Over the years, I have spent many hours studying, writing and teaching on the subject of “spiritual gifts”. Through all of that, one thing has become very clear and has presented itself to me on many occasions: the real point of spiritual gifts is not that we are ministered to (that we receive the ministry of those gifts) but that we serve the Body of Christ by means of ministering to others our gifts in the power of the Holy Spirit (that we give the ministry of those gifts). I believe that, as individuals, our focus is to be on serving, not being served.
And, according to Paul, it is by this means that the Body of
Christ grows into its Divinely-planned maturity which matches and complements
the maturity of Christ, as each one of us does his/her part. For over twenty years now, one of the central
passions of my life is to see every ecclesia within my purview functioning
along the lines that Paul articulated to the Corinthians:
Now
there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of
ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God
who works all things in all persons.
But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. -- 1
Corinthians 12:4-7
And what that looks like on the ground, so to speak, was
also written by Paul to the Corinthians:
What is
the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a
teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. All things
must be done for edification. --
1 Corinthians 14:26
However, most don’t want what I have to offer; neither do
they want what many other Spirit-gifted men and women have to offer; though
they do insist that we have what they offer.
What most appear to want is for us to manipulate and regulate our gifts
to suit the preferences and the structures and the job descriptions of the
particular church we are part of. Many
simply want supporters of and contributors to “my vision for this church”. Even though there is no new covenant biblical
precedent nor any new testament teaching to support such notions, we often
don’t even get to attempt to manipulate or regulate; this is done for us by a
chosen circle of people holding church authority – by means of “papal bulls” by
other names. [A Papal Bull is a formal
proclamation issued by the Pope.]
But here we are: a small group of men and women drawn
together by the love of Christ and the belief that there is such a thing as the
Body of Christ, and by an undying compassion for fellow-man. And the critical thing is, I believe, that it
is not about putting these gifts to work in a man-made “church”, but in
whatever ecclesia we find ourselves in – where two or three are gathered; or
twenty or thirty; or perhaps more.
The grace of God in us (for that is the true meaning of
‘charismata’) is just that: the grace of God.
We do not own these things; neither does any organisation or
institution. Many churches have adopted
some variation of the basic business model, even including the position of CEO
at times. And in the business model, the
business owns the gifts and talents of its members and, increasingly, the
product of the use of those gifts and talents in church.
But we are stewards
of the graces given to us; and when we live like that, God the Great Conductor
will bless whom He wills with the product of our combined faithfulness. And when we prostitute ourselves to another
(the ‘church’ for instance), we deny each other and God’s audience the blessing
of the complete symphony He is producing in us – precisely because of the
manipulation, the regulation, the compromise, the neglect, the hubris and many
other things that are endemic in modern church.
As far as I can tell, this is how it is supposed to work –
in brief:
·
As far as God is concerned, to be part
of His household, we must be born again;
·
We are born again as an act of God’s
grace and mercy,
·
in response to repentance, faith and
baptism;
·
We are born again as God’s Holy Spirit
kills the old life and begins a new one;
·
The substance of the new life is being
filled with the Spirit of God,
·
joining each one to Christ and to one
another to form one new living Body;
·
The Spirit of God is the life-giving
spirit of that one new living Body;
·
And the Spirit of God cannot be present
without ‘manifestation’;
·
So each one receives a unique “manifestation
of the Spirit”;
·
The manifestation consists of
Spirit-empowered character and abilities;
·
And that manifestation becomes visible
via the fruit of the Spirit in one’s own life,
·
and in the lives of the others in the
Body, moving towards maturity;
·
This Body is “The Bride of Christ”
under construction;
·
The construction comes about via gifts being employed in ministries producing “effects” or out-workings, as God “works
all things in all persons”,
·
so that, at the marriage supper in
John’s Revelation, the whole Body is present and accounted for and God’s
household is completely complete.
This is the nature and the structure of the new covenant of
the kingdom (household) of God in Christ Jesus.
A little research will produce new covenant scripture references for all
of these points. I always encourage my
readers to apply the Berean model and “search the scriptures to see if these
things are so” (Acts 17:11).
A couple of times in the scripture record, a ‘voice from
heaven’ is heard saying, ‘Come out of her my people; save yourselves from the
fierce anger of the Lord’ (allowing for variations in English
translation). Both (Jeremiah 51 and
Revelation 18) refer to Babylon. The
first was the actual historical, geographical Babylon; the second was the
metaphorical Babylon. But both mean the
same thing: organised religion, oozing hubris, trying to reach God by means
other than God’s covenant relationship.
And whenever church is organised, religious, oozing hubris or adding
requirements to the pure simplicity of “Christ in you the hope of glory”, it is
Babylon; it is “another gospel”.
And the call of God resonates permanently and continuously
throughout history: ‘Come out of Babylon
my people’. And the one call we ought to
be well aware of is that of apostle John writing before the end of the first
century: “...so that you will not participate in her sins and receive her
plagues.”
Remember Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know
them, and they follow me.” Read Ezekiel
34 and John 10.
From the days of apostle John til now, there has been an
untold number of God’s sheep wandering about on the hills and mountains, prey
to all manner of hurt and harm; but they are there because, without realising
it, they responded to that call. It is
how God protected them and kept them alive.
And He has become their one true living Shepherd. Against all the odds; and against the wishes,
demands and even threats of modern Pharisees, they have followed their
intuition (the leading of the Holy Spirit in discernment-based knowledge) and
distanced themselves from that which threatens their life and their sanity.
But the time is now for these ‘scattered sheep’ to
understand that they are all gifted by the Holy Spirit for the unity and
maturity of the Body, and to employ those ‘varieties of gifts’ in ‘varieties of
ministries’ to achieve ‘varieties of effects’ for the kingdom of God, under the
baton of Christ the Head, and not for the consumption of Babylon and her false
shepherds and false prophets.
God intends to punish those shepherds who manipulated,
regulated, controlled, compromised, consumed, etc, the “manifestation of the
Spirit” given to each one of His dear children for the accomplishment of His purposes
in the Bride of Christ. His warning is clear
– don’t be there when the judgement happens or you will share in her sins and
her plagues.
Furthermore, if you are out with the other abused sheep, you
will be rightly positioned to welcome the ensuing outpouring of broken,
wounded, half-dead sheep and, by means of varieties of gifts, ministries and
effects, bind up their wounds and bind them to their one true shepherd and
yours, Jesus Christ the Lord.
Our job is not to act like demigods or high-priests and seek
to save the sheep and ‘set them free’ by binding them to us or to our vision or
to our ministry or to our ‘church’ or to our religious culture – that’s what
the Pharisees did. Our job is to point
them – even deliver them on a stretcher if they cannot get themselves there –
to the true Shepherd of their souls.
Peter described him this way: “Therefore let all the house of
Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.” Paul says that Jesus “...was declared the Son of God with power by the
resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ
our Lord.”
When those gifted as apostles, prophets and teachers are
permitted and encouraged to work at their gifts, ministries will emerge that
then allow other ministries to be born and to flourish, all under the baton of the
Master Conductor (the Head of Ecclesia); all without us trying to manipulate
things, gloriously evidencing the passion and mission of God for the
completeness and maturity of the Bride for the Son. In other words, all moving inexorably towards
the out-workings the Spirit of God longs to see, works towards, and intercedes
for.
Now
there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries,
and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but
the same God who works all things in all persons
But to
each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)
What is “the common good” Paul was talking about? Today we describe the common good for
political purposes and ends; Paul was talking about something quite
different. I believe he expresses it in
his letter to the Corinthians:
...all
the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.
For by
one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether
slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit... so that there may be no division in the body,
but the members may have the same care for one another. (selected from 1 Corinthians 12:12-25)
This is consistent with Jesus’ deep prayer for those he left
behind (John 17 – “that they all may be one...”); it is also consistent with
the record Luke gives us concerning how those same disciples lived immediately
following Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:14) and following the gift of the Holy
Spirit (Acts 2:42-47).
To the Ephesians, Paul wrote of the common good this way
(chapter 4):
...for
the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the
body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature
which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be
children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of
doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but
speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole
body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to
the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for
the building up of itself in love.
There are certain “effects” or outcomes that God, by the
Holy Spirit, is faithfully and unremittingly working out within and among and
for His Body. He is achieving that by
establishing and cultivating a vast array of “ministries” within and among and
for the Body. These “effects” and
“ministries” are the reasons He grants a glorious spectrum of manifestations of
Himself (His individual grace-gifts) to every member of His Body as He sees
fit, according to His aims and goals.
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