New Thoughts: (08/10/15-08/13/15)
We may as well follow Paul’s flow of thought here. He begins by setting the record straight as far as he and others who carry out the work of the gospel are concerned. We are servants, he says. We are deacons, if you would like it in terms more familiar to the modern church. It is, in fact, the source of that term which he uses: diakonoi. Our current systems of church organization might make that something of a shocking statement. Here is one who might reasonably be considered an elder’s elder. He is an Apostle, after all, a founding principal of the Christian faith. Surely, he deserves better title than this! But, to Paul, and to the other Apostles, I don’t think there could be a title better than this.
We have a tendency, I think, to conflate servant and slave in our thinking. The slave, the doulos, is necessarily subservient to his master. It is, according to our modern lights, a coercive arrangement. We have difficulty supposing such a thing as a man becoming a slave by choice. Surely, he has been forced into it, whether by might or by circumstance. Even those who came to our shores as indentured servants (which still happens today, at least as to what is promised), would not willingly have done so were there any other option available. Surely, if they could be free men, they would be. Surely, if they could know independence, they would. This is, or was, so much a part of being American that it is hard for us to imagine any other mindset.
Yet, the text of the Old Testament, particularly, makes it clear that such a mindset was not beyond the thinking of the people of the ancient Middle East. Provision was made for just such an arrangement. If one has come to be a servant in your household, and at the due time for his release, his preference is to remain in that state, here’s how to handle that situation. It’s not unthinkable. Indeed, it seems to me that it is shown to be quite honorable. It’s not as though those who remained slaves by choice were seeking welfare. It is merely that they have found a household and a labor that is satisfactory to them, perhaps permitting of a better standard of living than they can imagine themselves achieving independently.
To be fair, there are places where the Apostles are set before us as doulos, and there is a sense in which we are doulos of Christ. He bought us after all, and we are all slaves in this fashion: either to sin and the devil or to Christ and righteousness. The distinction, though, is that when we speak of our relationship as being that of a slave, we express our dependence upon the Master for all that we are and all that we need. When, on the other hand, we see the man of God described as diakonos, it is not that dependence on Christ is denied, but it is the service rendered that is in view, rather than the relationship.
We are, Paul says, ministering servants. If you would feel better about this, you may take it as being servants of the King. This is clearly not expressive of servility. It is an office honorable in its own right. To be servant of the King is to be a trusted man, indeed. You are one the King trusts to carry out the task assigned to you. The King can trust you to do so because you have done so in the past. You are in an honorable place, but you are also under orders. And that, I think, gets us nearer the point Paul is making. The Amplified Bible expands slightly on Paul’s words which answer his question. We are, ‘Ministering servants, not heads of parties’. That, of course, brings his answer to bear more directly on the issue at hand. You have been raising us up, as if we should be the objects of your worship, but we are both of us mutual servants of the only One worthy of your worship. We’re just doing what we are commanded to do.
Here, I would take from a couple of other translations that I don’t generally find myself using all that much. The NIrV closes out verse 5 with the thought, “The Lord has given each of us our own work to do.” Yes. And somehow, it seems that we are forever supposing that the work we are given necessitates that everybody else perform the same task! How quickly we lose sight of the nature of the body Christ has fashioned. We are forever looking to our ears and noses to start laboring as toes because we are toes. If I study hard, all should study just as hard. If I pray long hours on end, then he who does not must be a lesser Christian. If I speak in tongues, then those who do not are clearly not so far along in their spiritual growth as I am. If I’m out in the mission field, then those who stayed home must be defective in their faith. Choose your focus. Whatever your assignment, it is yours. Stop trying to make everyone else over in your image!
Instead, we might do very well to hear the message delivered as the NCV offers it. “Each one of us did the work God gave us to do.” You know, if that can be said of our church at the end of our days, I cannot think of anything much grander we could hope for. If this were my epitaph: He did what God gave him to do; then I could happily conclude that I had run the good race and had been true to my King. But, as a community of believers, it’s time and past time that we stop assessing everybody else by the standards of our own assignments. Not everyone is a preacher. Not everyone is an evangelist. Not everyone is well-suited to take to the mission field. We each have our assignments, and we have them not from one another, not from the pastor, not from the elders, not from any man. We have our assignments from God and it is to Him we shall answer for how we have carried out our assignments.
We are not, even should we be accounted leaders, men to be followed, although our example should be such that a man doing so would find no reason to be embarrassed. We are certainly not here to develop a following. The leader who seeks a party is no leader, not in the Church which Christ is building. He is head over all. Those He chooses to set as shepherds, guides, and teachers over this portion of His flock or that are all alike in this one thing: We are servants. We do not seek our own will be done. We seek that His will be done. We model obedience to Christ, and we speak as Christ commands us speak, no more and no less.
The man of God cannot help but recognize, as Paul goes on to say, that we are merely servants doing as we should. “You too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done’” (Lk 17:10). We are not setting up a movement. We don’t need ministries established in our names. If we are forgotten when we are gone, so long as His kingdom grows, it is nothing to us. We are not here to put our stamp on the work of Christ and shape it in our image. We are here because He is shaping us in His image, because He has set us to work in His fields. But, if there is growth to be seen, know that it is His doing!
Elsewhere, Paul writes, “If anyone thinks himself something when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Gal 6:3). The same can be said if our thoughts are toward our teacher, our pastor, our mentor, or whatever other man or woman we might set before our mind’s eyes. If we think that one is something, we deceive ourselves. He or she is not the one to follow. He or she will err, will let us down, will inevitably lead us astray if elevated like that in our thoughts. And, the crash that must come will likely have repercussions well beyond our own condition.
It seems to be a particular tactic of the enemy of our soul to cause men to get puffed up in themselves, to lose sight of Christ and see only their own splendor. To this is added our propensity for being enamored of those who strike so grand a pose. We need only look at the latest election cycle to see it. Character and content are of little interest. But, spectacle? A larger than life persona? Maybe a hint of the underdog turning hero? Wow! We’re all over that. Forget the incompetence, he looks good! He’s inspiring even if insipid. Such a thing is bad enough in the world of politics and governance, but it is utterly horrifying when it slips into the Church. There’s a reason why the idea of pontification has rather negative connotations. It’s the opinion of man seeking to appear as the oracles of God. It’s speaking from a height and authority not truly possessed, an appearance of wisdom which serves as thin disguise for vapid opinion.
When the man of God lifts himself to such heights, or allows himself to be lifted by the opinions of his fellows, he sets not only himself at risk, nor even himself together with his followers. His fall is like an atomic bomb going off. The damage is widespread and long lasting. The devil knows this, and relishes the result. If I think back to the period of time when I was a younger man, and far from faith, there was a stretch when it seemed every month some name-brand representative of Christianity or another was being caught in behaviors wholly unbecoming to their name. We had televangelists falling like dominoes, but it wasn’t just them. We had pastors with national name recognition toppling as well. On one level, this really oughtn’t to come as any surprise, for they are but men like ourselves. But, we (or others) puffed them up, and they allowed that puffing to fill them. When the bubble burst, the effect on a generation was as if their humanity disproved the reality of God. Christianity was made a suspect religion, and suddenly all these other spiritualist, mystical, new-age ideas were given a foothold. The damage of that period continues to play out. I only pray that we learn our lesson from it.
In plain point of fact, though, I think the problem has become much worse. Time was that such a movement-maker needed some serious backing. Broadcast capabilities require funding. Creating or leasing spaces large enough to hold the desired crowds requires serious funding as well. But, now, any would-be prophet or apostle can go nationwide on the cheap. They have access to homes around the world, homes where the man of God cannot stand watch. We are plagued by those who “want to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions” (1Ti 1:7). “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2Ti 3:6-7). And, they will happily pay for the privilege of being misled, ears tickled and hearts aflutter at things that sound good, sound exciting, but are in plain point of fact deceptions of a puffed up imagination. They are bombs waiting to explode. May we be on guard, and may we so train up our households that they, too, are on guard.
For our own part, let us be reminded by the message Paul conveys. In essence he is saying, we worked as He instructed: I planted; Apollos watered. But, none of this work would have mattered in the least if God had not been causing growth. There is but one question for us to consider, and it is not whether we see growth. The question to ask is whether we are doing as God instructed. If Paul had been measuring his own efforts based on results and growth I think he would have been driven to despair. There’s some sign that happened after Athens, as it is, for all his effort seemingly availed naught. But, Corinth had been another matter. There, he had the word of God directly, “Fear not. I have many in this place” (Ac 18:9-10). But, what about now? Now, the evidence that has led to this letter would suggest the fruits he had seen were temporary, like the seed strewn among rocks in Jesus’ parable. But, that same message still holds, doesn’t it? “Fear not. I have many in this place.” Chloe would appear to be standing fast, and there are others. Even those who appear to have wandered so far afield, given the evidence of later writing, were not gone beyond recovery.
The fact is, though, that even had they been so far gone, it wouldn’t matter. We do the work God gives us to do. The fruitfulness remains His concern. Nothing matters, unless God chooses to cause growth. Now, let me just balance that out a bit. I do think the combined imagery of those parables Jesus spoke in regard to the work of the Apostles provide a certain assurance of fruitfulness. It is, after all, God’s work we do, and He is not inclined to see things done in vain. But, that fruitfulness may not look the way we expect it to look. The farmer sowing on stony or sandy soil can’t be thrilled at the prospects. As the seasons march on, the return on that effort will be negligible. But, the message of the parables insists that this is only a piece of the story, not the whole. Other seed fell in better places, and the fruitfulness of that seed which fell on good soil will be so great that the gains from that small portion of the seed will exceed the loss of seed elsewhere many times over.
Just do what you’ve been given to do. If you are called to preach, preach; and do so faithfully. If you are called to evangelize, then go! Call the lost to come in to God’s house. But, don’t suppose this means everybody else must be out of the church and on the streets with you. This is your work. Go plant seeds, and let others see to the watering. Neither, if you are a waterer, despise the seed casters. You servants in the house of God, rejoice in your tasks, for He has assigned them to you. You are granted the honor of caring for His property, for seeing that His house manifests His magnificence. Let no man convince you your work is less important to the kingdom than their own. Be faithful in what you have been given, and rejoice that you all together are serving the one purpose of seeing God glorified as His kingdom expands.
It’s interesting that Paul addresses the matter twice. It was God repeatedly, continuously causing the growth when Paul planted and Apollos watered. It is God who repeatedly, continuously causes the growth now. The fields, after all, belong to Him. The harvest that comes from those fields belongs to Him. You are His servants, together with us. The whole operation is His and His alone. As faithful stewards we rightly long to see the fields fruitful and the harvest bountiful to our Lord. But, we mustn’t lose sight that they, as we, are His. If it should turn out that the fields in which we are commanded to labor seem fruitless, or if it seems we are called to leave our fields fallow for a season – plowed and prepared, but left unplanted – we must know that it is wise to do so. We must recognize the all-encompassing goodness and knowledge of God, and trust that these thin seasons shall produce their bounty in future with even greater abundance. To labor with planting where God says no is to labor in vain. To leave the field fallow that God has called us to plant is a worse thing yet, for by our inaction, we indeed labor against the God to whom we belong.
Before leaving the imagery of the farm, Paul says, “We are God’s fellow workers.” The Douay-Reims prefers to see them as coadjutors, which is a term unfamiliar to me, although Strong’s allows the meaning as a possibility as well. A quick glance at the dictionary provides a definition indicating that a coadjutor is a bishop appointed to assist the chief bishop, being his designated successor, indeed Merriam-Webster’s makes that concept a bit stronger, granting the coadjutor ‘the right of succession’. I should note, though, that they apply this as a secondary definition, the first being simply, “one who works together with another.” Others reverse the order, supposing the use of coadjutor to indicate an assistant is a much rarer usage.
At the other end of the spectrum, the NET plays out this statement as, “We are coworkers belonging to God.” There is something to see here. If I go back to my usual NASB, or any of the other more commonly used translations, I arrive at, “We are God’s fellow workers”. That sounds like coworker, and quickly gets our thoughts operating on the supposition that we are working next to God. It’s not long before pride and ego inflate this to the point that we are setting ourselves up as authorities practically equal with God, and our efforts as being so important that God couldn’t do without us. The NET looks at the syntax here, where we have God in the genitive case, together with the context of Paul insistently downplaying the significance of any man including himself, and determines that we must not allow any sense of elevation or equality with God into the message presented. Thus, they set Paul and Apollos as coworkers one with another, but the thing they share in common is that they belong to God.
That would seem to drive us nearer the doulos sense of service than the diakonos, but to the degree that Paul has indeed been minimizing their importance, and to the degree that his overarching concern is to counter the tendency toward factions in this church, it makes sense to hear that note of demotion, at least. Certainly, the genitive case has the idea of possession to it. We might choose to hear it as of God, from God, for God, or by God; and there may be other possible ways to hear it as well. We are coworkers, and we are God’s men. That’s enough really. We are God’s servants. You are His field. He has assigned the tasks, and we are under orders to carry them out.
One thing that I cannot see reading into this passage is any idea of succession. I’m trying to recall if any other translation apart from the Douay-Reims saw fit to use that word. As I scan through, I actually rather like the NCV on this. “We are God’s workers, working together.” But, I find no other willing to promote us to coadjutors of God, as though we were bishops waiting to succeed to His position, or even assistants to Him. Even that, I think, would give us to elevated a sense of self-worth. We are God’s workers. That’s enough. Better a doorman in His house than grand position elsewhere. To be His worker makes plain that we serve as He directs, we are employed by Him to do as He bids. Call us workers, call us servants, or call us slaves. It makes little enough difference as far as the carrying out of His bidding. But, don’t call us His equal, by any means. If it holds that no man is indispensable in business, it certainly holds in the service of Almighty God! We are His workers, and as such, we work together. We are not in competition. We don’t need to commend ourselves to His notice. We don’t need to belittle the efforts of those around us to look better ourselves. It’s not a rat-race, as we may tend to consider other endeavors. It’s an extended love offering, made in appreciation of our Servant King.
[08/13/15] In the middle of verse 9, Paul switches his imagery from the farm to the city. The field gives way to the building. Here, we are stepping into another image common to the Scriptures. As I went through my preparations for this study, the combined message of several passages that speak of this building struck me. Let me just put those texts together, and then I’ll list their locations. “Don’t you know that you are God’s temple in whom the Spirit of God dwells? That temple is built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. As living stones, you are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Having been firmly rooted, and being now built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, you are overflowing with gratitude.” The passages, in their turn, are 1Corinthians 3:16, Ephesians 2:20-22, Colossians 2:7, Psalm 127:1, and 1Peter 2:5.
Look at the picture these verses paint. You are a temple of God’s Spirit. He dwells in you so that you are made a spiritual house offering spiritual sacrifices. That all harks back to what Paul said in the preceding verses. The things of God are spiritually discerned. Were we not already made temples of the Spirit, were He not already indwelling, we would not have the wherewithal to comprehend the truth of the Gospel. But note well, oh builder, oh minister, that your best efforts will avail nothing unless the Lord is building. It’s a vain work to preach with utmost eloquence where the Lord has not said, “Preach”. It’s a vain work to insist on God’s healing where God has not seen fit to heal. Unless the Lord <insert your activity here>, they labor in vain who pursue that activity.
I could point us back to Paul’s earlier point regarding baptism. That’s not what I was sent to do, so that’s not where I focused my energies. I was sent to preach the simple, unadorned message of the Gospel, and that’s what I did. You reading this know that, for you were there. You also know the resulting fruitfulness. But, it’s not because my preaching was so wonderful. It’s because God was working. The best I can claim is obedience to His command, and like those faithful slaves Jesus referred to back in Luke 17:10, all I can say for having obeyed is that I have done as I should.
Now it’s our turn. The foundation has been laid, and we must take note how Paul continues his thought in the verses that follow. “No man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1Co 3:11). I will add this passage to the point. “The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, upon which were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev 21:14). I explored this point rather extensively when considering the matter of Apostles at the start of this study of 1 Corinthians. But, I will note it again here. The foundation is laid. The Cornerstone has been set firmly in place. The prophets of old built one adjoining leg of that foundation, square and true to the Cornerstone. The built from the past to the Cross, as it were. The Apostles built along the perpendicular, again laying down a foundation square and true to the Cornerstone. But, for them, the construction was from the Cross to the future. Both take their measure from that Cornerstone which God has set in place. The first two walls being lain with such great care, the remaining two walls can then be laid with assurance that that the result will remain likewise square and true to the Cornerstone.
This was something about which the Corinthians might be considered as having particular understanding. Greek construction technique was well established, and this fundamental concept lay at its base. And the Corinthians were particularly skilled in the matter of construction, their architectural touches being a touchstone even to this day. But, the key was the cornerstone, and the laying of those first layers of the foundation.
What is deserving of special note is the added imagery from the Revelation. There are twelve foundation stones, twelve names; and these represent the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Let me just reiterate this from my earlier, in-depth pursuit of the Apostles. There are twelve. There are not thirteen. There are not an unnumbered quantity coming down to our own day. The foundation has been laid, and the stones are numbered at twelve. Now, clearly, Judas is not one named here. His place was given to another, for he brought no return for the talents invested in him. What this says for Paul, I’m not sure, for the remaining eleven in Jerusalem had already set Matthias in the place of Judas. But, I will maintain this: The number is set and the office closed. The foundation is complete.
As I have been preparing for this fall’s class on the London Baptist Confession, one of the discussion questions suggested on the topic of Scripture concerns why it is so important to understand that the canon is closed if we accept the concept of progressive revelation. This is it, right here. The foundation is complete. There can be no other. The square and true has been determined. To add to the foundation now would only force it out of true. To remove from one wall or another would again lead not to improvement, but to the failure of the building we would construct. I’ll take it even one step further. To add or subtract from the foundation would leave us no longer as building the temple of the Living God, but a dead edifice dedicated to our own deadly ego. We are not permitted to add to the foundation laid in Christ Jesus. He has seen that revelation perfectly completed. There is no more to be added. There is nothing revealed which ought properly to be concealed at this point. We cannot lay the foundation again and we dare not alter its form, for its form is lovely, perfect, and True. We are not in an age that can admit of Apostles. We are of an age that is in great need of Custodians. We are, if we are anything of worth, custodians of the foundation.
As custodians, we do our utmost to watch over that foundation, to ensure that nothing has been altered since it was laid. We also serve as inspectors of what is built upon that foundation. This work must first and primarily be applied to ourselves. If our own efforts are not kept plumb to the foundation, we can be of little use to anybody else. If our wall goes up crooked, we weaken not only ourselves, but those whose walls ought properly to connect to our own.
We are living stones, Peter says, and we are being built together. No man in Christ builds alone. Those who take up the false banner of, “Me and my Bible, and that’s enough”, are in sorry enough shape in that they remove from themselves the support system that God set in place. They have no adjoining wall to lend strength to their own. They have no sound reference to ensure that their work is remaining plumb and true. If their measure is off, against what shall they check? In a world of standards and measures, we have ways to confirm and calibrate the tools we use. We can test to discern whether the carpenter’s square we would use is truly square. We can confirm that the inch reported by our tape measure is truly an inch, lest the slight error accumulate and leave our construction entirely awry. In the matter of spiritual building, God’s Word is, of course, our final standard and measure. But, we are given brothers and sisters, others constructing their part of the temple around us, so that we can confirm one another’s work. And, when both have built as they ought, we have one another to join together, that each may draw strength from the other.
The best-laid foundation is no guarantee that the wall built upon it remains plumb. The best carpenter or mason cannot guarantee his work will remain so unless it is checked often against the mark. We have building inspectors to what end, if not to confirm that what the builders have built is built to true. Welcome to the house of God! Welcome to the task of the pastor, the teachers, the elders. We are here to inspect as well as to instruct. Do you know that this lies at the very heart of the word we translate as elder? It’s about looking into, scrutinizing, prying into the business of those we oversee. In our day and age, we find the very idea offensive, don’t we? It’s an invasion of privacy. It’s none of your business how I live my life. Ah, but it is! It is exactly my business how you live your life, and it is exactly your business how I live mine. We are part of the same temple construction project. We uphold one another, or else we both fall to ruin.
We are called to be our brother’s keeper, like it or not. We watch over one another, lest by accident or by deception we find we have been adding to that foundation or subtracting from it. We watch each other’s backs to ensure that neither of us falls into altering or amending the Word once given to the saints. It takes only the smallest of mistakes to produce disastrous results. The O-ring that caused the space shuttle to fail so many years back wasn’t off by much. It didn’t need to be. If you’ve ever had to work at laying out pieces to be connected by screw later on; it doesn’t take but the least fraction of an inch to render that task impossible. If the hole in piece A does not align with the threaded hole in piece B, there’s not a screw made could convince those two pieces to join.
So it is with the Word of Truth, and well does the Devil know it. His efforts at corrupting the people of God do not consist in the bold lie that the Soviets were so fond of. He doesn’t come with something so audacious that it beggars belief to suppose it could have been attempted as a lie. That’s the game of the big lie. If it’s big enough, people will assume it’s true because nobody could be so daft as to try it as a lie. But, our enemy is more subtle than all that. He knows that it takes only the slightest alteration from true to result in an utterly crooked construct. Picture a brick wall being built atop or foundation. Now, suppose that each row of bricks winds up with one corner just, let us say, 1/32nd of an inch higher than the next. At first, it will be all but unnoticeable. And, if it were just a 1-story house being built, maybe the cumulative effect wouldn’t be all that bad. But, extend it to ten stories, to one hundred. Pretty soon, you have a building listing worse than the tower of Pisa. And that building, though it may stand for a time, will not stand long. Its end is already contained in the beginning of that first layer of brick.
Be careful what you build. Be careful what you hear, for you are not so discerning as you like to think. I began this walk in a church that was inclined toward the mindset of allowing most anything to be taught, and sorting it out afterwards. There was this phrase about keeping the meat and throwing out the bone. But, this begins with a dangerous assumption: That we are fit to tell the difference. Oh! But we have the Holy Spirit within. Indeed, if you are a child of God, you do. But, are you listening to Him, or to some lying spirit, or to your own foolishness? It would be a poor builder who just added materials willy-nilly to the building and figured he’d come back later and hack away the bits that don’t seem to fit so well in retrospect. Nor would we be thrilled with a butcher who tossed random amounts of bone in with the roast we asked for. We don’t care to be charged for bone we can’t eat. We shouldn’t be any happier about spending our time and energy on truth that turns out to be lie.
We have to be aware of our own propensity for preferring the Word bent to our preferences. We have to be very wary of supposing ourselves so spiritual and so mature that we are incapable of being deceived. Indeed, if we have that mindset we are already deceived! The time will come, Paul said, when men will prefer to have their ears tickled (2Ti 4:3). Personally, I’d question whether there has ever been a time when this wasn’t the case. If there was, it would seem long gone. Society today is all about ear tickling. Every day I see articles about the state of our educational system, how colleges can no longer teach the classical knowledge of Western Civilization. We have raised a generation that can’t bear the offense of hearing anything that even mildly contradicts their own youthful views. There is no place for learning where we cannot bear to be wrong. There is no place for Truth when we are that heavily invested in the Lie.
We are not immune. We like to be right. We like the comfort of finding no reason to change a thing. We’re fine as we are. We’re good people; certainly better than this rising generation, right? Watch out! The foundation needs checking. It’s time we have a look at what we’ve built thus far and make doubly certain that it’s still plumb, level, and square to the measure of God’s Word. It’s time we remember that Scripture isn’t given to be shaped to our preferences, but to shape us to God’s purposes.
As we build, may we each be found building, as Paul says, ‘according to the grace of God given to’ us. This is not the same sense of grace that we associate with the work of salvation. This is not simply another aspect of unmerited favor from a particularly patient God. This is more by way of saying that Paul had a special endowment for the task he was given. However talented Paul may have been in his own right, he was not in himself equal to the task of laying this foundation. It needed God, and well did Paul know it. For our own part, we are no more equal to the task of our sanctification and growth. We are ill equipped for righteousness in ourselves. It needs the grace of God, the special endowment from Him for the pursuit of our own tasks.
We have that well-worn adage in the church that who God calls He equips. We have it because it is true. He does. But, we can come to lean so heavily on the point as to become complacent; as to assume that whatever we are doing in pursuit of whatever He has called us to do must be good, or good enough, since it’s by His equipping. But, this oversteps. To put it in perspective, I’ll refer to a series of mysteries I’ve been reading of late. The author, one Archer Mayor, provides a list of references at the start of each book, those individuals and organizations that have provided him with insight and information by which he has rendered his tale the more true to life (and I have to say that, having traveled the regions in which he sets his works, they are quite true to life). As he provides a note of thanks to these several advisors, it always includes a disclaimer to the effect that the realism owes heavily to their advice, but the mistakes all belong to Archer. Here is something to inform our efforts to help God in His work! The mistakes are mine. The accuracies are all His! This idea rings out in something Paul says nearer the end of this letter. “This is not my labor, but the grace of God with me laboring” (1Co 15:10b). If I am achieving anything of true worth, it is because God is doing it. Unless the Lord builds the house…
But He is building the house, and in doing so, He has given each of us gifts which differ according to the grace given us. Let us not carp and complain because so and so isn’t focusing where I’m focusing. Let us not look for cause to complain of our differences. Let us instead use the gifts we have been given accordingly as He has given them (Ro 12:6). Your gifts differ, but they are all given to the same end: To serve one another. My gift serves your lack, and your gift serves mine. Let us be about building one another up in the admonition and discipline of our Lord and God. Let us take care how we build upon the foundation in our own lives, and let is care for one another enough to watch over each other’s construction projects as if they were our own. Together, and together with God, we shall achieve mightily.
