Link to Ted Edwards Home Page
This past week I was thinking about the culture we live in and the concept
of rugged individualism that many people hold to. Unfortunately this
worldview spills over into the Church.
Although most Christians would never audibly utter these words, I know some
of my brothers and sisters who feel the Church is there for them. Their view
of attachment to the Church is narrow. They involve themselves with the
Church to the degree that their needs are met.
This is a very unscriptural view of the Body of Christ. The fact is, if you
are a Christian, you are a part ... and an integral part. We are not
independent of each other - rather we are to be interdependent of others in
the Body. You are uniquely different from all the other parts, and uniquely
needed by all the other parts. We are all different and we all need each
other. Otherwise the Body is ill.
Eugene Peterson's The Message refers to this in Romans 12:
Paul's point was that we are all different, and we need each other. The
church he wrote to had similar struggles to what we see too often in our
world today. Some were inflating themselves and using their uniqueness to do
so. Others were being deflated, their uniqueness being used to do so. In
essence, Paul said, "We are all important ... let me illustrate."
Unfortunately, his illustrations have become the point and the point has
become lost.
Where do you fit in the Body of Christ? Are you functioning and working in
sync with other members of the body?
See you in Bible Class!
The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what
He does for us, not by what we are and what we do for Him. In this way we
are like the various parts of the human body. Each part gets its meaning
from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking
about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and
function as a part of His body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe
we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned
into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in
Christ's Body, let's go ahead and be what we were made to be, without
enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be
something we aren't.
Link to Ted Edwards Home Page