Clergy over the laity mindset, excessive pastoral authority, a cultural lack of community, an emphasis on individualism, market-driven church ministry philosophies, a modern consumer mindset to Christianity–all of these and more contribute to what I believe is the greatest need in churches today: the “one another” ministry.
What is the “one another” ministry? It is the mutual encouraging and exhorting, indeed even admonishing, which is to be woven throughout the life of a church. It is the pattern we see over and over in the NT (Acts 2:44-47; 4:32; 18:27; Jn. 13:34-35; Rom. 1:12; 12:10, 16; 13:8; 15:1-7, 14; 1 Cor. 12:25; 14:26, 31; 2 Cor. 13:11; Gal. 5:13; 6:1-2, 6; Eph. 4:2-3, 32; 5:19; Phil. 1:27; 2:2; Col. 3:13, 16; 2 Thess. 1:3; Heb. 3:12-14; 10:24-25; James 5:16; 1 Pet. 1:22; 4:8-11; 1 Jn. 1:7; 3:11). The above list is not exhaustive, either!
I believe this is a great need in most churches. Our church has small groups in part to fulfill the instruction to daily exhort one another in Heb. 3:12-14. Yet even in small groups, intentional encouraging and exhortation can be neglected. It is one thing to believe and another to practice that belief. Our small group is in the process of trying to become more intentional in this regard. (By the way, this still must happen in church-wide contexts too. But small groups definitely can help us fulfill this important feature of church life.) In preparing for a small group meeting, I looked at 1 Thessalonians a little further concerning this “one another” ministry, and want to share my findings with you, briefly.
1) This “one another” ministry is a way God’s Word is intended to Work in us.
2:13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
I believe that God’s Word presently working in the believers, in part, was their living it out through love, encouragement, and exhortation as we will see.
2) This “one another” ministry is needed lest our faith die.
3:5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.
with
Heb. 3:12-14 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
Paul in 3:5 clearly indicates that he feels their faith could have died. This would have made his labor vain. What made him confident this was not the case was their faith and love and mutual love for Paul, which Timothy testified to. Heb. 3:12-14 also indicates that without mutual love, expressed through loving exhortation, our faith might die. This means that this “one another” ministry is vital in helping us persevere.
[Note: I am not claiming that we must produce works to save ourselves. Rather all truly saved people will work good works (Eph. 2:8-10, Titus 2:14), and it is by these works that their faith’s genuineness will be known (Matt. 7:16, James 2:20-26, Rom. 8:13, and especially 1 Jn. 2:19). Since we are admonished that our faith might be in vain (1 Cor. 15:2) and directed to examine ourselves whether we be in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5), and further instructed to make our calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10), we must not take our faith for granted. Rather we must with Paul recognize that some have made shipwreck of their faith (1 Tim. 1:19), realize that we ourselves could potentially make shipwreck of our faith (1 Cor. 9:27, Phil. 3:8-14), and so resolve to hold on to faith, and fight that good fight of faith, and thereby take hold of eternal life (1 Tim. 1:19; 3:8; 6:11-12).]
3) We must depend upon God to energize this “one another” ministry in our personal lives.
3:11-13 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
As I said before, we can believe in this, but when the rubber meets the road it is difficult to practice. Thus we must depend on God to “make” us increase in this “one another” ministry. (See also 1 Thess. 5:23-24, set at the end of a series of what I believe are coorporate exhortations .)
4) We need to always abound in this regard and grow, doing “one another” ministry “more and more”.
4:9-10 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, [See also 3:12; 4:1; and Heb. 10:25b]
We have never “arrived” when it comes to this or any other ministry. We need to be growing and abounding more and more.
5) This “one another” ministry has many facets.
We are to…
a) love each other [3:12 and 4:9-10]
b) encourage one another [4:18 and 5:11]
c) “be at peace” with one another [5:13b]
d) “admonish the idle” [5:14a]
e) “encourage the fainthearted” [5:14b]
f) “help the weak” [5:14c]
g) “be patient with them all” [5:14d]
h) not seek vengeance (not repay wrong for wrong) [5:15a]
i) “seek to do good to one another and to everyone” [5:15b]
j) “rejoice always” (In context, this is a coorporate command) [5:16]
k) “pray without ceasing” (again, while this certainly applies personally, it is a coorporate command) [5:17]
l) “give thanks in all circumstances” [5:18]
m) let the Spirit move (do not quench the Spirit)[5:19]
n) do not despise the preaching and teaching of the word [5:20]
o) test everything (including sermons and teaching from the context), holding only to what is good [5:21]
p) abstain from all forms of evil (church discipline could be in view with the coorporate context, too) [5:22]
6) This “one another” ministry is clearly a duty of every believer, not merely the church leaders, elders, deacons, or pastors.
5:12-14 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle,[c] encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all….
From the above verses it is clear that each brother (and the word can refer to men or women) in the church is responsible to follow the commands of vs. 13b (be at peace) and following. Notice that 1 Thess. was addressed to the whole church. If the pastoral staff, elders, and deacons are the only ones needed to minister to us in this encouraging, exhorting, admonishing sense, why is it that most of the NT epistles are addressed to churches (ie the people) rather than just the elders? Phil. 1:1 mentions the saints in Philippi as the primary audience, with the elders and deacons also–not the other way around.
7) This “one another” ministry is indispensable.
4:18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. [See also 5:11]
Notice, Paul’s having written the words to each person in the church was not enough. They were to pick up the book/letter and use its teaching to encourage each other. Just reading the Bible and studying it alone does not cut it. We need the mutual ministry of the Word to be working in us through the mutual encouraging and exhorting, even admonishing, of our fellow believers (along with a weekly sermon from our preacher).
Thank You! I hope every Christian in America reads this post.
Thank you. I do too! If only churches in America majored more on expository, Bible-based preaching perhaps Christians would be equipped to see what is so central to Scripture.
I hope also that every Christian would read your call to unity too.
Is the opposite of excessive pastoral authority, sufficient congregational authority? The person who doesn’t like too much pastoral authority would listen to the entire congregation. Instead of making a decision unilaterally, he would humbly submit himself to the view of the whole church. Or would he instead find people outside of the church who will agree with him, ignoring the whole church? He wouldn’t want to listen to the whole church because he is too smart for all of them, humbly speaking of course. He doesn’t “see” a deep devotion to Christ from them. Of course, no one can really judge externals, except for certain times when very, very gifted people can tell whether people are actually devoted. He looks to the body, the big one, the universal invisible one to find what he wants to hear. Ultimately who is the authority in this? He is. This same man becomes a pastor, and his own church disagrees with him, but he again looks for outward sources, disregarding his own church. Oh the beauty of the universal church! The unassembled assembly!
“Anonymous” does not seem to direct his comment at anyone in particular. Everyone in general then is free to ignore it.
I do contend that each of us should have a high view of local churches. We should seek to submit to the church as a whole and our leaders/elders/pastors specifically. Yet any church may be in error, and believers can prove all things and hold fast what is good. They can leave errant churches too. The Spirit guides all believers in the truth. It is popish to contend that he only guides churches or pastors.
The Spirit is the one who brings about unity and guides believers in truth. As we look back to the Reformation, for instance, we can see the Spirit’s work clearly. Not to say that any one group or any one church has a corner on correct doctrine, but the Spirit has moved the vast majority of believers throughout history to affirm the principles behind the universal church doctrine. It is a very small and divisive group which contends that there is no legitimacy to that doctrine. This is not “the time and place” (to borrow a common expression) for a discussion of the universal church. But an understanding of the LXX’s use of ekklessia as the predominant term to apply to the whole people of God (much more so than the word for synagogue) in the OT, helps one understand the implications of the term ekklessia when it is used in the NT.
We should also assume then, Bob, since we are going to look at history to make our point about the meaning of “church,” that infant sprinkling is correct, state churchism too, and also essentially killing people as a means of separation. When will Pitchford come to my rescue about arguing without using the Bible. The whole people of God congregated in the Old Testament. When do they do that in the NT? Bob, you fully misrepresent the context in which the Old Testament Greek ekklesia translated the Hebrew term. Horrible hermeneutics. How did Jesus use the term ekklesia in Revelation 2 & 3 Bob? I’m now going to argue like this group, and this would then have to be a loving argument, since this group defines what loving arguments are: Bob, did you know that in the 118 or more usages of the Greek word ekklesia that in over 90% of those usages, it is clearly speaking about a local church? Did you know that Bob? Bob, have you never received training of any capacity before. I know stop arguing as this group does. This last portion was written only as a display, only as a display from your universal broadcast system. OK, so Bob, shall we scratch at finding something in the LXX and then look to reformation, possibly even revisionist, reformation history, to get our understanding of “the church?” Where is Pitchford, where is David, when I need them?
Anonymous,
As far as ekklesia in the Septuagint (LXX) is concerned, I was depending heavily on Grudem, and may not have understood his point accurately. From further study in Colin Brown’s near exhaustive resource (Dictionary of New Testament Theology Vol. 1) it is clear that qahal and edah are the two Hebrew words similar to church. Yet ekklessia is only used for qahal in the LXX (while synagoge is used for both but especially for edah). Edah came to encompass Israel as a whole with her laws and distinguishing characteristics as a people. It is natural that the NT authors would not employ synagoge which translates edah in the LXX for the church, as they saw the church as distinct from Judaism and its ritual laws. Qahal was specifically the formal assembling of Israel in relation to its covenant and in regards to worship. It is significant that ekklesia translates qahal but this does not prove that ekklesia should be understood as universal (which point I wrongly attempted to make earlier, as you pointed out). Rather ekklesia‘s use for qahal is significant in that the ekklesia should be seen as a continuance of the assembly of God’s people, rather than a wholly new entity. As the assembly of God’s people, who now are spread abroad beyond Palestine only, the ekklesia can be seen as the one people of God–the sum total of all the visible expressions/physical assemblies of God’s people.
Let me quote Grudem (from pg 854 note 2 in his Systematic Theology Zondervan edition) “However, the extensive use of the word ekklessia in the Septuagint to refer to assemblies not of pagan mobs but specifically of God’s people certainly must be taken into account in understanding the meaning of the word when used by New Testament authors. The Septuagint was the Bible that they most commonly used, and they are certainly using the word ekklessia with awareness of its Old Testament content. This would explain why Luke can so easily record Stephen as referring to the “church” in the wilderness with Moses and yet many times in the surrounding chapters in Acts speak of the growth of the “church” after Pentecost with no indication that there is any difference in meaning intended. The New Testament church is an assembly of God’s people that simply continues in the pattern of assemblies of God’s people found throughout the Old Testament.”
Yes in the OT all of God’s people assembled in one time and place. In the NT this was not the case. Yet still all of God’s people could be considered the “church”. This is clear from the NT authors use of the term to mean the following (taken from Colin Brown’s conclusions [he is the editor of a translated work and the article was actually written by L. Coenen] in the Zondervan 1975 edition vol. 1) “[The church] is ‘the realm of blessing in which the crucified Lord and the realm of dominion in which the risen Lord continues to work'” (pg. 300). Also, “the ekklessia thus becomes a way of describing the sphere towards which Christ’s Lordship is directed” (pg. 302). Locally, this is the local church. But taken in whole, this is the universal church. Brown also contends that particularly in Eph. and Col. (but also in 1 Cor.) as well as in Acts, the universal sense of the church (its oneness) is evident.
Yes I do know that most of the 118 references to ekklessia are local. The other 10% allow us to understand the term universally too.
Do not take this as a full-blown defense of the universal church, just a defense of your criticism of my use of ekklessia in the above comment. Plenty of works abound with a full-blown defense of the universal church, perhaps that is why most of that church understand this to be the case. Indeed Dr. Kevin Bauder (an IFB) is correct when he says that it is a minority position (among Baptists even) which recognizes only the local church. (See his article here in that regard.)
Please note this post in regards to the recent discussion. This post summarizes the discussion and declares it is now over. Any further comments by “Anonymous” will be deleted. Again check out this post for the reasoning behind this decision.
Thank you.
This is my first post
just saying HI
This “one another†ministry is a way God’s Word is intended to Work in us.
Well Said.
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