Family Portrait: The Structure Of The Church

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/2ptfz5

Lining the walls of many homes are the family portraits. There you will find pictures of the siblings, grandparents, cousins. Multiple pictures of our own families from various years are also hanging there. Sometimes you might even find a picture of an extended family all together in one place.

From the outside looking in it may be very easy to see who belongs, who is the father, who is the son, who is the mother, etc. Likewise, the church has a family portrait of sorts as well. This picture is how God painted how the church was to be organized, how it is to function and how it is to behave.

Paul compares the church to a body. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 he says the following.

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.

Christ is the head of that body, the church. Paul tells us that in Ephesians 5:23-24 as he says, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

To Timothy and Titus, Paul gives some detailed instructions on who would be qualified to lead in certain aspects of the church. 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 lay out the qualifications of elders and deacons in the church. These elders are charged with various aspects of the working of the church including the spiritual oversight, spiritual nutrition and protection of the local body of believers. The deacons are charged with supporting the work of the elders in carrying out certain tasks.

But like in so many natural families, not everyone gets along in the church as they should. Sometimes there are disputes. Paul addresses some of these in 1 Corinthians 12:15-22 when he gives a somewhat comical view of how jealousies could arise. Imagine a foot being jealous of a hand, or a ear being jealous of an eye.

Notice this reading from Ephesians 4:11-16.

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Did you catch that? We are all under Christ and we are all joined and knit together by what every joint supplies. The key to growth as a local body is also seen in that passage when Paul said, “according to the effective working by which every part does its share.”

Remember those family portraits on the wall? What would that family be like if dad never worked to provide for the family or if mom never fed the children? What kind of family would that be if the children refused to do their chores or were absent from the home for long stretches of time?

Healthy families work as a unit, love one another unconditionally, help one another constantly, are proud when one makes an accomplishment and are sympathetic when one endures a heartache. Healthy families are healthy because every part is doing what it is supposed to be doing.

God’s portrait of the church doesn’t show a perfect people. It shows a forgiven people still struggling to do what is right.

Friends we have a deep longing for fellowship and belonging. We need a family to love and protect us. We need a place to call our own. We need to be a part of God’s family!

On Our Daily Walk today, may we ask ourselves, “What part of the body of Christ am I?” May we determine to do all that we can do, be all that we can be and encourage all that we can encourage along our journey as a child of God.

Our thought for the day: “If we want better people to make a better world, then we will have to begin where people are made—in the family.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.