In surveying the books of Ephesians and Colossians (especially Ephesians) I have been convicted about how individualistic my Christian life is. ‘As long as I’m doing alright then that’s all that matters’ is the mentality I have adopted. Personal maturity (whatever that looks like) in Christ is my goal, and yet the irony of it all is that maturity in Christ will not be accomplished if it remains an individual, personal thing; it is corporate maturity which Christ seeks, and nothing less.
“No man is an island”, wrote the poet John Dunne. If this is true of the human race, then it is most certainly true of the Church. We are all connected together in the body of Christ, whether I like it or not! And as a result, how my fellow members are doing should matter to me. My job isn’t just to use other people as a gauge for how I’m doing spiritually, and either despair or take pride in myself, depending on who it is I’m comparing myself to. Perhaps the phrase “You’re only as strong as your weakest link” also applies to the Church as much as to other groups of people. We as a Church are in one sense only as mature as our most immature member. Is that to say there is no such thing as personal maturity and holiness? Of course not, but the point Paul makes in his ecclesial passages is that we are in this together. I am not a lone ranger, but am part of something so much bigger than myself. I am to use whatever grace has been given to me to build up those who are perhaps struggling, and I am to take encouragement and instruction from those are further along in the journey than I am.
Such a corporate mindset goes right against the grain of my natural way thinking, and so I must seek the mind of Christ if I am to look beyond myself and start looking at the Church from His point of view - that is, a body of believers to sacrificially give yourself for in order that they be made whole.
As Mulholland Jr. writes, our goal is to be "conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others". Yikes.
“No man is an island”, wrote the poet John Dunne. If this is true of the human race, then it is most certainly true of the Church. We are all connected together in the body of Christ, whether I like it or not! And as a result, how my fellow members are doing should matter to me. My job isn’t just to use other people as a gauge for how I’m doing spiritually, and either despair or take pride in myself, depending on who it is I’m comparing myself to. Perhaps the phrase “You’re only as strong as your weakest link” also applies to the Church as much as to other groups of people. We as a Church are in one sense only as mature as our most immature member. Is that to say there is no such thing as personal maturity and holiness? Of course not, but the point Paul makes in his ecclesial passages is that we are in this together. I am not a lone ranger, but am part of something so much bigger than myself. I am to use whatever grace has been given to me to build up those who are perhaps struggling, and I am to take encouragement and instruction from those are further along in the journey than I am.
Such a corporate mindset goes right against the grain of my natural way thinking, and so I must seek the mind of Christ if I am to look beyond myself and start looking at the Church from His point of view - that is, a body of believers to sacrificially give yourself for in order that they be made whole.
As Mulholland Jr. writes, our goal is to be "conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others". Yikes.
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