“A spiritually healthy believer is easily edified.”
I remember how forcefully that sentence struck me the first time I read it. It hit me as being very insightful and extremely important, summarizing some important truths in just a few words. It was written in the context of the life of the church, including as it relates to its gatherings to worship.
The first thing worth noticing is that it assumes, rightly, that the purpose for gathering is ‘edification’ (being spiritually strengthened) not entertained. There’s a huge difference between the two – a difference many seem to be forgetting.
The New Testament makes it clear that, along with honoring God, the purpose of our gatherings is to edify one another – to build each other up in faith, love and hope. And the Bible is equally clear that such edification happens via the ministry of the Word of God, spoken and sung. It’s crucial to remember here that, according to the New Testament, our ‘true spiritual worship’ is our living, every day, consecrated to God, not conforming to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds which results in knowing and doing God’s will. (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 14:3, 5, 12, 26; Col. 1:28; 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Heb. 10:23-25; 2 Pet. 3:18)
(It’s also important to recognize that none of the Biblical words for worship mean ‘music-making’. The 3 key Biblical words for worship mean 1) bow down in submission and dependence, 2) revere, and 3) serve. Of course all three of these attitudes and actions can happen through singing and music-making, but given today’s prevailing trends it seems helpful to remind that we need to resist the idea that ‘worship’ equals ‘music-making.)
And so we gather to glorify God and edify one another; in fact one of the most important ways that we honor God is BY edifying one another, helping each other spiritually. And that brings us back to the idea of being ‘easily edified.’
The point of that phrase isn’t that it’s easy to grow in holiness, faith and love. No, the point is that the spiritually healthy believer realizes the essential simplicity of how that process moves forward – it happens through the prayer proclamation of the Word of God, faithfully interpreted and relevantly applied.
All the spiritually healthy Christian (including new Christians) really need or want is to gather with the people of God around the Word of God to be encouraged to continue in the will of God. Again, there is a simplicity to all this, a simplicity that can be lost in the midst of a prevailing spiritually UNhealthy mix in evangelical Christianity today that confuses entertainment with edification and then looks to audio-visual technology to be the ‘means of grace’ (that is, factors of sound and lighting, etc., become essential to producing a certain effect of ‘worship’). It’s a major topic that will be the focus of another post sometime.
But the point now is, the healthy believer doesn’t need all that. He or she is ‘easily edified’. Have the people of God prayerfully and reverently and joyfully gathered around the Word of God (spoken and sung) in the presence of God? Well then, that’s all they really need. That will ‘do the trick’ – they’ll be able to grow in devotion to God, to one another, and to the work He’s called us to do.
And there is one other key characteristic of the spiritually healthy believer. Because he or she is now growing in the fruit of the Spirit, which involved a God-implanted love for fellow-believers, the spiritually healthy Christian does ‘is not self-seeking’ and ‘does not insist on his own way’ when it comes to gathering and fellowshipping together. (1 Cor. 13:5). One of the worst effects of the so-called ‘worship style wars’ of the past few decades is the erosion of the attitude of self-denying deference when it comes to matters of mere personal preference.
Well again, just to remind us, here are some other basic Bible passages that describe the attitude and outlook of the healthy, growing Christian:
1 Cor. 10:31-33 “…whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, … even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many…”
Rom. 15:1-3 “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself…”
Matt. 20:28 “…the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve….”
Phil. 2:3-7 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,…”
And isn’t that how the Lord described kingdom greatness? Being willing to be a servant, a slave (!) to others? (Mt. 20:25-27)
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Yesterday I saw a Facebook post from a young pastor who serves a growing, healthy church in Virginia. His post was simple, straightforward, with a profound lesson:
Bill's family joined our church.
No one invited them to dinner.
What did they do?
They began inviting people over for meals.
Today, most of our church has at least been invited into their home.
They changed our church.
Lord, help us be what we wish others would be for us.
Amen to that.
Finally, as I write this I think of missionary friends who are just returning after home assignment to the Dem Tribe in Papua, Indonesia. Jared and I talked a number of times about how spiritually eager and excited these very young converts are – eager and excited to hear more of ‘God’s Talk’ so that they can be doers and not just hearers of the Word. That’s what they really want; that’s what they really need.
It reminds me of those videos you see on YouTube when a tribal group received their first copies of the Bible in their own language. They are ecstatic. They are thrilled. And they are wise – because they have a Spirit-given anointing that has already taught them that the Word of God is really all they truly need to continue to grow in their knowledge of God.
They realize what many in the West and in the U.S. seem to not be so sure of; but they are sure, for they remember that their faith in God came in the first place via "hearing the Word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17), and so now they have the joyful expectation that, with their very own Bibles in their very own language, they have all that they need for life and godliness. They are ready to be ‘easily edified.’
But I’ve known easily-edified, others-serving, God-glorifying Christians in every church in America that I’ve been a part of. And they are truly beautiful people, reflecting the beauty of their Savior, because they’ve adopted a mindset of wanting to be just like Him. They bring glory to God, and edifying joy and encouragement to others. I want to be one of them.
