just those tasks You want us to do. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Gifts (2)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4:11-13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Who or what is an Apostle? One thing for sure – it is not a stone effigy located in a dusty corner in a church building somewhere. Or a memorial encased in a reliquary containing a piece of bone or cloth, reputed to have at one time come from one of the original Apostles that we read about in the New Testament. Somewhere in a drawer I have some “apostle spoons” – spoons with a figure engraved or cast into the handle – an apostle isn’t that either. The apostles Christ gave to the church are alive and well and walking amongst us Christian pilgrims. According to Mr Google, the definition of the word “apostle” is “someone who is sent out”. So perhaps an apostle is sent out for the purpose of planting a new church. Or as a missionary to another land. Perhaps an apostle is responsible for the spiritual oversight of a number of independent churches, being each pastor’s pastor. And according to our verse today, apostles are a gift to the church. 

Similarly, the word “pastor” refers to someone who is in overall charge of a body of believers, a church somewhere. In some denominations they are referred to as “ministers”. A pastor cares for his congregation, listens to their problems, offers advice, visits and prays for the sick. A pastor usually combines his caring role with that of a teacher, and is responsibility for weekly sermons or messages, and perhaps Bible studies. A pastor administers the other church requirements such as taking funerals, or officiating at weddings. He looks after his “flock”, a role Christ knew would be needed as He builds His church.

We also have the prophets. We perhaps have a mental picture of an elderly man, stooping over a staff, dressed in something that resembles a sack with holes, and with a beard reaching his waist. But this can’t be further from the truth. Prophets are people who have a gift of bringing a message from God to His people. They dispense God-truths. They bring guidance and correction. They often disturb the status quo and bring fresh spiritual insights. Some even can see into the future, warning of world or church events to come. Sadly the prophet is often resented or misunderstood, because he or she advocates change, disturbing people who would prefer to stay in a place of spiritual comfort. 

The evangelist. Another important role mentioned by Paul in this Epistle. An evangelist brings good news. He or she preaches the Gospel at every opportunity. But in this role to the church, they train and enthuse others to join them. As Christians, we all have our messages. Our testimonies. Our stories of all that God has done for us. Evangelists help and encourage us to share what we have with others.

So in these “gifts”, often called the “five-fold ministries”, we see a picture of why Christ gave such gifts to the church. Where would we be without the men and women who perform these roles? No doubt, an undisciplined group of people who would soon stray to a place of spiritual danger. We thank God for these people, grateful for their diligence in helping us “be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.”

But what do these “gifts” matter to us, in our pilgrimage through life? Surely, we might think, we could do just as well sat at home. Watching the God Channel or TBN. Looking up YouTube videos uploaded by famous preachers. Logging into Sunday church livestreams. We might even think that we don’t need input from such people, telling ourselves that we just need the Holy Spirit and our Bibles. It is true that there are Christians who try to live out their faith in this way. There are even Christians who have no choice, being imprisoned for being Christians in countries such as North Korea, without even a Bible. But none of this is God’s model for His church. If that wasn’t the case, Christ would not have needed to give these gifts to His church. In these verses there is the implicit message that God’s people were being equipped as a people together, a church or fellowship. 

There is a verse relevant to today’s theme in Hebrews 10:25. “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near”. Oh, by the way, we must be obedient to our “gifts”. It says in Hebrews 13:17 that we must, “Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow…”. Hmmm…