It is my understanding and belief that in the household of
God, Jesus is Prophet, Priest and King and the Spirit is the primary
teacher. I may have gifts, calling and
ministry as a teacher/prophet in the household, but I do not see that as
justification to tell people what to do or to issue commands. At best, I am a secondary teacher. I have done my job when I have finished what
the Spirit (as the primary teacher) gave me to do. Therefore, it is not my place to say what
others should do. I know what I have to
do, and I know and trust the Spirit of God implicitly that He will do what work
He needs to do in the lives of those who are, in truth, my brothers and sisters
on the road.
When we actually live as ecclesia (an exclave of the
Kingdom of God), we slot into the passion, the vision and the mission of God
for His world. If we learn the
principles of Mosaic, Ecclesia and Trapeza (see early posts), all of us will
know what we are to do – what is our unique place in the household – without
feelings of inferiority or superiority.
If you are expecting or wanting me to map out a “how-to”
of what I am writing about, you will be disappointed. I do not do “how-tos” specifically because
that is the job of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus clearly pointed out to his
disciples: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the
truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He
will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for He will take of mine
and will disclose it to you. All
things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that He takes of mine and
will disclose it to you.” (John 16:15)
This is practical stuff.
This is how we are to learn to live as ecclesia. Living together as a household according to
the Spirit; preferring others over ourselves; submitting to our Head and Lord
and elder brother; following the wind of the Spirit; listening to the apostles
prophets and teachers God gives us; serving the family in our unique mix of
personality, talents and Spiritual gifts; not hesitating to bring to the table
(trapeza) what the Spirit quickens to our spirit in the course of our walk with
God.
What I practice and what I encourage others to practice is
to see the truth of ecclesia, of Paul’s “living according to the Spirit” (Romans
8), of Spiritual gifts and talents, of Paul’s “gifts, ministries and
out-workings” (1 Corinthians 12) – to see these things not as theologies and
doctrines but as practical realities.
Ecclesia is not some mysterious fantasy but the practical
reality of living together as the household of God. Living according to the Spirit is not the
practice of a few mystics in a monastery but the practical reality of a dynamic
day-by-day relationship with God more real than our best human relationship.
Every human being – whether redeemed or not – is a mixture
of physical traits, personality, talents and special abilities endowed by God
as a unique individual manifestation of the image of God our Father – in the
same way our offspring are unique individual manifestations of us as biological
parents. The Spiritual (or second) birth
is at least as real as the natural (or first) birth, and we share the DNA of
our Spiritual Father. As I have said in an
earlier post, the substance of salvation is Christ-likeness: coming to actually
experience, in real time, being made like Jesus in every respect except that He
didn’t require a second birth – he is the unique once-born son. When we – and these aspects of who we are –
are redeemed, we become manifestly powerful instruments of the Spirit in the
business of God’s household, the ecclesia.
God doesn’t change who He made us to be, but in Christ, we become the
best possible version of ourselves, for His glory. In the vast majority of cases, the church
only serves to limit, restrict, suppress or kill the Spiritual person God made
us to be. It does this because it
represents religion (the re-binding-up of one made free by redemption and
justification) with a fetish for control.
Every human being really comes into his own when the
unique combination of personality, physical abilities, Spiritual graces (“fruit
of the Spirit”) and special abilities (“gifts of the Spirit”) are permitted
their full unrestrained outworking. “Outworking”
is a very good English translation of the Greek word energema used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:6 – “There are varieties
of effects, but the same God works
all things in all.” This is a practical
reality in the life of every human being.
Redeemed – and restrained only by the will of the Father and the power
of the Spirit – each one becomes an actual manifestation of the Spirit for the
common good, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7.
Again let me stress: this is intensely practical stuff, it
is not theory or doctrine or theology.
The writers I have referred to throughout this blog are practitioners,
not theoreticians or theologians. David
Watson in I Believe in The Church and
I Believe in Evangelism; René Padilla
in his presentation to the 1975 International Congress on World Evangelisation
Lausanne, “Evangelism and the World”; Gene Edwards in How to Meet; Neil Cole in Organic
Church; Frank Viola in his series of five pivotal works including Reimagining Church; Paul Vieira in Jesus Has Left the Building; Floyd
McClung in You See Bones I See An Army;
David Orton in Snakes in the Temple; Greg Boyd in The Myth of a Christian
Nation and the Myth of a Christian
Religion.
Add to that list the ministries of men like A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenill, George Warnock and others.
And finally, I will add my own name to the list. I have a commission in God for the household
of God – as we all do. When we live as
ecclesia instead of church and follow the Spirit instead of religion, we will
execute our commission and the truth that Paul talks about in Ephesians 4 will
blossom before our eyes. We as
individuals will be seen honestly for who and what we are (brothers and
servants) and the name of God will not be blasphemed but honoured and praised.
I tried to be an evangelist, but it didn’t work. I tried to be a pastor, but that didn’t work
either. So I went off ‘into the
wilderness’ to be alone with Jesus.
There I found not only Jesus, but Paul and so many other men and women
of faith; and there I found the real me.
Jesus didn’t say to me, “you are a such-and-such”. Instead, he took my face in his hands and
lifted it to his eye level and looked at me.
He showed me who I am, but more importantly, he showed me who I was when
I was conceived in my mother’s womb. I
saw that he saw me – as part of the huge rope coil of the Father’s household. Then he simply said to me, ‘I want you to go
where I send you, say what I give you to say and do what I give you to do.’
I can’t tell you what to do in terms of specific ministry
or calling. I can tell you my story; and
I can encourage you to do what I did. I
did what Jesus and Paul (and many others) did: I went out into the wilderness
to sit with my Father. He initiated me
into His tribe, gave me my true name, gave me my equipment, and returned me to
my village no longer a child, a boy, but a man on a mission with a commission
for the good of the household and the world.
And, like Jesus, I simply tell people, “I must be about my Father’s
business.”
What I can say, in terms of what to do, I have said throughout this document and in other places, like the early papers in this series [They MET for instance]. But, equally importantly, the works of the other practitioners I have mentioned throughout are vitally important: Frank Viola, Paul Vieira, Neil Cole, Floyd McClung, Greg Boyd, Gene Edwards, David Orton, David Watson, A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill. At the heart of the matter, what we need to do, in general terms, is stop building ‘church’ and start living ecclesia, the household of God. And if we are living ecclesia, we need to see ‘church’ and ‘building church’ as toxic to humans and to the work of the household of God.
Imagine the world if we all put our time and effort into that instead of into religious activities and church buildings and programs. We would hum like a well-tuned machine instead of limping along like a car with square wheels. Back-yard-built machines with improvised mechanics and key parts missing is not the way to make a world-class automobile, but this is how the church is and behaves and thinks.
I believe it is way past time to abandon our back-yard project called church as the failed experiment that it is and get with God’s program of ecclesia. My commission is about seeing “this gospel of the Kingdom preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come” and I know that I am not alone. There are millions with complementary commissions from the Father. What’s wrong, I believe, is that we are playing in the sand-pit building models from man’s visions and plans while God’s actual house remains in ruins – and we seem to not care or to be totally unaware of what is going on.
And I believe the problem is not that we don’t care but that we are blissfully unaware. We have failed miserably to listen to the apostles prophets and teachers of ecclesia (the equivalent of Micaiah in 1 Kings 22), preferring to listen to the pastors and evangelists of church (the equivalent of the King’s ‘prophets’ in 1 Kings 22).
So many times I hear the excuse, ‘But you have to be practical’. But Church is only seen to be ‘practical’ because it dominates the scene. Take a look back at the graphic of the magenta, cyan and yellow lights. Sure, we can imitate all the colours of the rainbow, but we’re not making a rainbow, only a fake or a faux. And in the process, the true light (the small segments of red, blue and green) are just an after-thought, an unimportant consequence of our actions. The problem is that the centre is black; darkness and not light.
We can be ‘practical’ in the things of man and give birth to wind. Or we can be genuinely practical in the things of the Father’s household and the Father’s business and work to the pattern of dominant red, green and blue (apostles, prophets and teachers) that produces light. The good thing about this is that when the red, green and blue are focused on the same area, the entire thing is light and the magenta, cyan and yellow (false apostles, prophets and teachers) disappear – and darkness is dispelled.
Church is practical in a few of the things of man. But I have little interest in those things. What’s more, you cannot build the house of God (gold, silver and precious stones) using the materials of man (wood, hay and stubble). Neither can you accomplish the work of the kingdom of God using the methods of the kingdom of man. And if you work to the pattern of Jesus and Paul, you will not build church or the kingdom of man but ecclesia and the kingdom of God.
Let’s be truly practical – which to me is to stop wasting time effort and money on church (the religion of man) – and put our whole being, body soul and spirit, into ecclesia (the household of God). No special buildings, no special language, no special rituals, no special times, days or seasons, no special programs, no special clothes, no special laws – nothing but our raw selves given over to the headship of Jesus, the power of the Spirit and the will of the Father.
If we want a reputation and a legacy that bears our name, we can build church and churches. If we want no reputation but His and no legacy but to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus, we can lose our life for his sake and find it in His household. Unfortunately, we tend to think we can do both; have a foot in both camps as it were; have a bet both ways.
There was a time when church could have served as a kind
of tutor to bring people to Christ – like the law. These days, it seeks to bring people to
itself and prevent people from living ecclesia.
Its day is past and gone forever.
The household of God is calling and inviting us.
On the fourteenth of February 1966, Australia switched from the British Sterling money system to decimal currency. For a short time, both currencies were legal tender, until the notes and coins of the old currency was exchanged for the new. After that time, only the new currency has real value and is the legal tender. In a similar way, the legal tender of the household of God now is ecclesia, not church. We can expend great effort accumulating church, but it has no value in the kingdom of God since it is not the legal tender. Its only value is as a museum piece.
Note:
If you were to travel to Avila Spain, you would be able to visit Los Cuatro Postes (the Four Posts). The structure is a shrine to St Teresa of Avila. This ancient structure graphically illustrates well the concept of the Household of God I have been talking about. The foundation and fixed base, the four columns, the central (empty) cross and the canopy. I have added the four words to the four columns - these represent the core business and the four pillars of the Household of God. To me, the cross is the centrepoint of eternity, of time and of God's household.
Meet you in ecclesia - the Household of God.
Blessings to all,
Kevin.
Kevin.
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