Pastoring Fully Devoted

Every believer is a disciple. Therefore, every believer needs to be discipled. Christ’s commissioning last command was to make disciples. This involves making believers then shaping believers into the likeness of Christ as He wants to be seen through them. Believers are taught to practice the disciplines of a Christ-like life – Scripture familiarisation, prayer, worship, witnessing, and spiritual gift development. Every believer is a disciple and benefits from people who care enough to disciple them. But every believer also needs pastoring. Pastoring involves protecting, nourishing, healing, restoring, tending, feeding, loving. The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians as both a discipler and a pastor. Sometimes it’s difficult to decide which of the two important roles the great apostle fulfils – especially when he uses words like euparedron. 

The Greek word, euparedron only occurs once in the New Testament. It is only used by the Apostle Paul. It is only written to the Corinthians. It involves a believer being both discipled and pastored. The Corinthians had already felt the discipline of the apostle Paul in the first six chapters of his epistle to them. But in chapter 7 of First Corinthians, he changes gears. The topic changes. His focus shifts from dealing with the two big problems within their church (disunity and immorality) to marriage. In some of his other epistles he deals with the theology of marriage. But to the Corinthians, he speaks to them about marriage as a pastor. He tends to them as a shepherd. He stands at the gate of the sheepfold and protects from being ravaged by false teachers, the prevailing culture, and their own flesh. 

“I am saying this for your own benefit” he tells them. This is the heart of every true shepherd. They lay down their lives for the lives of their sheep. A shepherd’s life is for the benefit of his sheep. He goes on to say that he is not trying to deprive or restrain them by giving them burdensome commands. “I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you.” This is what every true shepherd wants for their sheep: their joy and fulfilment. ‘I want you to be safe and secure’ he tells them. Again, this is pastoral language – “but to promote good order and to secure” he puts it. He then concludes verse 35 as a loving pastor – but this time with the tone of a discipler – 

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
First Corinthians 7:35

Paul’s pastoral aim for his flock is the same as his discipling aim for them. He wants them to be – “fully devoted” to the Lord. The kind of devotion to Christ that he wants for them is undivided devotion to the Lord. ‘Devotion’ is the Greek word, eupa-redron. This is any pastor’s mission. It is my motive in writing this. It is my motive when I preach. It is my motive when I visit. It is my motive when I counsel.

Perhaps God has called you to help shepherd people within our church? If so, perhaps you could make euparedron your mission for those you are caring for? Maybe your heart lies in other areas of Christ’s ministry to each other. Irregardless, we should all strive together to make euparedron (“undivided devotion to the Lord”) our mission for each other.

Ps. Andrew

Being A Full Bottle Christian

A recent research project conducted by the RZIM organisation revealed that the main reason why people stopped going to church was that it was "dry" and "hypocritical". Probing further, they discovered that the two reasons given were linked. Where church attenders felt that those they were worshiping with were hypocrites, their experience of worship became meaningless. In his resultant book, Has Christianity Failed You? Ravi Zacharias makes a very simple appeal which I would like to commend in a moment.

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.Isaiah 55:1

Jesus described coming into relationship with God as being like having your thirst quenched. When we "drink" from the water that Christ offers, our lives are filled with deep meaning and purpose. When we are filled with the water of God we are transformed from the inside out. But quite unlike drinking physical drinks, when we drink from the water of God we becomedispensers of God's living water like a bottle of life-giving water on offer to dehydrated and soul-parched people (John 7:38).

but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
John 4:14

Christ offers living water - the only kind of 'water' that can truly satisfy a person. We are created to 'drink'. God's people are the best drinkers of divine life-giving water. In the midst of the sand-storms of life when our mouths become parched and strength become weak, we have the privilege drinking from a never-ending supply of life-giving, soul-refreshing water. This is why we don't need bad imitations of this purpose-filling, peace-giving water such as alcohol, drugs, sex, amusements, or man-made religion - which all leave people thirstier than quenched. This is why it is a tragic thing when God's people neglect to drink the living water on offer from God and choose rather to reject the Source of Living Water and instead hew out their own cisterns.

for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.Jeremiah 2:13 (also Jer. 17:13)

When you are filled with 'living water' you become like an oasis. Apparently, under the right conditions, in a dry desert, the water of an oasis can be smelled from a great distance. And in a world gone phenomenally dry, those who are filled with the water of God emit an utterly foreign fragrance to the water of the world (2Corinthians 2:14).  This fragrance is made up of the combined aromas of integrity, self-sacrifice,generosity, kindness, voluntary acts of service, care for others, prayerfulness,forgiveness, and humility. Our lives are like a bottle (the Apostle Paul used the word "jar" or "earthen vessel" [2Tim. 2:21 - Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work]). Our bottles should be full of the living water which God offers. It's when a believer is not - that is, when their bottles are not 'washed', or, when their bottles are 'dry', or, when their bottles are full of the wrong 'water' - that people look at us and label us as "hypocrite!". What this hypocrite has discovered and would like to share with others who would like to be full bottle Christians is, the God who saved us and loves us and longs for us to drink His living water wants us to continually come to the Well for more living water.

¶ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink."John 7:37

Wannabe a "full bottle Christian"? Then, "Come." Come to Christ. Come to Christ not unwillingly, not arrogantly, not in a self-conceited way. Come thirsty. Come empty. Come openly. Here's what I have found: the more you come to the Well, the more Living Water you draw, the more you realise you are unworthy to come! This is precisely where the Enemy of souls strikes!!!! He reinforces this awareness and "hopes-to-hell" that you forget that your right to God's Living Water is not actually a right at all but a 'borrowed' guest-pass given freely to you by the only One who does have a right to it - because it is His. Therefore, if your walk with Christ is characterised by a growing sense of unworthiness then it is a sign of your growth - not your sinfulness.

¶ The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of lifewithout price.
Rev. 22:17

Your Bible is a gate to the Well. Your church is a gate to the Well. Your time of prayer is a gate to the Well. It is my hope and prayer that we can be "full bottle Christians" that makes the charge of dryness and hypocrisy by opponents of Christ and His cause as laughable! This is not to say that I hope we can all attain to sinless perfection in this life, but rather that people will see us as "full bottle Christians" who make frequent trips to the Wellspring of Life for forgiveness, strength, peace, joy and fulfilment.

Psa. 34:8 ¶ Taste and see that the LORD is good.
Oh, the joys of those who trust in him!

Ps. Andrew