We live in an age of unprecedented richness in discipleship materials. Vaults of old treasures of spiritual classics are unlocked daily to enrich this generation, and new treasures are being continually crafted by contemporary Christian leaders. The rise of the Internet, social media, tablets, and the like make these discipleship materials instantly available. The sermons available are almost limitless, even from deceased heroes such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones. We can download audio of Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" to our iPhone and listen to it while waiting for a connecting flight. We can live-stream outstanding evangelical conferences from anywhere in the world right into the comfort of our homes. Almost any church has archived sermons available for free.
But this abundance of resources has not come without a corresponding danger’that individual Christians will consider themselves sufficiently fed by celebrity pastors and leaders (living or dead), and will feel no need for covenant membership in a healthy local church. There is a new generation of anonymous, isolated cyber-disciples rising, and it is to them I would speak. I want to make a case for covenant membership in a healthy New Testament church as the God-ordained pattern for true discipleship, for true progress to Christ-like maturity. I will focus primarily on Ephesians 4:7-16 to make this point. My desire is that anyone who reads this will be drawn in a compelling way to a right relationship with the local church.
Christ's Wise Provision for Discipleship: The Local Church
In Ephesians 4:7-16, the Apostle Paul unfolds with amazing clarity the wisdom of God in organizing the church for spiritual growth. He addresses here the variety of gifts given to Christians, showing how all of them ultimately work together to the end of spiritual maturity for every disciple of Christ. Paul asserts that spiritual gifts are grace from God, given to each Christian "according to the measure of Christ's gift" (v. 7). Every single Christian has received some kind of spiritual gift package measured out carefully by the wisdom of Jesus. Verses 8-10 reveal Christ lavishing these gifts after he ascended to sit higher than the heavens, filling all things. Without these spiritual gifts operating as he intends, the body of Christ could never be brought to maturity.
Verse 11 highlights five vital roles that Christ provided in order to accomplish maturity for all disciples: "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds (pastors) and teachers’¦" Though 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 both mention other spiritual gifts (for example, administration, serving, and giving), these five have one key theme: the delivery of the word of God to the body of Christ. "Apostles and prophets" are mentioned earlier in the Epistle’the foundation upon which the church is built as they testify to Christ Jesus as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). In the era of redemptive history in which the Bible was being written, the apostles and prophets revealed God's word directly to God's people, saying, "Thus says the Lord." As the word revealed to the apostles and prophets was written down in Holy Scripture, it became the foundation of the faith of God's people, with Christ Jesus the crowning theme. So the first two of these five roles represent the inerrant word of God, mediated to the church by human mouthpieces, and eventually written down for all time.
The next three roles all function as delivery systems to get that inerrant word to the people of God all over the world. Evangelists take the word to those who have not heard it before to draw them into the body of Christ by repentance and faith. Pastors and teachers then settle in with those converts and complete the Great Commission by teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded (Matt. 28:20). Comprehensive obedience in discipleship is the goal of the ministry of the word, that every area of life be conformed to the will of Christ as revealed in his word. Pastors and teachers’by sound exegesis, passionate preaching, and careful teaching of the Scripture’give to the people of God everything they need for life and godliness.
Verse 12 is a key link to verses 13-15, and is vital to understanding the role of the local church in the discipleship of every Christian. Verse 13 defines well the goal of discipleship: "unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Verse 15 displays Christ as the "Head of the Body," into which each member of it grows up in "every way." The connection between verse 11 and verses 12-15 is that the word of God (as delivered faithfully by the five roles mentioned in verse 11) primes the pump for the body of Christ to do the "work of ministry" (v. 12) needed for the full maturity of each member. The timeless mechanism of discipleship is the whole church doing these specific "works of ministry," not merely the faithful unfolding of the word of God, however vital that is. In verse 12, the works of ministry are done by "the saints," and verses 15-16 make this even clearer: "Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love" (italics added).
Plainly, daily progress toward the final goal of universal conformity to Christ is achieved not merely by the five roles (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers), but also by "the saints," the "whole body," "each part" working properly by doing the work of ministry. The word primes the pump for this and is present at every moment of ministry, for it is conformity to "the faith" (that is, Christian doctrine) and the "knowledge of the Son of God" that is the core of our unity. It is by "speaking the truth" (that is, accurate Christian doctrine) "in love" that we grow up, and the essence of that growth in discipleship is both doctrinal and practical. We are no longer children, blown and tossed back and forth by the winds and waves of false doctrine as delivered by satanic cunning through false teachers (v. 14).
The word flows through every act of service, every dollar given by generous givers, every wise and orderly act of those gifted as administrators, every vision for future ministry urged by those with gifts of faith, every passionate prayer offered, and every moment of sweet and loving hospitality. As "each part does its work," it does so in light of faithful teaching of the word by pastor-teachers, with increasingly clear understanding of God's final goals for the church in the world.
Finally, Paul's use of the "body" analogy clearly implies that each part is connected in a healthy way to the whole. The text itself speaks eloquently of the interconnection of the body, the way that "joints and ligaments" hold our bodies together. Just as no member of our body can live if it is severed from the rest of the body, no individual Christian can be healthy if not rightly connected to the church. Our fingers, ears, and internal organs all receive life-sustaining nutrients from our digestive system, oxygen from our respiratory system, and antibodies (when needed) from our immune system, all of them delivered by our circulatory system. Each part must do its proper work for the whole body to be healthy and growing. So it is in discipleship’we must be rightly connected to a healthy local church to grow into Christ-like maturity.
