The Need for Discernment (2)

Ephesians 4:14—That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive—is the most graphic description in Scripture of the immature, unguided, undiscerning Christian. There are several characteristics of children that apply to the spiritually immature Christian. First, they were ignorant, and second, they were impulsive.

Third, they are impressionable, they are carried about with every wind of doctrine. Carried about is periphero, which pictures being carried around in circles, that is, being directionless, just driven here and there with no guidance. As Greek scholar and expositor John Eadie puts it, “The billow does not swell and fall on the same spot, but it is carried about by the wind, driven hither and thither before it—the sport of the tempest.” It’s also significant that the definite article (“the”) appears before doctrine in the Greek—“every wind of the doctrine”—showing that false teachers are very deliberate; they don’t have a general doctrine, rather a definite, calculated, and well formulated doctrine to teach. Most cults illustrate this vividly; as wrong as the doctrine is, it is nonetheless systemized, organized, and well devised. As a result, whatever the false teacher’s doctrine is, the immature, undiscerning Christian is just carried along by it until the next teaching blows in and carries him somewhere else.

One pastor boldly asserts the habits of the spiritually immature Christian when he writes: “There is a flightiness and instability to their lives . . . They dash in a dither toward every new religious fad, they seem more excited about the latest religious book than about the one Great Book, they rush from seminar to conference, hanging on to the words of the latest Christian guru, they change their spiritual and doctrinal mindset as often as they change their socks. With them, prophecy becomes a hobby, and spirituality becomes the latest craze.”

How true! From the days of Bill Gothard’s “Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts” decades ago to Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” today, it’s been this fad, that book, and this other movement, one after the other, year after year. The picture painted by wind is also graphic. Just as the wind surrounds us when it blows, so all kinds of teaching surround us. This demands, therefore, that we discern its direction—we must examine where it comes from, what it carries, and where it’s headed.

Fourth and finally, children are indulgent. If there is one thing that characterizes a child more than anything else, it’s that he wants to play, he wants to be entertained, he wants to have fun, he is self-absorbed. And that is not only true of the immature Christian today but most of the Church as a whole. The seeker-sensitive movement has inevitably led to entertainment as the driving forced of Church “ministry.” This started decades with just children and youth ministries that kept the kids entertained, but now it defines the whole Church. There is literally every form of entertainment in the Church today that is found in the world: all genres of music concerts, dramas, movies, stand-up comedy, dances, sports, and even—I’m not making this up—gambling and strippers.

To raise money, one church in Surrey, England sponsored “Rodent Roulette,” in which they put a mouse in a box that has several holes in the sides of it, put a cup over the mouse, spin the box around a few times, take bets on which the hole the mouse will use to exit the box, and then release it. Christianity Today magazine reported an incident in Richardson, Texas where one church invited a woman from another church in their denomination to take part in the service. She did, and when the “exotic dancer” from a Dallas nightspot was done, all she was wearing was a G-string.

Yes, I freely admit that those—and actually many more I could document—are extreme examples But I also submit that PHILOSOPHICALLY they are no different than any church today that resorts to entertainment in any form. So-called “ministry” today is built on “giving people what they want,” “appealing to felt-needs,” and “user-friendliness.” It is specifically geared to the flesh and thrives in an atmosphere of spiritual immaturity.

But Paul is not done yet! Next time we’ll look at how false doctrine comes.

The Need for Discernment (1)

Ephesians 4:14—That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.—reveals one more of three characteristics of spiritual maturity. We’ve examined unity and knowledge (v. 13).

Third, the final characteristic is discernment. As a church pastor and Christian leader, in the next several installments I would like to share something with true Believers that is one of the deepest burdens of my heart.

To introduce discernment, think carefully on this little story. The great Napoleon often told the tale of when he was visiting a certain province and came upon an old soldier with one severed arm. On his uniform he displayed the coveted Legion of Honor. “Where did you lose your arm?” Napoleon asked. “At Austerlitz, Sire,” came the soldier’s brisk reply. “And for that you received the Legion of Honor?” “Yes, Sire. It is but a small token to pay for the decoration.” Then the emperor said, “You must be the kind of man who regrets he did not lose both arms for his country.” “What then would have been my reward?” asked the one-armed man. “Then,” Napoleon replied, “I would have awarded you a double Legion of Honor.” With that the proud, old fighter drew his sword and immediately cut off his other arm. The story was circulated for years, until one day someone asked, “How?”

Ponder further; sometimes we accept sayings simply because they are pithy, such as the Earl of Kent’s remark in Shakespeare’s King Lear, “The stars above us govern our conditions.” This is just one of many references to that day’s common belief in Astrology. Other times we accept a proverb because it matches our own philosophy, such as Vince Lombardi’s famous declaration, “Winning’s not everything; it’s the only thing.”

People accept such ideas and uncounted others simply because they lack discernment, a word from the Latin discernere, which is comprised of dis, “apart,” and cernere, “to sift.” The Bible constantly, over and over again, emphasizes this principle: to separate and distinguish between in order to see and understand the difference. But far worse is how the lack of discernment has marched into the church like a plague of Driver Ants consuming everything in its path. Lost in the Church today is the ability to discern, to see the difference between truth and error. And the few who do dare to discern are labeled “unloving,” “divisive,” and “intolerant.” So what does Scripture say about discernment?

Here is undoubtedly the most graphic description in Scripture of the immature, unguided, undiscerning Christian. As the words henceforth be no more indicate, they obviously had previously been children, so the first thing Paul says is that this must cease. There are several characteristics of children that apply to the spiritually immature Christian.

First, children are ignorant. The Greek for children is nēpios, which is a combination of ne (“not”) and epos (“word”), so the literal idea is “one who cannot speak, that is, an infant.” Metaphorically, it pictures one who is “unlearned, unenlightened, simple, innocent,” and even “foolish;” when the ancient Greek philosophers wished to dismiss someone who was foolish in his views, they would use nepios with biting sarcasm. Writing to Christians in Greek society, Paul challenged the Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (I Cor. 13:11).

This point is, indeed, profound. After becoming a father, I often found myself thinking, “This child ought to know something, but he doesn’t; we’ve got to teach him everything.” And children will believe anything. They’ll believe there is a Santa Clause because we tell them there is (which really doesn’t say much for us, does it?). They’ll also try anything. They’ll try to see what small objects will fit into an electrical outlet, they’ll run into the street, they’ll eat the family dog’s food, and other things we wouldn’t believe unless we saw them. And that is precisely Paul’s point. The immature Christian knows either nothing at all or so little that he constantly gets himself into trouble.

Second, children are impulsive, they are tossed to and fro. This phrase is a singe word in the Greek, kludonizomai, an old nautical term “meaning to be tossed by the waves.” Children have a short attention span. They bounce from one thing to another. Babies will be drawn to a moving object one moment and a shiny one the next. Toddlers will play with a toy one moment and the box it came in the next. Immature Christians are the same, bouncing from one opinion to another, one teaching to another, with no discernment of which is better or even right. They’ll just grab onto anything and run with it. This leads to another characteristic, which we’ll examine next time.

The Purpose of Building a Church (2)

In Ephesians 4:13-14—Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.—Paul provides us with three characteristics of spiritual maturity. The first is unity.

Second, another characteristic is knowledge. How vitally important knowledge is in the Christian life! The word knowledge is the Greek epignosis. We examined this word way back in Ephesians 1:17 where Paul prayed that Christians would truly know God. The full meaning of this word is a personal knowledge that is full, thorough, precise, and correct. Why is knowledge so important? Because we need to know God fully and intimately. No, we will never know everything, but our knowledge is to be “full” in the sense of knowing what is necessary for Christian living, which is really an enormous amount of knowledge. Of, course, there is only one way of acquiring such knowledge and that is by a constant involvement with the Word of God. In that way our knowledge continues to grow. In other words, our knowledge can be full from moment to moment; we can right now know what God wants us to know, but tomorrow we will know more; so, each mo­ment we are living in the full potential of our present know­ledge.

And what is the goal of this ever-advancing knowledge? It is unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The Greek teleios (perfect) “originally meant the turning point, hinge, the culminating point at which one stage ends and another begins; later, the goal, the end.” Several things were looked upon as being an end, or a goal, such as marriage, physical and intellectual knowledge, and, of course, death. So, anything that has reached its goal or end was “complete.” So, within the context of the following verse, where there is a direct contrast with being “children, tossed to and fro,” the clear idea of perfect is “a complete mature adult.”

What, then, does “mature” mean? We hear the term often. We tell our children to “act more mature,” pastors tell Christians that they need to be mature in their Christian walk, and so forth. But what is maturity? Our English word “mature” comes from the Latin maturus, ripe, mature, timely, and seasonable, so our English word means “having completed natural growth and development, full development.” As the old Latin expression puts it, mens sana in copore sano, “a sound mind in a sound body.” Our thoughts, attitudes, actions, speech, and all else are that of a mature adult.

So what is spiritual maturity? It is to be fully developed in Christ, that is, as our text puts it, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The Greek behind stature (helikia) originally spoke of age, life-span, height, and even size of body. It is used, for example, to describe Zacchaeus, who was “little of stature” (Luke 19:3). Used metaphorically, as it is here, and combined with the words measure and fulness, the idea is “the measure of maturity in Christ, the measure of being dominated by Him and possessing Christ-likeness of character.” We are to measure ourselves not by the yardstick of society, or the ruler of some legalistic list of “do’s and don’ts.” Rather we are to measure ourselves according to the gauge of the stature of Christ. In short, spiritual maturity is Christ-likeness of character. God wants the Church to be built in the image of Christ, according to His stature.

Wow! The application of this principle will embarrass us often. The next time we react wrongly in a situation, say something we shouldn’t, do something we know we ought not, may we immediately be reminded to ask, “Is that how my Lord would react? Is that what He would say? Is that what he would do? Am I really being mature here?” Our answer will reveal whether or not we have grown to His stature. Again, we will never measure up perfectly in this life, but out failures will become fewer as we continue to grow.

The Purpose of Building a Church (1)

Having looked at the Foundation of building a Church (Leadership) and the Approach to that process (Discipleship), we look the Purpose of building (Maturity) in Ephesians 4:13-14: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

When a builder starts constructing a house, his goal is to get it completed, to have a finished product. Likewise, the purpose of building Christians is a finished product. That doesn’t mean literal perfection, that is, without error—no house is perfect—but it does mean complete in the sense of maturity. There will always be maintenance, but the basic structure is sound, solid, and secure.

In this context the word perfect means “a complete mature adult.” What, then, does spiritual maturity involve? What constitutes a mature Christian? Paul provides us with three characteristics of spiritual maturity: unity, knowledge, and discernment.

We cannot help but believe that the order in which these characteristics are listed is significant. Since unity is the subject of the entire context (vs. 1-16), it is, therefore, listed first. But unity of what?—unity of the faith. We studied “one faith” back in verse 5. The word faith is not used there, or here, as a verb but a noun and pictures “a system of truth.” More specifically, “the faith” and “one faith” refer to “the body of revealed truth which makes us Historical, Evangelical Christianity” (Jude 3). So, this tells us that God’s truth is unified; it is not fragmented or divided; it is one complete system.

Moreover, since this is listed first, God wants this to be the number one concern of the Church; our concern must be the unity of the Body around the unity of the faith.

The application of all this is clear. Unity among God’s people is the number one goal of edification, the number one goal of the building process. We are told by some Christian leaders that the number one goal is to “get big,” to add more people to the membership. But what good is a big body if it’s not unified? Indeed, we want to see the body get larger, and it will do that as we are faithful, but the first goal is to see the existing body in a constant state of unity. Why do we build up one another? So there will be unity and sweet fellowship among all members of Christ’s body. How do we go about this? By practicing the three principles we examined in verse 12: equipping, serving, and building. This leads to the second characteristic of maturity, which we’ll consider next time.

The Approach to Building a Church (3)

In Ephesians 4:12—For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.—Paul gives us three principles involved in Discipleship. We have examined two: equipping (perfecting) and service (the work of the ministry).

Third, discipleship involves building (edifying). This completes the progression. Proper equipping by the evangelist and pastor-teacher provides believers with the tools to serve God, which then results in the edifying (building up) of the body of Christ. The Greek for edifying (oikodome) refers literally to the building of a house. There are two things in view in this building process.

1. Equipping and serving build the body internally. This was, in fact, the very point Paul made in his farewell message to the Ephesian elders in Miletus: “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up” (Acts 20:32). Paul gave this challenging counsel because it is only the Word of God that can make the body strong internally. How tragic that many today strive for a big church externally before the church is strong internally. Internal growth must always come first or the work will eventually collapse of its own weight. Without a good foundation, any building will fall.

2. Equipping and serving build the body externally. We should not over-emphasize this lest we fall into the trap of the “numbers game,” which is so prevalent today. But neither should we under-emphasize this lest we fall into the trap of isolation and eventual stagnation. What then is the balance? As Christians are given the tools for service, others are going to be brought to Christ as a result. To further explain, we do not produce results; rather we expect results through the Holy Spirit. We can put this another way: we do not rely on results to measure success, rather we rejoice in the results God gives. Many today gauge the success of their church by results of their ministry philosophy (e.g., “seeker sensitivity”), by the outcome of some campaign, or by comparison with totals from previous years. How humanistic! God never said he would bless us according to results; He said He would bless us according to faithfulness.

Our Lord didn’t leave church growth to our devices, rather He said, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18). Yes, we will plant, we will water, but He will give the increase (I Cor. 3:6-7). We are to preach the Word and be witnesses of Christ, and God will give the increase according to His sovereign will. Human reason wants to build the church like a corporation and run it like a business. That’s not God’s way, because His Church is a Body; it will grow as we feed it Truth.

May we reiterate the three things involved in edification: equipping, serving, and building. Proper equipping by the evangelist (church planter) and pastor-teacher gives believers the tools to serve God, which results in the building up of the body of Christ both internally and externally.

The Approach to Building a Church (2)

In Ephesians 4:12—For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.—Paul gives us three principles involved in Discipleship. The first is perfecting (equipping).

Second, discipleship involves service (the work of the ministry). This is the second step in the progression: the “evangelist” and “pastor-teacher” (v. 11) give Christians the tools with which they can do the work of the ministry, so they can serve God. Work is ergon, which means the result or object of employment, something to be done; so what these men are called to do is train God’s people for carrying on the task of ministry.

But what exactly is the work of the ministry? What is service? We hear a lot about these nowadays, but let’s get to the heart of the matter. Consider I Corinthians 12:5, which literally says, “There are varieties of ministries, but one Lord.” The word ministry is the Greek diakonia which speaks of labor and service and originally spoke of serving tables. It is similar, of course, to diakonos from which is derived the word “deacon.” So, as there are many members of the body (as the context clearly shows), all members, therefore, serve the body.

Consider also Acts 1:8, which is truly the most vital verse to church outreach, the verse which speaks of the commission given to every believer: “But ye shall receive power, after [i.e. when] the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me.” This truly is “the great commission.” Tragically, Matthew 28:19-20 (“Go ye therefore. . .”) is sometimes misused.  The tense of the verb is a past tense participle, which means not a command, rather a statement of fact. In other words, God is not commanding any of us to go; He is actually saying that we are already there! It’s not that we should each “go to the mission field,” rather that we are already on the field.

This is exactly what we see in Acts 1:8; we are already witnesses, already on the “mission field.” Yes, God calls certain people to go certain fields, but each of us are already on a field no matter were we are. We note again the word “teaching” (v. 20), “make disciples of.” This is far more than what is true in many of the so-called “soul-winning techniques” of today. Making a disciple is more than bringing someone to the Lord; it also involves helping them get started in Christian growth. The best way to do this is to help them find a local church in which they can be fed the Word of God.

So bringing all this together, ministry means service and service means witnessing. The true essence of service is being a witness for Christ. This is the responsibility of every Christian. The local church is not responsible for “programs of evangelism” or “evangelistic campaigns.” All this is a total turn-around from the New Testament. Individual believers are to be the outreach! That means you and me.

Is evangelism built on a multi-million dollar facility, the latest marketing technique, or some spiel we recite to manipulate someone to “believe in Jesus?” No, Biblical evangelism is one person telling another person about the only Person. True evangelism (euangellion) is telling people through our lips and life about the Lord Jesus Christ.

What then is the purpose of the local church? The local church is the training ground. This principle is one I have emphasized over and over to the folks at Grace Bible Church. The local church is where Christians are to be trained so they are equipped to serve, to be successful witnesses. There are pastors who emphasize witnessing, but the problem is they do not train God’s people adequately. They do not preach Scriptural depth that will properly equip.

With all this in mind, may we see that any “ministry” must point to the one true essence of Christian service—witnessing. We also add here that as we’ll see later in this study, a “ministry” must meet another requirement—it must be based in and through a local church.

The Approach to Building a Church (1)

Having looked first at the Foundation of building the Church (Leadership), we now look secondly at the Approach to that process (Discipleship) in Ephesians 4:12: For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

“Discipleship” is a term we hear used often these days but one that few people define. What exactly does “discipleship” or “discipling” mean? The clearest text about this is Matt 28:19-20: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

The word “teaching” in verse 20 is the familiar Greek word didasko, which speaks of systematic teaching. The word “teach” in verse 19, however, is matheteuo, which “means not only to learn, but to become attached to one’s teacher and to become his follower in doctrine and conduct of life.” It appears, for example, in Acts 14:21 in reference to Paul’s ministry in Derbe: “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch.” This shows that evangelism is more than just preaching the Gospel; it is “making disciples,” that is, making followers of Christ who are attached to Him and so obey him in doctrine and conduct. Much “evangelism” today is just getting someone to repeat a prayer or “make a profession,” but Biblical evangelism is making committed followers of Christ. Easton’s Bible Dictionary describes a “disciple” of Christ as “one who (1) believes His doctrine, (2) rests on His sacrifice, (3) imbibes His spirit, and (4) imitates His example.”

So, while Paul doesn’t use the word mathoteuo in Ephesians 4:12, he most certainly outlines what is involved in making disciples using three principles: equipping, serving, and building.

First, Paul speaks of equipping Believers. The word perfecting translates katartismos, which is used only here in the New Testament and means “to put in order, restore, furnish, prepare, equip.” In ancient Greek the verb form was used in a medical sense to refer to setting a broken limb or putting a joint back into its place and in politics for bringing together opposing factions so that government could continue. A New Testament example of the verb is in reference to repairing fishing nets (Matt. 4:21; Mk. 1:19).

So, it was the responsibility of the Apostle and prophet, and it is today the responsibility of the evangelist and pastor-teacher, to put in order, restore, furnish, prepare, and equip Believers. In many Christian circles this has been totally turned around. Many today believe, “The pastor’s job is to ‘win souls’ and build the church; he should spend most of his time calling on people and knocking on doors.” But this is not the New Testament precedent. Many go to the phrase “house to house” (Acts 2:46; 20:20) to teach this. But in each case the context makes it clear that the teaching of believers is in view.

The New Testament makes it clear that the pastor’s duty is to train believers who then go out as the outreach. The shepherd/sheep analogy makes this obvious. The Shepherd feeds and nurtures the sheep so that they are healthy and capable of reproducing. The pastor’s first concern is to be for the occupied seats, not the empty ones.

How does a pastor go about all this? There can be only one answer: all this is done by the teaching of the Word of God. Many today are trying to do it through programs, promotional gimmicks, and marketing strategies. But a truth we need to realize is that when God’s people fail in service, it is not because of weak programs, but because of weak teaching.

An incident that occurred during the Arab–Israeli war of 1967 serves to illustrate this principle. While flying over the Sinai Desert, an American reporter and an Israeli officer spotted some 50,000 stranded Egyptian soldiers who obviously were dying of thirst. They reported their sighting, but each time a plan to aid the stranded soldiers was recommended, some military, diplomatic, or bureaucratic barrier prevented its implementation. By the time help arrived, it was too late for thousands of the soldiers.

That is the situation in the Church today. All kinds of programs, committees, focus groups, and other suggestions for “reaching out” are made, when what is really needed is simply the water of the Word of God. While many today think that the Church should be addressing “felt needs,” the real need is God’s Truth.