Growth of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:15-16)
The most important relationship you have as a Christian is the one between you and god. But it's a mistake to think that's the only relationship that matters. Far from it. Through the bible, god shows us that every relationship matters. He cares how we treat our friends and how we treat our enemies.
Jeremy Lallier:He cares how we treat family and how we treat strangers. He cares how we treat people in power and how we treat the powerless. He cares how we treat the people we see every day, and how we treat the people we may never see again. But outside of our relationship with God, one of our most important relationships is with our fellow Christians, the ones who are also committed to following God. We aren't meant to exist in isolation.
Jeremy Lallier:We're meant to walk beside each other and to strengthen each other. More than once, the apostle Paul compared the church of god to a body, a living spiritual organism with Jesus Christ at the head and his followers making up the rest. Here's what Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 15 through 16. He was in the middle of explaining that Jesus Christ has given his people unique jobs to do within the church. So that we all, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
Jeremy Lallier:One of the important things about this analogy is that it means each Christian has something valuable to bring to the body as a whole. A kidney is important, but so is a lung or an eyeball or a foot. They're each wildly different, but it's not like you'd be okay with just losing any of them. Paul says that the whole body is joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. Everyone in the body benefits from what every part of the body contributes.
Jeremy Lallier:So what does that mean for you and me? A couple things. 1st, it tells us how important it is to make sure we're connected to the right body. Paul emphasized speaking the truth in love. Now, there are more than 2,000,000,000 people around the world who call themselves Christians.
Jeremy Lallier:But we don't all believe the same things. And not just little things, but big things. Like who Jesus Christ even was. Whether or not he always existed. How the Holy Spirit works.
Jeremy Lallier:What books belong in the bible. Whether the 10 commandments are still valid. What day the Sabbath is. Whether God cares what we do on the Sabbath, where we go when we die, what God expects us to do in this life, and, oh, yeah, What his overall plan for the entire human race is. Are you connected to a body that teaches what Jesus taught?
Jeremy Lallier:Are you sure? Because the body is a two way thing. We give to it and we receive from it. And if we're connected to the wrong body, we're going to be receiving the wrong things. You can check out the footnotes for more information on identifying the church that Jesus built.
Jeremy Lallier:The other thing is that if we are connected to the right body, we have a responsibility to contribute to it. The church, the body of Christ, grows to become more like Christ only when every part is doing its share. Being in the body means that god has a role for you in the body. Something that you can do to make things better. Now what is that role?
Jeremy Lallier:I don't know. I couldn't tell you. I don't know if you're a kidney or a lung or an eyeball or a foot. What I do know is that if you jump at every opportunity to serve and contribute within the body of Christ, you'll start to get a sense of what that role looks like and how you can effectively lean into it. Because the more we each make the effort to do that, the more the whole body grows to look like the head of the body.
Jeremy Lallier:Jesus Christ himself.
Kevin Scarbrough:Verse by Verse is a companion podcast to the daily bible verse blog, which you can find on the Life, Hope, and Truth Learning Center. Check out the show notes for more.
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