This post will also be Episode 41 of my Podcast.
This is Part 3 in my Edgewood Edge-U-Macation series. You can find Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here.
For the third part of this series, I am going to break from my This NOT That pattern. I contemplated a couple of titles for this post that might work, but in the end, I didn't really want to focus on what we don't do... but more on what we do do. In this particular case: Expository Preaching.
(This post will also serve as episode 38 of my podcast.)
So this is how it works: Jesus speaks, and then He tells John to write what He has spoken. The implication is that the angel of the church is to speak what he has read. So Jesus speaks, John writes, the angel reads, and the angel speaks.Alright… Just so you know the context… I had just read in this book previously:
So we know that the seven lampstands are the seven churches and that the Lord Jesus was walking around in the midst of His churches. The seven stars that He held in His right hand are the seven “messengers,” or pastors of these churches. The sword in His mouth is His Word, which He gives to the successive pastors in the upcoming passages.That is the paragraph right before that little paragraph that I read. This means that the “angel” that John refers to in this portion of Revelation is the pastor of a church. Douglas Wilson writes in another portion of the book (explaining in more detail):
The word angel need not refer to what we would call an angelic or celestial being. John the Baptist was called an angel (Mark 1:2). Human beings are called angels in the Old Testament also (Job 1:14; Is. 42:19; Mal. 2:7; 3:1). And the word is used by Luke to refer to ordinary messengers. Jesus “sent messengers (angels) before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him” (Luke 9:52; cf. 7:24). Now of course it is possible that the angels of the first chapters of Revelation are celestial beings, but in my view this creates many more problems than it solves.I knew this about Revelation, so I understood that idea when I read my little paragraph. I read "angel" but thought "pastor" when I was reading that... that little paragraph that I am beginning to believe God had queued up just for me. I think you should read it again, but this time, take into consideration a couple of things. One: I had just been praying, “God, please just tell me what to say… Give me the words to speak.” That thought was still rolling around in my mind as I read that paragraph. And two: I was hearing "pastor" when I read "angel"... Here it is again:
So this is how it works: Jesus speaks, and then He tells John to write what He has spoken. The implication is that the angel [pastor] of the church is to speak what he has read. So Jesus speaks, John writes, the angel [pastor] reads, and the angel [pastor] speaks.I’ve been reading all week… not knowing what to speak. I don’t want to oversimplify the process or underplay the importance of study and the ongoing development of improving my communication skills… but in a real way: Jesus speaks, the writers of scripture write, the pastor reads the scriptures, and then the pastor speaks.
At Edgewood Church, we are currently working our way through First Corinthians. The last two weeks we have been in Chapter 12. (Chapter 12 Sermon 1 & Chapter 12 Sermon 2) There have been several eye-opening moments for me as I have studied my way through this book, but some of the biggest ones, at least from my perspective, have happened in this chapter. As we finish up Chapter 12 this week, I came across a summary statement in one of my commentaries that left me nodding my head in agreement, and then typing the entire thing out. I then read it to my wife because I was marveling at its implications on they way we do church.Paul's use of the body metaphor to speak of the Christian Community in Corinth implies that he believes that God the Holy Spirit bequeaths to each Christian community all the gifts & graces it needs to be what it ought to be. In addition, the list of gifts in this chapter strongly suggest that God gives not only abilities but also persons as gifts to the community, weather apostoloi, prophets, teachers, or others.
But does God still do all these things for the ekklēsia today? We can certainly affirm that God provides amply for the modern at Christian community, but in some ways the provision is different. For one thing, if we are to follow Paul's ideas on this matter, apostoloi were gifts given to the ekklēsia in its first two generations, but not since then. Paul assumes in 9:1 that an essential criterion for apostleship is to have seen the risen Lord during the period of his resurrection appearances at the beginning of the church age. Furthermore, Paul tells us that he was the last to see the risen Christ (15:8). While we can certainly talk about the passing down of the apostolic teaching through the ages of the ekklēsia, we cannot talk about the passing down of the apostolic office. “Apostolic succession,” in the sense of a continued apostolic presence through a church office, is a myth, since no one after the initial witnesses can meet the essential criterion. Apostoloi were God's temporary gift to found the community of Christ, and this was probably already recognized by the end of the NT period, as Rev. 21:14 suggests (cf. also Acts 1:22). Neither “the twelve” nor “the apostles” (1 Cor. 15:5,7) were a continual presence even in the first century.
But nothing in the NT suggests that any of the other person's as gifts or gifts to persons ceased with the early ekklēsia. Indeed, there is a considerable evidence throughout the course of church history to the contrary. How might this conclusion be applied today?
Paul is apparently referring to all the Corinthian house congregations collectively as the body of Christ. This might well suggest that one particular local house church would not have all the gifts needed in that city to serve the purposes of Christ's body. Perhaps there is a lesson here for us. As many churches as we have in every city, none of them has all the gifts, graces, and human resources necessary to be the ekklēsia of God fully and adequately in that place. There is a warning here to every singular assembly that the “church” does not cease at its doorstep. Every local assembly needs every other local assembly to be complete. Just as gifted individuals cannot say to other Christians that they are unneeded it, since no Christian has all God's gifts, so, too, this is apparently true with congregations as well. It is not accidental that different Christian faith traditions have specialized in manifesting different gifts. For example, not all truly Christian congregations have prophets or tongues speakers in them, but some do. Or again, some churches have especially nurtured the role of elder or deacon(ess).
My plea here is not just for tolerance or ecumenical cooperation and appreciation but also for recognizing that we all need each other. Paul is correcting abuses of various gifts in chs. 12-14, but to correct abuse of a gift is not to rule out its proper use. I suspect that Paul would tell us that just as “charismania,” the overemphasis on prophecy or tongues, is not healthy, neither is “charisphobia,” the anathematizing of all such gifts. We are not called to act in the chaotic and selfish fashion the Corinthians did, but we are also not called to quench the Spirit and arrange Christian worship so that there is no room for the spontaneous Word from above to be shared. There is a balance between Spirit and structure, order and spontaneity, that should be maintained in any local congregation.
Finally, Paul’s word about giving more honor to the weaker members of the body of Christ, the less “presentable” ones, needs to be heeded. He believes that even these folks have essential gifts and functions to exercise. It is a mistake to bring the world’s evaluative system into the ekklēsia and to set up an honor roll that favors the more presentable and dignified, or those with the more outwardly showy or dramatic gifts. Paul believes that the body of Christ is only truly strong when it gives special honor and attention to its weakest members. The more presentable members do not need such attention.
