Recently I have been listening to a tremendous expositor of scripture, Martin Lloyd Jones, and this has birthed a desire in me to read passages of scripture in a deeper manner so as to glean even greater understanding of the grace and majesty of God. This is not just an intellectual fascination, but the draw is to deepen my relationship with Him through Jesus by an ever more intimate knowing Him.
To that end, I have delighted in finding a treasure trove in verses that I previously read as a mere formality or rote greeting:
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: (Ephesians 1:1)
First, a little context would be helpful. Every single one of the epistles (as opposed to the gospels) of the New Testament of the Bible were written to people who were part of the Christian body of believers. If all that was involved in experiencing a fulfilling and effective walk of faith was encapsulated in that moment when one first surrenders and receives Jesus as Lord for the forgiveness of sin, then the authors of those epistles would not have wasted so many words on encouraging and instructing believers, but would have written more testimonies and arguments to convince unbelievers.
We often get out of whack in the church by going to one of two extremes. Sometimes we become focused on evangelizing the lost to the exclusion of building up the body of Christ. This results in a lot of flash and flare with impressive numbers of “salvations”, but there is a dearth of depth. The evidence of this happening is when the growth of active participants within the body is not commensurate with the numbers of people making some sort of profession of faith. The other extreme is such a focus on the growth and edification of church members that we become a holy huddle. This results in lots of pot-lucks and bible studies but few actual transformations from darkness to light; from death to life.
Paul puts the proper emphasis this way:
So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith. (Galatians 6:10)
He recognizes that a mature body of Christ followers is attractive to those who are lost, hurting and seeking hope. A mature body of believers embrace their respective identities in Christ and by extension of that, cannot help but give evidence through word and deed of the great news of Jesus in their lives. Evidence of a church that has reached this sweet spot of doing good to all, but especially their own people is that non-Christians come, see, receive AND become vibrant participants in the church where they are fed and grow.
So, all this context is to make it abundantly clear that we followers of Jesus need to invest heavily in discipleship of one another. We need to dive into these divinely inspired words and grow in understanding always with the end of sharing the love and grace God bestows on us with others. I hope then, you will join me for my next post where I dive into what this verse, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:1) says about our identity.
Sans Tache 