We’re continuing to look at Paul’s admonition to the
church in Ephesus in chapter 4. Last time we discovered that we are to walk or
live in a manner that is worthy of who we are as called sons of God. The last
thing we talked about was the fact that the Spirit gives unity to the body. We are to maintain this unity as we live and
worship together. Just as our spirit pervades our entire body and gives unity
to it, the Spirit of God does the same for Christ’s body, the church.
I
have a concern that we have developed and maintained a cultural view of the
church. We hear people ask, “Where do you go to church?” Sometimes people will refer to someone who
has stopped “going to church.” Church is more like a club to join rather than a
living body that has the life of the Spirit flowing through it.
Let’s
take a quick look at what Paul writes in Ephesians 4. In verse 11 he tells us
that God has given gifts to the church, namely apostles, prophets, evangelists
and teaching-pastors. Why are these individuals given to the church? He writes
that they are given so that the saints are equipped to do the work of the
ministry. This tells me that there should be no fringe members. By fringe
members I’m talking about those who show up for a worship service and leave
again and are not involved at all in the ministry to one another that occurs
within the body of Christ. I’m not just speaking about ministry that happens in
the church building but among the members of the body throughout the week. The
kind of ministry or service to one another that should occur within the body
requires equipping or training. We all need to be taught how to minister to one
another.
In
any area of life where there are skills that need to be learned, we need to be
taught and shown how to do it by someone who knows how – the teacher. Sometimes
there are things we don’t know we need to know and so we are coerced in some
way to be trained. This happens for children in school and it happens sometimes
at the workplace. In the church setting, we rely on the working of God’s Spirit
within the hearts of his people to seek the opportunities for the equipping
needed in the local church.
The
purpose of this equipping is so that the body will be built up until we call
come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God with the
goal of reaching the stature of the measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph
4:13). This is a lofty goal. And in this context it is not so much an
individual goal as a body goal. He goes on to elaborate on this in the next
couple of verses.
For
our purposes today, let’s jump down to verses 15 and 16. Here we see in this
edification and growing process we are to grow up in all things into him who is
the head of the church, which means Christ.
But verse 16 I think is crucial
for expanding our vision of the church and its functioning. The first words in
verse 16 are “From whom.” The whom is
Christ. From Christ, the whole body…. Now we need to access the English grammar
part of our brain. What is the main verb of this phrase? And yes it is
important to know this. From Christ the whole body causes the growth of the body,
for the edifying of itself in love. So Christ, working throughout the whole
body causes the growth of the body. The implication is that this occurs when
the body is functioning effectively and properly.
How does it do this? First we
notice it is the whole body, not just part of the body. That means everyone who
is truly a member of the actual body of Christ, not those who simply gain
membership in the local church. Next we see that it is “joined and knit
together by what every joint supplies.” Each part of the body is described as doing
its part. “Every joint” is a phrase used to stand for each member of the body.
But Paul makes this more explicit as he goes on to speak of the effective
working as each part does its share. It is this functioning of each individual
part doing its share that enables the body to cause the growth of
itself. This is analogous to our human body. When each part is functioning and
doing what it was designed to do, the body grows and is strengthened.
When there are “members” of a
church that are not functioning according to the gifts the Holy Spirit has
given them, the church will not be building itself effectively. It might be
possible for individuals who are members on paper not to actually be members of
the body of Christ. They may be members by profession but not in reality and
practice. It seems to me that one of the things we as church leaders need to
focus on is building the understanding necessary and the patterns and
procedures that will enable and encourage a biblical view of church life. In
such a climate, easy church membership without actual functioning in that role
would not occur as frequently as it does now in many churches.
I believe that part of this
process is establishing an effective and church-wide climate of
disciple-making. If a church were to have a dynamic, effective and ongoing
practice of discipleship so that actively engaged Christians were the ones
admitted into membership, perhaps those who don’t really have an interest in
growing together in relationship with others and who don’t have an interest in
serving together in the local church would weed themselves out. But if people
continue to see church membership as meaning merely somewhat regular attendance
at a worship service, we will continue to perpetuate a non-disciple-making
climate and the body will not be edified and the glory of Christ won’t be
displayed the way God would have it to be.
