Worthy?

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Ephesians 4:1 – “Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God.”

Just a note about process. In recent readings in scripture, I have concentrated on limiting my scope to one or two verses. That is, concentrating on a particular thought by the author. Reading slowly, to gain clarity on what is being said. Many times – too many – I have read rapidly (which has some merit) and just run over some key insights because I was moving too fast. This deliberately slow reading has been helpful. Not merely to facilitate ‘meditation’ on the text, but to read with focused comprehension.

And that is appropriate. Ancient writers were pressured into writing brief and succinct prose as writing materials were very expensive. Those writers (generally) needed to say a lot in a little space. A good student, using sound process, will tease out that dense writing to gain additional helpful insights.

Let’s get on with it …

Look at this phrase: “Live as people worthy of the call.”

What’s interesting is that Paul made such a strong statement regarding being saved by grace, yet now – as saved people – we are to live as if we deserved being saved – worthy of the call. We are to live as people who are worthy of the call. God has called us – we all agree on that. Calvinist theology says he did so without any consideration for our works or other merit – and I affirm that.

If it is true – that we did nothing to merit our calling; that it was just placed on us without any discernable worth – then where does this obligation come to live as being worthy of the call? In theological fact, I am not worthy of it. Yet Paul now seems to ask us to live as if we did ‘merit’ salvation.

Well, that’s a lot of fun Theological Geek stuff. Is there a resolution? Yes – of course there is. It is the difference between B.C. and A.D. “B.C.” is commonly known as “Before Christ,” while “A.D.” is an acronym for the Latin, “year-of the-Lord.” As a kid, who didn’t know Latin, I was just told “A.D.” meant ‘After Death’ – meaning after Jesus’ death.

Here is a part of the Good News in the calendar of history. Before Christ (B.C.), I was broken, destroyed, and dead. Remember Ephesians 2:1? We were spiritually dead and hostile to God.

But God.

God did something. He called us - though we had no worth, merit, or leverage – and we were Born From Above (John 3:3), regenerate, a new person. Before Christ, we were helpless, dying, and weak.

But After Death – especially Jesus’ resurrection – we are made new, have a great future hope, and are strengthened by God the Spirit living within us. Now, in my personal ‘years-of the-Lord,’ I am a new person with power to live differently – to live as if, yes, we are worthy of the calling that God gave to salvation.

In fact, I am worthy because Christ died for me and now lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

And here, our non-Calvinist friends help us out. It turns out that Wesley stated that we should be able (theoretically) to completely avoid sin. That is, we have been given the spiritual power to do exactly that. But, in our weakness and folly we choose to give in to the power of habit and fall into temptation and sin.

Paul says, ‘Don’t do that! Understand who you really are, now! You are God-indwelt little Christs – start acting like it!’

What To Do About The Past?

One of the more unexpected things I’ve learned about in revitalization efforts is the role of the past. Initially, it was merely the simple understanding that what happened in the past constituted the building blocks for the present. Understand what happened; understand the present better; gain insight into a likely future. All very straight forward and everybody gets it.

But wait, there’s more!

The next insight on the past is that it shapes us – both individually and in the groups and organizations we are part of. Both the traumas and successes of the past shape us and become the experiences that create the lessons of our lives, the values we live by, and the lens by which we perceive both the present and the future.

In the Bible, there is a concept of ‘generational sin.’ The notion goes somewhat like this: ancestor so-and-so commits a grave sin. That experience shapes him, distorts him, and creates new dysfunction. Having no appreciation for the consequences of that sin, those distortions and dysfunctions get subtly passed on to the next generation where those distortions can become amplified and further shaped. That second generation passes on the dysfunction to the third generation. And so forth. God, in Exodus 34:7, indicates that iniquity passes to the third and fourth generations. There are other passages.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this. Sin corrupts. Why would we think that sin would not corrupt between generations? The western church has believed that the very sin nature of humanity is passed between generations. It seems consistent that specific sin patterns would also be passed along.

But wait, there’s more.

Back about ten years, I was in a seminar with a guy named Kenneth Quick who’ written a book, Healing The Heart Of Your Church. In the book, he discusses one of the barriers to church vitality and that is an unconfessed corporate sin. Specifically, the sin of former leadership. Ken builds a case from scripture that leaders of high character take responsibility for the past sins of their groups – even if they individually had nothing to do with them and the events are separated by significant time.

This was a powerful concept and I later saw it in action. I was working with a church who seemed stuck. We’d tried various exercises and I had remembered that there was a significant church leadership failure several years prior. I asked the question of the current leadership, have you publically acknowledged the former leadership’s failures and communicated repentance to the rest of the church? Sadly, the leadership did not want to hear anything about this kind of leadership. ‘It was a long time ago. We’ll just be picking at old wounds. How do you expect me to be responsible for somebody else’s problem? There’s nothing to be done about any of those issues today.’ And so forth. What was sad for me was the denial of this Biblical concept of leadership.

In an article appearing in Christianity Today (Sep2017), D.L. Mayfield writes “In Memory Of These” about the same concept of corporate responsibility in the area of racial violence and reconciliation using many of the same Biblical sources. That is, that our current generation of believers should recognize, become convicted, confess, repent, and seek reconciliation for the sins of racism committed generations ago.

This message has been heard and acted upon in the last couple of decades in certain Protestant denominations. I applaud the even awkward attempts to express quality leadership in taking responsibility for past, unconfessed sin.

In any reformation movement, you need to go back before you can move forward. Usually, we acknowledge that idea in going back to the founding principles and clearing away the accumulated accommodations that have been reasonably made along the way – but which now do not serve the purpose intended. What also seems to be the case is that we must go back and clear out the ‘Sins Of The Fathers,’ as well.

Conviction.

Confession.

Repentance.

Reconciliation.

It is hard, but the direction is clear:

“Therefore, I [Paul], the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:1-3.

Gifts To The Church

Ephesians 4:11-12 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; ...

In the past, I had considered the gifs spoken of in Ephesians 4 to be spiritual gifts like the lists in Rom. 12 and 1Cor. 12. But my opinion has shifted a bit. I think the meaning is that these are people. That is, God has given us gifted people who are gifts to the church: gifted people who God gave the church to fill the roles of apostles, gifted people who God gave the church to be evangelists, and so forth.

This challenges my thinking about the leaders in church. We frequently hear the idea that our pastors, teachers, evangelists are just plain folk who aren’t any different from the rest of us. Even more so that the “calling” to ministry isn’t anything different or special from the calling to be a godly computer repair guy or Jesus-loving health insurance agent.

Something bugs me about that. I get it – of course the idea is to 1) prevent pride and arrogance from destroying our leaders, and 2) to affirm those that don’t have the ‘call to ministry' that God delights in them and their work, as well.

But when I look at scripture, I do not see leaders who are ordinary guys and gals. I see very high-capacity, usually well-trained, and high-functioning people. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jesus, Matthew, Luke, Paul, John – all of these were not ‘just plain folk.’ And when I look at the pastors who I’ve been shepherded by: Ron S., Paul C., John M., Dan B., Ben B., Jack L., , Dave G., (a string of Bible names there!) Rob A., and Keith K. – these guys have uniformly been very bright, could’ve succeeded and prospered in any field they would’ve entered, and worked hard at their roles. The same goes for most missionaries I know and the few evangelists I know about (I admit to not knowing any folks with the titles of “prophet” or “apostle”).

What is impressive to me is that God captured these folks lives, shaped them, and then gave them as gifts to the churches they served. God gave gifts of specific people to fill those roles. That's how I now understand this passage.