Hey Everyone!
I’ve been on the road for about 2 weeks and extremely busy. I hope to start more regular blogging soon. Right now I’d just like to let you know that I’m working on a schedule for 2010. If you would me and my friends to come to your area for ministry in 2010 please leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.
Thanks,
Jason
This site is now LIVE! This is the new online home of jasonaldridge.org. I’ll be uploading some older posts then rolling out some new ones.
This site will go active soon. It will serve as the NEW online home of www.jasonaldridge.org
The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ
1 Cor 12:12 NLT
Paul wrote in a letter to a dysfunctional and immature church that they were a body. In fact, He states that they weren’t just any body but were specifically the body of Jesus the Messiah. I think if we really understood what that means we’d be blown away.
I’ve heard the word “body” thrown around in sermons and by Christians. In fact, even I used it to mean something quite different than what Paul meant. Mostly because I wasn’t reading the passage in context. Secondly I was imprinting what we call “church” onto the Bible. I often used it to refer to all Christians everywhere or my local pulpit and pew church. Frankly, the metaphor doesn’t have legs when used that way.
My belief was that we all were generically gifted and were all generically doing our part to bring Jesus glory. Furthermore, that God’s strategy for us to get work done and win the world to Jesus was through all of us working together. Across denominational lines. The one giant body of Jesus! While that premise is not inherently incorrect it is not at all what Paul is talking about.
Paul is creating a specific picture intended to help a specific church. The intention of the word picture is to illustrate a point about the ministry of the local church. In the early church (Corinth included) the ministry was handled by everyone. Literally, a gathering of believers was everyone sharing (the nature of that sharing is its own post). How or what they shared was dependent on what the Spirit was doing uniquely within each person. Hence Paul’s point is that like a human body needs every part of it to function so the Corinthian church needed every member.
For the human body to work every limb and organ needs to do it’s own unique work in connection with everyone else. Each Christian is like a limb or organ. When we assemble together we each have something to do. Not just in the big blue world out there. In fact, Paul’s words here have nothing (NOTHING) to do with evangelism or “missional” living. They are specifically limited to the “edification of the saints”.
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. Let all things be done for edification.
1 Cor 14:26 NAS
The issue in Corinth was that many with loud (or those claiming they had) loud gifts (tongues and prophecy in particular) were dominating the meetings. Furthermore, they were claiming they couldn’t help themselves as God’s Spirit was the one causing them to act this way. Paul labors to tell them that the Spirit is equally responsible for the quiet gifts as He is the loud ones. The private gifts (service etc) and the public (prophecy etc). They were all of the Spirit and all needed. Just like a hand can’t tell a foot to get lost one Christian in a church with the gift of prophecy can’t tell someone with the gift of helps to get lost.
EX:
Say I meet with 20 other Christians. Our meetings are open and everyone is expected to share in some way (even if its just serving food). 5 people take turns telling us what they believe God is presently saying (about anything). After these words are weighed and discerned someone says they believe God wants to heal the sick. Assuming I’m one of the five “prophets” (or speakers) I can not stand up and say we don’t need healing shut up and sit down. Likewise, the person with the gift of healing can’t say we don’t need anymore words from God we just need healing.
The metaphor was meant to clear up confusion and produce inclusiveness of all of God’s gifts. Furthermore the people with really demonstrative gifts can’t tell the person with the gift of faith or helps that they are worth less because they don’t move in healing* during church meetings
*[The gift of healing is different than the authority of the believer mentioned in Mark 16. In Mark 16 Jesus makes it clear that "all who believe" can heal the sick. Paul specifically refers to a gift (grk. grace) for healing that is used to build and support other believers]
In fact, he points out that a person covers the best parts and leaves the lesser parts open for public view. What he is literally saying is that a man covers his groin and a woman covers there breasts and groin area as well. Why? Because they are valuable and more precious then your toes or nose. Yet you need them all to have a functional body. Therefore, the quiet and less public gifts are not worth less to God than the public ones. Meaning someone who doesn’t give ecstatic prophetic utterances is not worth less to God or the local meeting of believers than the one who does.
Summary:
I’ve covered this issue so very briefly and would encourage you to read Robert Banks’ book Paul’s Idea of Community. There is so much depth to the understanding that the local meetings of early Christians were participated in by all. This is Biblical fact. It is historical fact. I simply can’t cover it all in this forum.
So I’m going to leave you with a few questions to ask yourself. You can keep these in mind as you search the Bible to see if I’m telling you the truth.
1. When the Apostles talk about early Christian meetings what do they look like? What is expected?
2. Have you ever been to a church service (not a cell group or Bible study) that looks like that?
3. If you go to church do your services look like a body? Every believer (limb) doing his or her? work?
4. How many times do phrases like “when you come together” appear in the NT?
I’d like to begin a new set of blogs dealing w/ the NT’s understanding of ekklesia (what we call church). In doing this I’ll likely draw on some quotes from historical experts and Biblical scholars. To understand the Bible clearly we have to understand it in it’s own context. Otherwise we will interpret it according to our traditions and miss major points that have serious implications into our lives.
Sometimes we grow dull to the Lord. Especially in His word. The scripture is so often used without any revelation of it that we grow weary of it. We hear it over and over again through carnal preaching and teaching. We sit in on “good messages” in which no real deep revelation of Jesus is expounded. No experiential knowledge that burns deep within us. The real preaching of the word (either to the lost or to the saved) is supposed to have a prophetic dimension to it. If it doesn’t what you are getting is knowledge and not understanding by revelation. Spoken revelation burns the heart, transforms the hearer, and provokes the Spirit (who is the giver of revelation) to confirm it with power.
So for times sake I’m going to combine the latest healings I’ve seen starting with NY. In NY an older woman with no mobility in her back began to move and turn. She went from not being able to reach behind her to have 80% of her mobility back in a matter of minutes. I saw tons of emotional healing as people were able to forgive for the first time. More powerfully, able to trust God deeply for the first time in a long time. I saw nerve damage restored as feeling came back to a another woman.
As many of you know most of my ministry has been “at home” stuff. For instance, teaching at meeting for our organic community, holding encounter/prayer weekends, my relationships, etc. In the last 2 years I’ve done a lot more teaching then ever and so some part of me is in teacher mode. My heart is always looking for some facet of Christ to be revealed in the word and in me so I can help reveal it to others by the Spirit.
Last week I traveled to a church I’ve never heard of and knew nothing about. All I knew was that I was going to be speaking at a wednesday service. I had a few words from the Lord. Mostly about generations coming together and the older generation praying for years over the young ones. When I arrived I was told that the church was over 75 years old. The same people were 5th generation members and that the older folks were looking to pass things off to the younger generation. BINGO! I had heard God right. Two long time friends, Aaron and CJ, arrived later that evening. We went to dinner and got a little bit of the story of how the church started. WE then went to visit the prayer tower. It was in this facility that we would meet. It was clear that many hours of prayer had gone on in this place. It was also clear that there was warfare. THat a choice needed to be made by this church at this time. Especially the younger folks. Did they want a visitation?
Someone once said, “The older you get the more you need the people you knew when you were young”. Well I’m barely into my mid 20′s and I can already tell that it’s going to be true. I’m starting to see the daring glow of youthful hope grow dim. The wild dreams of a wild God are being replaced by the everyday. It’s not that family, marriage, homes and the like are evil. It’s that they settle us into mediocrity.
