Models for Christian Living: Lessons from Surfing and St. Paul

What kind of person do I need to become to serve as a model of Christlike character for others?

A Lesson from Surfing
I took up surfing the year before I turned 40. I’d been watching surfers from the safety of the seashore for many years. I figured it was now or never. My daughters were elementary school age at the time and they eagerly took up the sport with me. My progress was hard won. It took well over a hundred attempts before I ever caught my first wave. My youngest daughter showed me up on her first attempt. She was seven years old. She was petite for her age. She was small enough that she didn’t even need a full sized surf board. I taught her using a four foot body board.
 
She caught her first wave just south of Port Canaveral, Florida. We were about thirty yards offshore. She was light enough that she balanced on the body board while I held it steady as we awaited the next set of waves. The perfect one approached. I pushed the board into the wave. My daughter kept her balance and glided down the face of the wave. At this moment, she did something extraordinary. She was so proud of her triumph that while she surfed the wave she began sharing her joy with everyone within shouting distance. She cried out, “Look at me! Everyone, look at me!”
 
I remember chuckling to myself at her lack of humility and thinking that she’d grow out of this. Yet, while reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul’s exhortation in 3:17 reminded me of my daughter’s words. Paul wrote, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.”
 
Paul’s Challenge to the Philippians
In Philippians, Paul calls believers to live as citizens worthy of the Gospel of Christ (1:27–30, 3:20). Paul writes to empower the Philippian Christ followers to serve as witnesses of the good news for their city. Of course the principal model for the Christian life is Jesus himself (2:1–18). Yet Paul offers Jesus as the first model of four that he includes from 2:1–3:16 as examples of what a citizen worthy of the Gospel looks like.
 
The issue in Philippians was the status of the believers within the Roman world. Many of the Christians in Philippi (like Paul himself) were Roman citizens. Roman citizenship offered substantial privileges within the Empire and was not common in the provinces. The city of Philippi was a Roman colony so Philippi enjoyed a standing within the Empire that other cities outside of Rome did not.

A fundamental insight in 1:27-4:1 is this: the status that one embraces sets the limits of one’s capacity to reach others with the Gospel. Roman citizenship is a set of privileges that one enjoys and is able to exploit for his or her own benefit. Gospel citizenship is a privileged relationship with God that unleashes one to lay aside personal benefits for the sake of God’s mission and for the good of others. 

Paul begins with Jesus. The hymn in 2:6–11 captures the core message of Gospel citizenship. Although (or perhaps because) Jesus shares equality with God, Jesus did not exploit this status for his personal gain (2:6). Instead, Jesus renounced the status of divinity and embraced the status of a slave (2:7). This was a profound subversion of the Roman social ladder. Slaves were at the bottom far below the gods (and well below the status of a Roman citizen). In fact, Jesus embraced his slave status to the extent that he was obedient to death on a cross (2:8). Don’t miss the significance of this statement. Jesus could have died in a variety of ways to atone for sin. He took up the cross in part because crucifixion was reserved only for those of no status such as slaves. Yet what happened to Jesus (2:9–11)? God highly exalted him and gave him the name above all names.

This is the first model for citizenship. The Philippians are to work out their salvation (2:12) in light of Jesus’ life and shine as stars within their generation (2:15). But it is easy to point to Jesus as the model because Jesus is no longer physically present. His story is aspirational, but Paul offers something profoundly incarnational. 

Paul moves to include three humans whom the Philippians know intimately as contemporary examples of Christ like character and action: Timothy (1:1, 2:19–24), Epaphroditus (2:25–30), and himself (1:1–26, 3:1–16). Timothy demonstrated a genuine other centered outlook in the way that he ministered among the Philippians. Epaphroditus was a member of the Philippian community. He faced death in order to serve in the mission of the Gospel when the Philippians sent him to help the imprisoned Paul. Paul himself suffered in prison (1:12–26) and modeled the reality that knowing Christ Jesus as Lord was a greater gain than any mere human accomplishment (3:1–16).

The Philippians knew these men. Paul couldn’t distort their character. Paul took this risk to teach us the importance of our personal lives in the advance of the Gospel. Paul could say with integrity, “If you want to see what the Christian life looks like, look at me as well as the lives of my co-workers Timothy and Epaphroditus.” 

Implications for Living
This text calls us to remember and give thanks for the women and men in our lives from whom we’ve learned how to live out the Gospel. Who are yours?

More importantly, it challenges us to recognize the necessity of nurturing personal holiness as an integral part of how God advances his mission in the world. Who is watching and learning from me?
 
As I think about Paul’s words to the Philippians, I see and hear my daughter surfing and crying out, “Look at me! Everyone, look at me!”
 

What kind of person do I need to become in order to serve as a model of Christlike character for others?

© 2017 Brian D. Russell

Mission and Holiness

In 1 Corinthians 9:19-22, the Apostle Paul describes his method of reaching the Mediterranean world with the Gospel.

NRSV 1 Corinthians 9:19 For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.

Paul describes an outreach strategy that modern thinkers would describe as contextual or indigenous. Paul worked to offer Christ to persons in terms of their own culture and thinking. Paul’s encounter with Greeks on Mars Hill is a classic example of this strategy. Paul’s conversation with a group of people on the Areopagus is recorded in Acts 17:16-34. He uses one of the Athenian’s own religious altars—one ascribed “To an Unknown God” as a vehicle for the proclamation of the good news about Jesus. In other words, Paul attempted to use some aspect of his target audiences own culture and belief system as a starting point or doorway into a conversation about Jesus Christ.

At least on the surface, most of us gravitate toward Paul’s strategy of “becoming all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” If we wish to live an evangelistic and missional lifestyle, there is much to learn here. This is a key element to learning to speak human.

For me, there is a key question: How does one embody such a mission strategy and stay true to the Gospel? Common answers such as, “I just follow Jesus” (though true) do not quite cut it because they are overly simplistic. In order to be the sort of persons who can follow in the footsteps of Paul and his co-workers (let alone the footprints of Jesus), we need to be profoundly touched by God. We need to be so rooted in God’s character that we are capable of adapting ourselves to new challenges, structures, and circumstances without losing the substance of who we are in Jesus. This means that deep character is more important than surface character.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “The clothes make the (wo)man.” In my thinking, this is completely backwards. If we want to be adaptable so that God can use us to reach the many, then we need to embody an ethos in which “the man [or woman] makes the clothes.”

This is not easy. It is even dangerous. In fact, Paul immediately follows up the above text with two strong warnings:

1) Paul uses an athletic metaphor to describe the seriousness of the danger:
NRS 1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. 25 Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. 26 So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; 27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

Those of us who wish to reach out with God’s love to all persons need to realize the level of commitment necessary. Just as the athlete must continue her or his training to stay on top, so must we who follow Jesus be intentional and consistent in the nurturing our own relationship with God. To be an elite athlete requires a commitment to a training regimen that empowers the athlete to improve performance over time.

2) Then, in chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians, Paul reminds his readers of the unfaithfulness of Israel despite the fact that the Israelites were eyewitnesses of incredible acts of God.

The lesson is clear: our past history with God is no guarantee of our future faithfulness. Reflecting on Israel’s past tendency to be unfaithful in spite of God’s faithfulness, Paul warning in 1 Cor 10:14 “If you think you are standing strong, be careful that you don’t fall.”

The conclusion is this: our own personal holiness cannot be separated from the mission that God calls us to fulfill. Character matters. When the character of Jesus truly resides in us, we can adapt ourselves to new contexts and God will use us to reach others who desperately need the good news that is found only in Jesus. If we follow Jesus boldly, he will lead us into the darkest places in the world so that we can serve as light as Jesus shines through us.

Reflection:
1) How adaptable am I to new situations?

2) Am I more likely to be influenced by culture or to influence the culture for good?

3) What habits do I keep that help to nurture my soul and replenish me so that I am ready to reach out and serve others?

4) Reflect on your own understanding of the relationship between a missional lifestyle and personal holiness.

© 2006 Brian D. Russell, Revised 2016.

My latest book (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World offers reflections on how to read Scripture in light of God's mission to bless all people.

The Book of Acts and Incarnational Mission

The Book of Acts also models an incarnational mission as part of its global and cross-cultural vision. The model has three key elements that invite our reflection. (1) The mission of God is a cross-cultural one and Jesus bridged the divisions that exist between insiders and outsiders. (2) Gentiles did not have to become Jewish with respect to the Torah in order to follow Jesus. (3) The Holy Spirit deploys various methods of advancing the Gospel depending on the context of its audience including use of Scripture, miracles, and the utilization of Gentile cultural and religious symbols (i.e., extra-biblical ones).

First, Acts demonstrates decisively that the Gospel is transcultural and that it can be translated into different cultures. The gift of tongues at Pentecost (Acts 2) demonstrated the Good News could be delivered in languages outside of the Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek of 1^st century Palestine. Moreover, the reality of the Spirit falling on Samaritans and Gentiles served as a tangible demonstration of the Gospel’s inclusiveness. Acts 10 narrates the remarkable story of Cornelius and Peter. Both men receive visions that prepare them for an encounter that will change both of their lives. Cornelius, who is a God-fearing Roman Centurion, receives a vision in which God tells him to send for Peter. The next day, Peter receives a vision in which he learns that God has pronounced the formerly unclean, clean. When Cornelius sends for Peter, Peter realizes that the vision was God’s way of preparing him for a mission to the Gentiles. He goes to Cornelius and presents him with the Gospel, which Cornelius and his friends and relatives receive. While Peter is still speaking, the Holy Spirit fills the Gentiles and, thus, marks their entrance into the people of God (10:44–48).

Second, as Gentiles became Christ-followers, the Jewish Christian leadership faced the issue of how the Torah’s laws affected these new believers. The question in its most basic form was this: Did a Gentile have to become a Jew in order to live as a follower of Jesus? In particular, there was a dispute over the question of circumcision. Did male converts to the Christ following movement need to be circumcised? Acts 15 recounts a remarkable conference involving Paul, Barnabas, and the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas shared the fruits of the Gentile mission, including all of the signs and wonders that God was doing to advance the Gospel. James, speaking on behalf of the Jerusalem leaders, discerned that God was indeed doing a great work among the nations in fulfillment of Amos 9:11–12. Gentiles did not need to embrace fully the Mosaic Law. In particular, they did not need to be circumcised. James wrote a pastoral letter that boiled down the Mosaic laws to avoiding idolatry and sexual immorality. This episode affirms that Gentile converts to the Christ following movement did not have to become practicing Jewish Christians. The key lesson here is that the Gospel can be contextualized into new cultures. Acts 15 also affirms that there are transcultural principles of moral conduct that establish a core ethos for Christ followers.

Last, Acts describes several modes of communicating the Gospel that push us to think beyond cookie-cutter approaches and remind us that the Holy Spirit deploys a variety of methods depending on the context. Sometimes the apostles proclaim Jesus via the exegesis of Israel’s Scriptures; sometimes it is through powerful signs and wonders; sometimes it is by cross-cultural contextualization, or some mixture of these options.

The Book of Acts shows that Jesus may be proclaimed to Jews and God-fearers by means of demonstrating that Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures. This is the heart of Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch in 8:26–40. Philip hears him reading from Isaiah 53 and begins a conversation in which he tells the eunuch about Jesus by starting with Isaiah. This convinces the eunuch who immediately requests baptism and becomes a believer in Jesus.

The Book of Acts demonstrates that miraculous signs can serve evangelistic purposes. Acts 16:16–34 tells the story of Paul and Silas imprisonment in Philippi and the conversion of its jailer. Paul and Silas are accosted by a mob for disturbing the city. During the night while Paul and Silas are singing hymns to God, there is a violent earthquake. The quake is from God, as not only is the prison shaken but all of the doors open and the chains of the prisoners are unshackled. Fearing that all have fled, the jailer is about to fall on his sword when Paul calls out to him with the news that no one has escaped. In response to this miracle, the jailer falls before Paul and Silas and asks, “Masters, what must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas share the word of the Lord with the jailer and his household. That very night he and his household joined the Christ following movement and were baptized.

Acts also shows the possibilities of contextualization for cross-cultural engagement. Acts 17:16–34 narrates Paul’s activity in Athens, the center of Hellenistic culture and philosophy. Paul has the amazing opportunity to share the Gospel with a group of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on the Aeropaus. Since Paul is addressing Greeks with no background in the Old Testament Scriptures or the God of Israel, he does not use Scripture to address them. Instead, he imaginatively begins by affirming the religiosity of the Athenians and starts his Gospel proclamation with reference to an altar inscribed with the phrase: “To an unknown god.” Paul uses this as a beginning point to tell about the Creator God who sent Jesus. Moreover, Paul quotes from the Greek poet Aratus to support his claims that all people have their source in one Creator God. Paul ends his proclamation by referencing Jesus, not as Israel’s Messiah, but rather as a man through whom the Creator God will judge the world in righteousness. The truth of this claim, Paul says, rests in the reality that God raised this man from the dead. It is fascinating that Paul does not state the name Jesus explicitly. Verses 32–34 record the reactions of the crowd: some scoff at the mention of resurrection; others express interest to hear more. Most profoundly, some join the Christ following movement. Paul models a contextualized Gospel presentation in which he uses cultural symbols from his target audience to proclaim the Gospel fully without watering down its content.

The implications of the various Gospel approaches in the Book of Acts are vital if a bit disconcerting to 21^st believers in the West. We tend to value systems and programs. In the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is the means, and the Spirit uses faithful witnesses to reach others with the Gospel depending on the needs of the audience. The Good News of the Gospel is Jesus. The witnesses in Acts always proclaim Jesus, but the means of getting to Jesus depends on the context of the audience. This does not guarantee success as in 100 percent conversion, but the Gospel spreads on its way to the person and the next region in fulfillment of Acts 1:8.

Reading the Book of Acts Missionally: A Spirit-Empowered Advance of the Gospel

Acts completes the story begun in the Book of Luke by narrating the spread of the Gospel from Jesus’ ascension to heaven to Paul’s imprisonment in Rome. The Book of Acts’ contribution to understanding the missional nature of God’s people is clear. A missional reading of Acts listens to the story of the emergence of the Christ following movement in the 1^st century Greco-Roman world as a guide to 21^st century mission.

The central insight of Acts is the empowering role of the Holy Spirit in the advancement of the Gospel. The Book of Acts is Spirit-driven. So much so that it is more appropriate to think of the Book of Acts as “Acts of the Spirit” rather than “Acts of the Apostles.”

The Book of Acts opens with the Risen Jesus prepping his disciples for their post-resurrection mission. This is a new era for the people of God. Jesus’ words are programmatic and visionary: “But you all will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes down upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (1:8). This text is full of meaning.

Fundamentally, this text reconnects the mission of God’s people explicitly with the Genesis 1–11 world. If the Gospel story from Genesis 12 until the coming of Jesus focused on the creation of a new humanity to reflect God’s character in the world, the post-resurrection era of the Church shifts to a “go to” ethos in which the people of God now engage actively the nations with the Good News about God’s abundant and transforming love.

Notice the language of Acts 1:8. It is a vision for world mission. It assumes that mission will continue in the area of the disciples' current geographic reality: Jerusalem and the wider land of biblical Israel. These had been the areas in which Jesus himself had served. But now there is a push beyond these regions to the rest of the earth. The Gospel came to its initial fulfillment in the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Now post-resurrection, it is time for the good news to spread to the nations in anticipation of the New Creation. This reconnects the Biblical story line with God's universal mission to all Creation. This fulfills the original mission of humanity (1:26–31). Under the power of the Spirit, the Church re-engages this mission with the hope of reaching the nations with the Gospel.

The Spirit is the catalyst for this new movement of God’s work in the world. With the resurrection and ascension of Jesus the Messiah, God sends the Holy Spirit into the world to empower his new humanity–the church–to serve as clues to the Kingdom of God. The sending and empowerment of the Spirit is the qualitative difference between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God. The Spirit guarantees the success of God’s mission. God’s people, the church, are people of the Spirit. The Book of Acts demonstrates this in dramatic fashion.

Acts 2 powerfully tells the story of the initial filling of Jesus followers with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Jews and god-fearers from all over the Roman world had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. Jesus’ followers had likewise gathered together. Suddenly, on the morning of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of fire. All of Jesus’ followers who were present (perhaps as many as 120 cf. 1:15) were instantaneously gifted with the ability to speak one of the many native languages of those gathered in Jerusalem. They began to announce the good news about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This reality reversed the confusion of Babel (Gen 11:1–9) and demonstrated the translatability of the Gospel cross-culturally. This is a key element, as Jesus’ followers could have spoken in Greek and addressed the crowd as a whole. But the mission of God is for the nations and, thus, the followers address the nations contextually in each person’s native tongue. Peter addresses the crowd and announces that this miracle of speech is the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy from Joel 2:28–32. God’s future age of the Spirit, as inaugurated by Jesus, has now come. Peter goes on to announce cogently the Gospel to all who gathered around him. The immediate result of the proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection through the power of the Spirit was the addition of 3000 persons to the Christ following movement.

The Book of Acts marks the spread of the Gospel around the world by tracing the advancement of the baptism of the Spirit. Whenever the Gospel reaches a new people, the Spirit’s coming signifies the creation of a new Jesus community. Unlike in the Old Testament, in the New Testament all of God’s people receive the Spirit for empowerment and cleansing. Acts records the apostles performing miracles and preaching in the power of the Spirit. As the Gospel reaches a new area in fulfillment of Acts 1:8, the Spirit fills believers in each region.

In subsequent chapters, the Gospel advances through the work of the Spirit. This will be a recurring pattern. In fact, although the full name of Acts is “The Acts of the Apostles, a better title would be “Acts of the Holy Spirit.” We will now trace briefly how this narrative thread plays out in the rest of the book. In Acts 3, Peter and John encountered a crippled man on their way to the temple. Peter heals the man and boldly proclaims the Gospel in Solomon’s portico. This scene catches the attention of the authorities who then arrest Peter and John. In Acts 4, Peter and John appear before the religious authorities in Jerusalem. The Spirit fills Peter (4:8) and enables him to boldly proclaim the Gospel before the council.

In Acts 7–8, an intense time of persecution erupts against the earliest Christ following movement. However, human power cannot quench the Spirit. Instead of stopping the Gospel in its tracks, the persecution has the opposite effect of helping to advance the Gospel by pushing it out of Jerusalem into surrounding regions. This is an important insight for a missional reading. The arrival of persecution does not mark the end of Christian witness, but instead it often enhances Christian witness (e.g., Philippians 1:27–30). The persecution in Jerusalem forces Jesus’ followers to flee, but in the process, they are carrying the Gospel to new people and new places. The inhabitants of Samaria are the fist beneficiaries. Jews and Samaritans had a shared history but also much animosity with each other. This does not stop the Gospel. Acts 8:4–25 reports the missional work of Philip among the Samaritans. They receive the Gospel. Reports of the reception of the Gospel by the Samaritans make it back to the apostolic leadership in Jerusalem. They appoint Peter and John to travel to Samaria in order to equip the new believers there. The believers in Samaria had received water baptism, but they did not yet have the baptism of the Spirit. Peter and John pray that God would send his Spirit upon the Samaritans, and they received the Holy Spirit (8:15–17). The Spirit’s arrival marks the advance of the Gospel to a new place and new people.

Next the Spirit empowers the Church to bridge the cultural gap between Jew and Gentle. In Caesarea, the first Gentiles receive the Gospel (10:44–48). The book of Acts marks the acceptance of the Gospel by a new cultural group with a report of the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the believers. In due course, the Spirit baptizes Jews (Acts 2), Samaritans (Acts 7), and Gentiles (Acts 10). This continues the fulfillment of Joel’s vision of the Spirit being poured out on “all flesh” (Joel 2:28). The gift of the Spirit is for everyone. The artificial boundaries of humanity dissolve: Jew and Gentile, young and old, rich and poor, slave and free, male and female.

God’s Spirit is the driving force in the expansion of God’s people from the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem (Acts 2) to Paul’s house arrest in Rome (Acts 28). The early apostles and witnesses were open and sensitive to the Spirit’s promptings. For example, in Acts 8:26–40, the Spirit leads Philip (8:29) to engage an Ethiopian eunuch in a conversation that leads to the man’s conversion. The Holy Spirit fills Saul (9:17) after his Damascus road encounter with the Risen Jesus (9:1-9) and he becomes Paul. Paul’s encounter transforms him. He shifts from being a persecutor of the church to being the person whom God uses to carry the Gospel to the Gentile world. His journeys ultimately bring him to Rome.

Acts 13–28 describes the forward advance of the Gospel from the regions of Jerusalem, Samaria, and Syria into Asia Minor (modern Turkey), Greece, and eventually Rome itself. Acts 13:1–4 narrates how the Spirit selected Paul and Barnabas to serve as ambassadors of the Gospel. We often think of Paul as a man with a driven personality. But Paul is not merely an ambitious and visionary missional leader; his exploits are the product of the leading of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls Paul (Saul) and Barnabas to preach the Gospel in these new lands. Eventually, Paul and Barnabas separate to pursue different calls (Acts 15:36–41), but Paul continues to carry the Gospel to cities that have not yet heard the name of Jesus. Under the guidance of the Spirit (16:6–10), Paul leaves Asia Minor to evangelize Macedonia and Greece. Paul continues to proclaim the Gospel until Acts ends in Acts 28 with Paul preaching about Jesus in Rome, the capital of the empire. This is significant because it represents a partial fulfillment of Acts 1:8. The Gospel has now moved from Jerusalem, the spiritual center of God’s people from the time of David to Rome the center of the dominant empire of the first century.

Provocatively, Acts concludes in an open-ended fashion. Acts 28 reports that Paul arrived in Rome and lived under house arrest for two-years. During that time, he taught openly about the Kingdom of God and Jesus. Interestingly, the Book of Acts ends abruptly. The reader does not learn the outcome of Paul’s stay in Rome nor of any additional advance of the Gospel. Scholars do debate the ending of acts.^[1] But is is clear that the reader is left to wonder what happens next. This invites the reader to create his or her own ending. In the absence of an Acts 29, we must imagine the next chapters in the advance of the Gospel and even to see our own day as part of the ongoing story of God’s people. The story of Acts 29 and beyond remains one to be written by Jesus’ followers today.

The Book of Acts serves an important role in developing a missional hermeneutic through its emphasis on the work of the Spirit. God advances the Gospel through the Spirit’s empowerment. Our hermeneutical reflection is vital but the Good News is that the Spirit continues its work.

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^[1] The issues turns on the meaning of “ends of the earth” in Acts 1:8 and the extent to which the Gospel reaching Rome represents the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.

The Danger of Conceit in a Missional Community

In the book of Romans, Paul presents in extended fashion his understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans 1-11).  The book moves explicitly to exhortation in Romans 12.  Paul calls the Christians in Rome to present their bodies corporately as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2).  Transformation begins with the individual but always involves the community as a whole.  God created us to live in authentic community with one another (Genesis 1:26-31).  When we experience the salvation that God has offered to us in Jesus Christ, God calls us to be part of the body formed by followers of Jesus Christ.  Corporately, we become a "living sacrifice" to God.  We are called to no longer be conformed to the patterns of the world, but rather be transformed.  The life transformation occurs in community.

It is striking therefore that the first specific direction about the community is a warning:

NIV Romans 12:3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

1) Paul writes not as a person with positional authority.  He writes as a person who has experienced the grace of God.  Paul could have written: I am an Apostle and this is what I say, or I saw Jesus Christ personally on the road to Damascus or I have been a student of Scripture for all of my life.  But he doesn’t.  He writes as one who has received grace.  Isn’t this the position of us all?  None of us can stand on our own merits.  As we begin to think about community, this is the starting point.  The community of followers of Jesus Christ is a community who owes its existence to the grace and mercy of God.

Paul reminds us of this elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

1:26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-- and the things that are not-- to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-- that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

2) Don’t be self-centered.  Paul’s admonition is so basic, but so profound.  Too many of us are infected with the disease of conceit.  Conceit robs us of our ability to function as healthy members of the body of Christ.  If we are puffed up, we will limit our ability to serve.  If we happen to be leaders, we will model conceit to our communities and create (unintentionally) centers of narcissism rather than the centers of outreach and evangelism.  We need constantly to remember the words of Jesus, “For the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” 

3) Conceit is a community killer.  Our world is plagued by division: racial, economic, geographic, sex, age, and so on.  From early childhood, human beings form insular groups and cliques.  The new community created in Jesus Christ, however, is called to be radically different.  There is a profound unity in Jesus:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Nothing kills the community that God created us to embody more than conceit.  The Church that God dreams about is an oasis in which everyone is welcome to receive God’s grace and find his or her place in the only institution that exists for something greater than itself.

4) Conceit throttles mission.  If we don’t value others and privilege our own self-interests, we will never be able to reach out beyond ourselves.  All our talk about missional church, missional reading, and radical outreach will prove to be vacuous if our communities are filled with conceit.

How do we move forward as a community?

Value the diverse gifts of the community.  Although this is obvious, it is not so easy to practice.  It is not merely a matter of mouthing the acceptance of various gifts and talents which persons possess; we must actually invite and unleash each member to deploy his or her gifts fully.  We must therefore put away “cookie cutter” and/or “fill in the blank” ways of filling out ministry teams.  Instead, we need to ask ourselves constantly, “How does our community need to change in order to utilize fully each member’s gifts?”  Leaders need to focus on mobilizing and training.

Recognize that we need one another.  In healthy communities of faith, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.    Too many communities of faith never experience this reality.  Too many pastors function as the paid servants of the whole.  Yet pastors need every single member more than any single member needs the pastor.  We need one another.  

Consider the words of Bonhoeffer:

Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.  Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray.  You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ.  If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. (Life Together, 77)

Recognize and show gratitude for the contributions of each member.  As leaders we need to model gratitude and show value to each person.  The cure for conceit is the creation of a culture of gratitude.  Saying “Thank you” acknowledges the presence, value, and contribution of another member and pushes the one who shows gratitude further and further away from a self-centered life governed by conceit.

Practice a gift-based ministry.  We must learn to encourage, equip, and empower each individual in our communities to unleash his or her gifts.  This is a more difficult leadership challenge than merely trying to fill-in the blanks on some pre-packaged leadership structure, but in the long run, it will yield much more fruit.  You will gain a maximum benefit from each member.  This is the heart of Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:6-8 –

We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

What do you think?

© 2006 Brian D. Russell (Revised 10/2010 and 5/2015)