{"id":1086,"date":"2016-03-02T15:44:59","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T20:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicanconnection.com\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2016-03-02T15:47:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T20:47:56","slug":"growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anglicanconnection.com\/growth\/","title":{"rendered":"‘GROWTH’…"},"content":{"rendered":"

F<\/span>or many, church is an irrelevant institution<\/b>\u00a0filled with self-righteous hypocrites. The\u00a0Letters<\/i>\u00a0of Paul the Apostle paint a very different picture of church \u2013 a picture of vitality, community and\u00a0\u00a0growth. We see this for example in Paul\u2019s thanksgiving for the church in Colossae.\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

1<\/sup>Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,\u00a0<\/i><\/span>2\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span>To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.\u00a03<\/sup>\u00a0In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,\u00a0<\/i><\/span>4\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span>for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,\u00a0<\/i><\/span>5\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span>because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel\u00a0<\/i><\/span>6\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span>that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.\u00a0<\/i><\/span>7\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span>This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,\u00a0<\/i><\/span>8\u00a0<\/sup><\/i><\/span>and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit\u00a0<\/i>(Colossians 1:1-8).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A NEW COMMUNITY<\/h2>\n

Thanksgiving<\/b>. Paul doesn\u2019t thank God that the followers of Jesus in Colossae were \u2018religious\u2019. Instead he focuses on three features: their\u00a0faith, love\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0hope<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faith<\/i><\/b>. The Colossians did not just have \u2018faith in God\u2019. Their\u00a0faith\u00a0<\/i>was\u00a0in Christ Jesus<\/i>\u00a0who, Paul tells us, enjoys a unique relationship with God the Father. People often say they believe in God, but it is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who supremely reveals God to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Love for all the saints<\/i><\/b>. Their faith was not just intellectual, simply giving a mental nod to God. Rather, their relationship with God showed itself in their relationship with one another. They were a new community, the people of God. The love of which Paul spoke is one that binds people of different national and cultural backgrounds into a unique community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hope<\/i><\/b>. Paul\u2019s words,\u00a0because of the hope laid up for us in heaven<\/i>, are unexpected. There is a causal link between\u00a0hope<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0faith<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0love<\/i>.\u00a0Hope<\/i>\u00a0is not the outcome of\u00a0faith\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0love<\/i>: it is the cause of it<\/b>. And this\u00a0hope<\/i>\u00a0is not just Christian optimism. It is the certainty of the coming again of Jesus and the new heaven and earth he will bring. The object of our faith is not yet in our full possession. All this opens up a different dimension of our understanding of life now. It suggests\u00a0we need to learn to live now in the light of the age to come<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

And there is something else:\u00a0the theme of growth bubbles through Paul\u2019s words<\/b>. The expansion of Christianity is going on\u00a0all over the world,<\/i>\u00a0Paul says. And, notice his emphasis on\u00a0the truth<\/i><\/b>.<\/i>\u00a0The gospel<\/i>, he says,\u00a0is the word of the truth.<\/i>\u00a0He could have omitted any reference to\u00a0truth<\/i>, but he didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul wanted to stress that the gospel message is true, as someone has commented, in a\u00a0counter-intuitive<\/b>\u00a0sense: the statements it makes about God and men and women are beyond human invention and imagination. It is also true in an\u00a0historical<\/b>\u00a0sense: the eye-witness accounts of Jesus\u2019 life, death and resurrection were no fabrication. They are trustworthy. God\u2019s gospel is also true in the\u00a0experiential<\/b>\u00a0sense: when we put our trust in Jesus Christ who is at the center of the gospel message, we discover that our faith is not a hoax but a genuine experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because it was the truth, the church in Colossae had formed and was growing. People there had heard and responded to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in all its truth, preached by pastor Epaphras. And, consistent with what Jesus taught in John 3: God\u2019s Spirit was doing his work of regeneration.<\/span><\/p>\n

You may want to consider:<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. the significance of the expression,\u00a0faith in Jesus Christ<\/i>, as the focus and meaning of\u00a0faith<\/i>;<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. that the phrase,\u00a0love for all the saints<\/i>, implies that\u00a0faith<\/i>\u00a0is not just intellectual or simply the expression of a relationship with God;<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Paul\u2019s meaning of\u00a0hope<\/i>: it is not a pious \u2018hope\u2019 but confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of God\u2019s original promise; we should see life now in the light of the reality that is to come;<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. the implications of the way that people hear and respond to the gospel \u2013 why don\u2019t we work at ways to introduce others to God\u2019s gospel? Why don\u2019t we pray that the Spirit will be at work opening blind eyes to God\u2019s truth?<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    \u00a9 The Rev. John G. Mason<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    or many, church is an irrelevant institution\u00a0filled with self-righteous hypocrites. The\u00a0Letters\u00a0of Paul the Apostle paint a very different picture of church \u2013 a picture of vitality, community and\u00a0\u00a0growth. We see this for example in Paul\u2019s thanksgiving for the church in Colossae.\u00a0\u00a0 1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-on-wednesday"],"yoast_head":"\n'GROWTH'... - The Anglican Connection<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Perhaps we should stop thinking about church growth in terms of numbers, but instead on three features: their\u00a0faith, love\u00a0and\u00a0hope and a community of faith.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/anglicanconnection.com\/growth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'GROWTH'... - 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