October 20, 2015
Saint Frankenstein
No one would deny that there
are many different parts in the body of Christ. However, when it comes to placement
of those parts, church leadership often takes it upon themselves to determine
where they want those parts to function. If believers are allowed to participate
in the body only as leaders determine, we may start looking more like
Frankenstein than the Bride. “But God has combined the members of the body and
has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so
that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have
equal concern for each other” (1 Cor 12:24b-25 NIV).
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3 comments:
This insight is a feast for thought, not just food.
Grace and peace
Pumice,
Nice to hear from you again.
Gail
Gail;
-----This temporal age is full of a spiritual cancer. It makes nothing new, but twists what God has made. Man’s brain was made for group behavior in the way it observes others then reflects upon its own conformity. With the Holy Spirit embedded in the heart, the influences and inspirations of godliness should freely flow through a group. But the Spirit doesn’t directly reach the consciousness; the Word does that. But the Word doesn’t directly articulate the soul in meaning and understanding, the Spirit does. The man’s mind and body are catalytic to the processes between the two. “Blessed is the man [whose] delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” (Ps 1:1-2) “Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness…make Thy way straight before me.” (Ps 5:8) “…a good man [will be filled] with the fruit of his deeds.” (Prov 14:14b) “When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him…The highway of the upright turns aside from evil;” (Prov 16:7,17a) “From the fruit of his words a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him.” (Prov 12:14) What grows in the soul is expressible only through the body in words and/or deeds. We’re not Spock. Then having been made social creatures for expressing goodness and understanding, man’s penchant to view himself as group leaders and directors of expressions becomes cancer.
-----Then why Heb 13:17? Because individual minds are incomplete. Collectively, a group knows a lot of stuff. Individually, we each know a smidgeon. But that smidgeon feels like the whole world. It is human nature to perceive one’s own awareness as the way things are, when in reality, it is only a perception of a part of the way things are. And a pretty small part at that. Humility recognizes this. And when it does, it reminds the mind of the greater unknown for one or both of two purposes 1) to turn focus upon doing well what you know well, and 2) to invoke a cry out to the Lord with a hearty search for more knowledge and understanding. Some cry out and search more than do others. These folks become quite attached to getting close to the Lord and learning His ways. So the Lord calls them to the burden of edifying others by teaching and exhorting and correcting through influence, inspiration, and gentle admonition. I believe the first love lost was the personal relationships between leaders and the led which turned into corporate relationship between the clergy and the laity. In the former was the soul, learned and blessed from calling upon, searching for, and walking with the Lord giving himself to the needs of those less learned, adding to the unique upbuilding the Lord had begun within each one. This is in the mind of Christ (I Cor 2:16;Phil 2:1-7.) There is a very real, individual identity amongst the body parts of I Corinthians 12. Leaders of Heb 13:17 serve the guidance individuals need for what the Lord is doing in them.
-----But everything God made on this earth is twistable. Especially man’s relationships. It is not so fun to see others grow up in what the Spirit leads with only a little help from your hard efforts as it is to see the whole group grow your concepts and perceptions of the Lord, doing what you think is important the way you think it necessary to do. This tears down and destroys what the Spirit would do for the individual, then throws him into a general lot to raise covert praise for the leaders by praising Jesus the leaders‘ ways. Nicolaitans, these are, people conquerors, who long to see their own ideas about the Lord reflected in the whole lot of the conquered. It is in the mind of the Antichrist to replace reflections of the Lord with reflections of leaders, teachings of men gone beyond what is written.
-----The line between these is razor thin. But the consequences to genuineness are enormous.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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