Thursday, October 16, 2014
Your Role
Mark Roberts:
The body is not a harmonious machine all pointed and traveling in the same direction. Simply bending you knee or elbow involves flexor and tensor muscles in competition with each other. Biochemically huge parts of your body are at war with other parts. Our bodies appear to bend to our will on the surface, but underneath it is a near chaos of competing forces and reactions, deconstructions and constructions.
This is a state called "equilibrium" - think of it as a balance set just right. Problem is if one force gets to strong or one gets too weak, the whole system falls out of kilter. Therefore, the church will always have counterbalances - those who say "NO" when the everybody says "YES." It is in fact a legitimate role in the church to be a pain-in-the-neck, a fly in the ointment. Otherwise the whole system can fly out of control. In the Old Testament such people were called prophets. It is a lonely, humbling and often martyred existence. But it is necessary.
Body of Christ Role prophet
Did you catch that last phrase? Here it is again: "as each part does its work." The original Greek of this phrase speaks of the energeia of each part, a word from which we derive our word "energy." Thus, the body of Christ will grow to be what God intends it to be only if each one of us invests our personal energy in this great work. When it comes to the growth of God's people, yes, you do matter. You are essential.I wonder if we realize how many parts there really are? We all know about arms and legs and eyes and heads, but do we know about organs and structures and cells? Do we know about those parts of our bodies that are constructively destructive - that damage us in small ways so that better things can take place?
Now, I realize that many Christians don't believe this. Perhaps they have never been taught that they are essential to the health, life, and growth of the church. Perhaps they have heard this, but simply don't believe it. Perhaps their church is structured in a way that suggests they don't really matter. It is all too easy for churches, by their very organization, to imply that the ones who really matter are the clergy and, perhaps, a few major donors. Yet this is not the church as God intended it. Rather, the church is, by its very design, something that requires the energy of each and every part
The body is not a harmonious machine all pointed and traveling in the same direction. Simply bending you knee or elbow involves flexor and tensor muscles in competition with each other. Biochemically huge parts of your body are at war with other parts. Our bodies appear to bend to our will on the surface, but underneath it is a near chaos of competing forces and reactions, deconstructions and constructions.
This is a state called "equilibrium" - think of it as a balance set just right. Problem is if one force gets to strong or one gets too weak, the whole system falls out of kilter. Therefore, the church will always have counterbalances - those who say "NO" when the everybody says "YES." It is in fact a legitimate role in the church to be a pain-in-the-neck, a fly in the ointment. Otherwise the whole system can fly out of control. In the Old Testament such people were called prophets. It is a lonely, humbling and often martyred existence. But it is necessary.
Body of Christ Role prophet
