The Parable of the Bricks

8 12 2009

 

Tuesday Re-mix – This is a popular post from last year, updated and resubmitted for your consideration and comments.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. I Corinthians 3:10

But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. I Corinthians 12:18

Building a body of believers is like the man who set out to build a house. He had seen some beautiful houses made of brick, and determined that his house would also be made of bricks. He began searching for the strongest and most beautiful bricks, because he wanted his house to be both strong and beautiful. He took great care in his search for bricks. He read books on how to find lots and lots of great bricks. He spent long hours perfecting his strategic plan for collecting more and more bricks. He became an expert at finding and collecting bricks. He wrote books and taught seminars on the subject. His brick collection was one of the largest the world had ever seen—piles and piles of bricks covering acres and acres of land. Nobody knew more than he knew about how to collect bricks. The entire world recognized him as a wildly successful expert when it came to finding and collecting bricks.

He never built the house.

Another man set out to build a house. He too would build with bricks. When he had found his first two bricks, he began to examine them closely to determine how they might fit together. They were not particularly beautiful bricks nor were they all that strong, but he knew he could use them.  When he had determined how they would best fit together, he used mortar to join them together. In this bond, the two bricks supported one another and made each other stronger. Then the man found a third brick and, again, took great care to figure out how it would best fit with the first two. And then there was another and another. Some were strong, some were beautiful, and some were neither strong nor beautiful.  But with each new brick, great care was taken to examine it and place it just perfectly along with the others, and then bond them together. With the mortar, the bricks supported each other and made each other stronger. Before long, the man had a house. It was much smaller than the pile of bricks the first man had collected. And it didn’t necessarily grab the attention of the world with its size or beauty. But it was a good house, useful to the man for many purposes.

And he was a good builder.

How about the church you are building?  How is it coming along?

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com





The Spiritual Gift of Blah, Blah, Blah

17 11 2009

Tuesday Re-mix – This is a popular post from last year, updated and resubmitted for your consideration and comments.

If I speak in the tonguesof men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. I Corinthians 13:1-3

You really cannot have a complete discussion about unity in the church without talking about Spiritual gifts.  They are, after all, an essential piece to the puzzle.  The Spirit of God Himself, manifesting Himself through the believer, is a huge promise from Him…a promise upon which unity rests.  Without the Spirit of God working in and through us, there would be no hope for unity because there is no other provision for unity other than the Spirit.  How He chooses to manifest Himself, then, through believers (i.e., what we call Spiritual gifts) is a critical cog in the machinery of the church.

Paul begins his discussion of Spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12 with these words: “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.” He then teaches the concept of Spiritual gifts wonderfully, including the whole metaphor of the church as a body.  But then at the end of that chapter, he segues from that discussion with these words: “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” In other words, now he is going to paint a picture of how it all looks in a very practical, understandable way.  And with that introduction, he teaches us the most important lesson there is about Spiritual gifts: that they can be amazingly helpful or utterly useless.  It is up to us.

Your Spiritual gifts, it seems, are always going to be perceived by the church through the lens of interpersonal relationships.  Where relationships are good (i.e., where love abounds) the gifts are helpful and fulfill their intended purpose.  But where relationships are bad (i.e., where there is no love), even something as powerful as the Spirit of God Himself will not be received when He manifests Himself through a believer.  That activity (gifts without love) is described as just a bunch of noise: a “resounding gong” or a “clanging cymbal”. Kids today would describe it this way: blah, blah, blah. Meaningless.  Worthless.  Under those circumstances, your Spiritual gift of teaching becomes the spiritual gift of blah, blah, blah.

Can you imagine such a plan on God’s part?  I’m going to do my work in the church through the people of the church.  If their relationships with one another are not right, then they will not benefit from my work.  It will all be dependent upon their love for each other.  No love, no power. I don’t know about you, but I probably would not have planned it that way.  That is an absolutely astounding move on God’s part.

So here is the question it begs: how is the “lens” between you and the others in your church?  Is it such that the church is able to receive God’s “gift” through you?  Have you maintained such loving relationships with your church that your Spiritual gift actually has meaning in their lives?  Or is time to pull out the glass cleaner and get to work on that lens…

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com





Coloring God…

3 11 2009

Tuesday Re-mix – This is a popular post from last year, updated and resubmitted for your consideration and comments.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. I Corinthians 12:7

When I was in elementary school it was kind of a big deal how big your box of crayons was.  They had little boxes of 8, bigger boxes of 24, large boxes of 48 and then they had the super duper extra large box of 64.  That last one was the one you wanted.  It was important.  You just never knew when you might need those odd colors like goldenrod or periwinkle.  You wanted options.  You didn’t want to find yourself limited to just a few simple colors, especially if you had a project that demanded a broader spectrum.  You didn’t just want “red”.  You wanted every imaginable shade and phase of red.  It was frustrating trying to color pictures with a few colors when an entire palette of colors was required in order to get it right.

In that same vein, I’ve always been troubled by interpretations of “Spiritual gifts” which purport to limit the “gifts” to a list of 5 or 9 or 14 gifts.  I know there are several New Testament passages which discuss spiritual gifts and which do list specific examples of them, but I see those lists as just that: examples or illustrations of the larger concept.  After all, Spiritual gifts are a “manifestation of the Spirit”.  So, how many ways is the Spirit capable of manifesting Himself through a believer?  Does anybody really want to limit God to a number?  It is  like someone handing you a box of 8 crayons and saying, “Now, go and color a picture of God.”  If ever there were a time when you would want the absolute largest box of crayons imaginable, this would be it.

I have also always been a little troubled (not a lot, just a little) by those “Spiritual gift inventories” which try to pigeon-hole my gift, slap a label on it, and send me on my way.  I tend to think about spiritual gifts more in terms of a “package” of ways in which God manifests Himself through a believer.  It is a blend of gifts, maybe a little bit teacher and a little bit encourager in one person but a whole bunch of evangelist with just a touch of teacher in another person.  It’s more like a combination of ingredients in different proportions than any one ingredient.  I just don’t think trying to describe how the Spirit of God manifests Himself through a believer with a single label or descriptor is a concept big enough to encompass our God.  It seems terribly limiting and I do not believe it captures the essence of the scriptures’ teaching on the subject.

The concept of Spiritual gifts is not complicated.  A Spiritual gift is simply how the Spirit of God shows Himself through a believer.  The gift is not just an ability or a talent; the gift is the Spirit of God Himself.  Moreover, your “gift” (i.e., how God shows Himself through you) is not for your benefit at all…it is for the benefit of the body of Christ.  Specifically, the purpose of your Spiritual gift is “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:12-13. So, if you ask me how many different ways God is capable of doing that, I am more than a little uncomfortable trying to put a number or labels on it.

When it comes to trying to describe God as He is manifested through a brother or sister in Christ, I’m going to need a bigger box of crayons…

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com








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