SATURDAY 28th
Ephesians 4:7-16
NIV (v14) – ‘Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.’
ESV (v14) – ‘. . . so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.’
So far in this epistle, we discover that we are placed or rooted in Christ (Chapters 1&2) and we need to be rooted in love. (Chapter 3:17) here in chapter 4, I suggest that we need to be rooted in truth or sound doctrine. In verse 11 we read that Jesus himself has given ministries to the Church defined as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and their purpose is to:
1) equip the saints for the individual works of ministry, this means that we can all be equipped in some way to serve.
2) to build up the body of Christ so that
3) we will attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity and to the measure of the fulness of Christ and as such
4) we will no longer be like children, tossed by the waves and carried by every wind of doctrine this leads to
5) speaking truth we grow up in every way to him who is the head, Christ Jesus himself who we are joined to as his body, the Church.
These verses paint a beautiful picture of gathered Church which is the body of Christ being taught, instructed with good sound doctrine and built up in the faith so that each one can become mature in the faith, serving one another as we are connected with each other as the body and to Christ the head.
Sound doctrine is essential, if you remember our look into Galatians, Paul had to deal with things creeping into the Church that he likened to being like a little yeast spoiling the whole, and it only takes a small perversion of truth to lead to error. Paul’s instruction to Timothy was very clear that he was to ‘preach the Word’, today we can get hold of so many books, and hear so many ‘sermons’ which are what we call motivational, self-help, how to better yourself books / ‘sermons’, and sadly many books which are full of man’s thoughts rather than the truth of God and I firmly believe that these are not the primary books that preachers should be turning to when getting their material for sermon preparation, we should be turning first and foremost to the Scripture, and if anything in any of the other books even has a hint of anything that does not agree with what Scripture has to say, then they should be put away, even disposed of. Error often comes in when an individual starts to formulate their own ideas, promoting these ideas over and above the truth of the Word of God, listen to what Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy Chapter 4 verses 1-5, ‘I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.’ I myself have gotten into ‘difficulty’ with Church members in the past for publicly speaking out against error that was being openly accepted, it is not always easy, and can cause hurt, but at the end of the day, my responsibility as a shepherd was and still is to feed and to protect the flock under my care, and I would rather expose and deal with error now than to stand before God and be asked as to why didn’t I fulfil my ministry in protecting the sheep under my care. This is an important part of pastoral responsibility, in Ezekiel we have a warning to the watchmen over the towns and cities, which should also apply to pastors and church leaders, we are watchmen over the people of God, (Ezekiel 33:1-9) but alongside this is also the responsibility of the sheep to be what we see in Acts 17, ‘Berean believers’ those who received the word eagerly, but examined the Scriptures to see if it was so. (Acts 17:11) May we all be eager to be rooted in Christ, rooted in love, and rooted in truth, sound doctrine. May we who preach ‘Preach the Word’ not ‘fanciful ideas’ from books.