SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/19/2017 7:04 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Sum of the Ministry
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
1:28b
Message of the verse: “that we may present every man complete in Christ.”
Perhaps this title should be “The Goal of the Ministry?”
John MacArthur writes that “The goal of the ministry is
the maturity of the saints. Paul
expressed that clearly in Ephesians 4:11-13: ‘[Christ] 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; until we all attain to the unity of the
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure
of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.’” So I guess that MacArthur must agree with me
which does not always happen.
Paul writes in Colossians 4:12 “Epaphras, who is one of
your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always
laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the
will of God.” We see here that
Epaphras shares the goal of maturity for those in the Colossian church. Now let me talk about a couple of words in
this passage to better help us understand it.
The word “bondslave” means slave “1401 δοῦλος doulos doo’-los from 1210; n;
TDNT-2:261,182; {See TDNT 199} AV-servant 120, bond 6, bondman 1; 127” Now we
mentioned this earlier that every time that the word is translated from the
Greek word “doulos” it should be translated slave but because of the
connotation that we have of the word “slave” the people who translate the
different translations of the English Bible don’t translate it that way. When you look at Philippians 2: 7 “but
emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of
men.” Same word “doulos” meaning that Jesus took on the form of a slave, and if
Jesus did it we can to for we who are believers are all slaves to God. Now the next word that I want to look at is
the word “perfect” “4b1) full grown, adult, of full age, mature,” and the word
could also be translated as mature, for when we see it as perfect and don’t
understand what the Greek word means it can cause us to have a guilty
conscience if we think we are not living up to being perfect. It is a process, as I like to say that we are
perfectly going towards perfection, not there yet but going that way through
the power of the Holy Spirit.
The goal of every Christian Pastor is not only to lead people to the Lord, but to also bring them to maturity. 19 “"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20).”
John MacArthur writes the following about the word mature
“To be complete, or mature, is to be like Christ. Although all Christians strive for that lofty
end, no one on earth has arrived there yet (cf. Phil. 3:12). Every believer, however, will one day attain
it.” John writes the following in 1 John
3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We
know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” We move towards maturity by feeding on the
Word of God as Paul wrote to Timothy “16 All Scripture is inspired by God and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every
good work.” I remember my first Pastor
that I sat under after becoming a believer, and he would break up these verses
by the different books of the New Testament, not sure that I remember the way
he did it but I believe it is there.
We want to close this section by offering a quote from
Walter Lippmann as John MacArthur quotes him in his commentary concerning the
Colossian heretics and what they believed about perfection being only for the
elite:
“As yet, no teacher has ever
appeared who was wise enough to know how to teach his wisdom to all
mankind. In fact, the great teachers
have attempted nothing so utopian. They
were quite well aware how difficult for most men is wisdom, and they have
confessedly started that the perfect life was for the select few.”
MacArthur concludes by stating “In contrast, Christ
offers spiritual maturity to every man and woman.” We should all say Amen to that as we surely
cannot do it on our own.
2/19/2017 7:33 PM
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