Since we are part of a body with many members, what is the challenge we face in an individualistic age like ours? Well, the answer is not the ecumenical movement. Our task is not to create the unity of the body, above all not from the top down. The unity of the body is a given for those who are “in
Although the Bible calls the Church a body, believing in one God and one way of salvation, we have ourselves split the Church—at least the Church that people see. John Stott’s concern in the book One People is that we have done it by dividing the clergy from the laity. His book is designed to recapt
There is a second important truth about the Church taught by Paul's image of it as Christ's body. Not only does that image define the Church as the community of those who have been joined to Christ. It also teaches that there is but one Church. That is, there are not multiple churches, even less mut
Paul's image is very helpful at this point. For when he speaks of the body of Christ, obviously he is speaking of those who belong to Christ, who are joined to Him in exactly the sense in which he speaks about our being joined to Christ in Romans 5 and elsewhere. This is a spiritual reality, invisib
Anyone who is interested in the doctrine of the church and senses its importance must be a bit surprised to notice how little the word "church" actually occurs in the Bible. The word is not found in the Old Testament at all. The first time it occurs is in Matthew 16:18, then again in Matthew 18:17.
In discussing right relationships and ministry within the body, Paul speaks specifically of spiritual gifts, that is, those that are to be exercised for spiritual ends within the fellowship and outreach of the church: prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing to the needs of others,
The second phrase Paul uses in Romans 12:3 for thinking rightly about ourselves is "in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." This is a little bit more than simply seeing ourselves as made in the image of God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God and having part in the overall plan of
Our look at right relationships brings us to another very real problem in self-evaluation: thinking too lowly of ourselves, or false humility. When we think too lowly of ourselves we exude a false kind of humility. Sometimes this is really pride, because when we tell people bad things about ourselve
In discussing right relationships, there are two possible errors in self-evaluation, and Paul suggests both of them in what he says: first, to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think; and second, to think too lowly of ourselves, which is to have a false humility. Today I want to spend
Some time ago I came across the story of a man who imagined himself to be quite spiritual. He was talking with a more mature friend, and he asked his friend to pray for him that he might be humble. “Pray for me that I might be nothing,” he said. His friend replied with some wisdom, probably thinking
The Lord Jesus Christ took it upon Himself to prove that God's will was indeed good, pleasing and perfect, even though it involved the pain of the cross, which in itself hardly seemed good, pleasing or acceptable.The Lord Jesus Christ took it upon Himself to prove that God’s will was indeed good, pl
We need to prove by our experience that the will of God is indeed what Paul tells us it is, that is, that it is good, pleasing, and perfect. We need to check it out. Moreover, it is by checking it out that we will begin to find out what it actually is. This is the exact opposite of our normal way of
The will of God that we are talking about is good, pleasing and perfect. In other words, it teaches about the nature of God’s will for us as well as the fact that God has one. 1. The will of God is good. In a general way the will of God for every Christian, regardless of who he or she is, is reveale
In this verse "will" is to be interpreted in its context, and the context indicates that the will of God that we are encouraged to follow is the general will of offering our bodies to God as living sacrifices, refusing to be conformed to the world's ways, and instead being transformed from within by
I find it significant that this is where Paul's statements about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, rather than being conformed to the patterns of this world, end. They end with proving the way of God to be the best way and the will of God to be perfect.Some time ago, the staff of The B
The doctrine of redemption—the fact that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16)—infinitely intensifies man's value, because it teaches that even in his fallen condition in which he hates God and kill
If human beings are more important and more valuable than the humanists imagine, why is it that things are so bad? The answer is the Christian doctrine of sin, which tells us that although people are more valuable than secularists imagine, they are in worse trouble than the humanists can admit. We h
If we are to have renewed minds, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and other people as the world thinks of itself and others and instead begin operating within a biblical framework. But what does that mean? Well, when we turn to the Bible to see what it has to say about human beings, we find
In the last twenty years something terrible has happened to Americans in the way we relate to other people, and it is due to the twisted humanism we looked at yesterday. Christians have become conformed to the world in this area, and we must take a good hard look at this to be sure we don’t get swep
In our last study from Romans 12, I introduced the Christian doctrines of God and revelation as the biblical response to the world's way of thinking. The Christian doctrine of God is the Bible's answer to secularism, humanism, relativism and materialism. The only one I did not write about explicitly
Or I think of Paul. He had been on the side of Christ’s enemies. He was one who had a vested interest in unbelief. He didn’t want to lose his traditions. He didn’t want to have to change his life. He didn’t want to have to turn his back on all that he had achieved in Judaism. Thus, in his supposed z
But now I want you to look at something else. I want you to turn from thinking about those enemies of Christ, who are exemplified by the soldiers and the priests on that first Easter Sunday, and instead I want you to focus on Christ’s friends, those who learned of the resurrection and who met with J
Here's a case, which like so many others, shows us a man who proposes a theory to explain away the reality of the resurrection. And instead of being rebuffed or forgotten, as Schofield and his book should have been, he is rewarded. It's a case of rewards instead of punishments.Let me give another ex
The soldiers had left their post, and the tomb was empty. They must have been terrified, wondering what was going to happen to them. After the religious leaders met together, they did not seek to have the soldiers punished. Instead, the guards were told to lie about what had happened. They were to
