For the past
couple of days I have been enjoying thoughts about what it means that the
apostle Paul is both a father-figure to me to this day, and foundation-rock for
the whole church through all the rest of time. I have found great encouragement
from considering how these two qualities work together. Paul is
foundation-rock, giving the church the substance to build upon throughout the
whole church age, and he is a father, relating to the church, and people like
me, in fatherly care.
There has been
so much ministry to my heart and soul and mind in this that I was delighted to
find that this morning’s time in the word added a third element to this gift of
God. Paul is not only a father to me of the rock-solid-foundation kind, but he
is also faithful as a father, and faithful in his place as foundation-rock to
the church.
One of the
blessings of spending time with God in his word and prayer is to consider Scriptures
that are ministering to my heart in the context they were originally presented.
There are always wonderful clues and helps to understanding words and phrases
when read in the context of whatever issue the writer was addressing.
When I was
considering the impact of Paul as a foundation-rock father to me, I was drawn
to focus my meditation on this description of Paul’s relationship to the
church, and to me as a member of the church. Paul wrote, “I do not write these things to make you
ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless
guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in
Christ Jesus through the gospel.”[1]
After reading
this, I looked at the context to see why Paul was focusing on the issue of
admonishing his beloved children. I know that the early church was facing false
teachers just as Jesus had warned.[2]Paul
needed to remind the churches of his qualifications as a foundation-rock
apostle so that they would listen to him and the other apostles, not the false
teachers who were leading people astray.
In speaking of
himself as an apostle, and in defending his ministry so the people would listen
to the true words coming from God, Paul wrote, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards
of the mysteries of God.”[3]While
the false teachers wanted to be considered true, but while teaching things that
were false, Paul spoke of his credentials as a servant of Christ. The apostles
had been entrusted with “the mysteries of
God,” and Paul wanted to make sure that the people listened to them instead
of the deceivers. The church Jesus was building would grow on the
foundation-rock Jesus provided.
With that in
mind, Paul added, “Moreover, it is
required of stewards that they be found faithful.”[4]A
steward is one entrusted with something that belongs to another. Paul was a
steward, or one put in the care of, “the
mysteries of God.” He was not interested in his own speculations. He had
given up his own self-glorifying good works. He was not out to make a name for
himself. He had already done that as a Pharisee, and now found it to be a
rubbishy thing compared to “the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”[5]
Paul could now
call for the people to listen to him because only through the apostles, the
true foundation-rock of the church, could the church know the mysteries of God that
were then being revealed to God’s people. The characteristic the people could
trust in, or look up to, was that Paul was “faithful”
to his stewardship.
The faithfulness
Paul showed to his assigned place in the kingdom of God presents me with a
double-edged sword, so to speak. On one side is the encouragement to me that I
have a foundation-rock father who is faithful to everything he was given. He was
faithful to the truth of the foundation-rock he was part of, and he was
faithful to the fatherly relationship this gave him in the church. He was
faithful in laying a foundation that was all of Christ, and relating to the
church as a father while he made Christ known to them according to the truth.
On the other
hand, Paul’s faithfulness to his foundation-rock fatherly place in the church
means that I have no right to pick and choose which parts of Paul’s teaching
and ministry I receive. If he was faithful to his fatherly place in the church,
and faithful to the right handling of the mysteries of God,[6]then
I am honor-bound to receive everything he taught, in fellowship with everything
taught by the rest of the apostles and prophets, so that I am as faithful in
receiving this ministry as they were faithful in presenting it.
If I am going
to benefit from Paul’s fatherly relationship to the church as a member of the
foundation of God’s holy temple,[7] I
need to accept every part of that relationship. This includes my need to be
admonished. If Paul is a foundation-rock father to me, then he will use the
word of God to teach me, reprove me, correct me, and train me in righteousness,
all so that I “may be complete, equipped
for every good work.”[8]
When Paul, as
a foundation-rock father to Timothy, told him to, “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching,”[9]I
can receive this today as Paul’s ministry to my soul. My foundation-rock father
will reprove me, rebuke me, exhort me, and give me complete teaching in
complete patience, all through his letters to the churches. I can receive these
as his letters to me, and see myself as one of his “beloved children.”
I
find it so encouraging that Paul would say, “For
I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”[10] This does not mean that every man who preaches the gospel is a
father to the churches. Paul could speak of this as a foundation-rock apostle, one
who was faithful to the specific stewardship of the mysteries of God that were
given to the Twelve.
However,
as distinctive as the apostolic fatherly relationship was to the church, the
thing that stands out to bless me is that Paul became “your father,” a father to the Corinthian Christians, “through the gospel.” He did not become
a father to us through any birthright at all. He was not a man who had proven
himself in the raising of his own family. He had come into the church as an
orphan rescued from sin. He had been confronted as an orphan out in the world,
a Worldling of violent and angry proportions,[11] and brought into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son,[12] all through the same adoption that brought the rest of the church
to Jesus Christ.[13]
But
Paul was given a place in the church as a father. It was a God-appointed place.
It was Paul’s calling, his stewardship. And, in that stewardship of what had
been entrusted to him, he was faithful to the mysteries of God, and the people
to whom he was proclaiming these mysteries.
With
Paul’s relationship to me as a faithful father of the foundation-rock kind, I
can look at what God is giving me now, no matter what experiences I have gone
through. As I look at this gift, it encourages me with what I too can offer to
others. As branches of Christ that abide in the vine, we receive what builds us
up in him, and we pass it on to others for the bearing of much fruit.[14]
I have great
sympathy for those children of God who are still struggling with issues from
their past. I have had a front row seat to how childhood trauma can affect us,
and how these wounds often fester for long years because churches have not
known how to minister to such things.
However, I
also know what it is like for God to turn our eyes from our past childhood
traumas, to our past in Jesus Christ. We do have past experiences that hurt us,
and often still need healing. But these needs get their hope from something
that happened even further in the past. Not only did God give his Son to bring
us to himself, to cleanse us of sin, and return us to the divine plan of having
a people in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, but he gave us faithful men
who laid a foundation for the church with such fatherly love, writing down a
legacy of truth for every generation of the people of God.
When Paul said
that the Corinthians did not have “many
fathers,”[15]he
identified something that is true in our day as well. The faithfulness of our
spiritual fathers was rare even in the first century. However, that makes this
fatherly foundation-rock faithfulness a rare and precious gem to delight the
hearts of God’s children today.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
I Corinthians 4:14-15
[2]
Matthew 24:11 (context: Matthew 24:3-14)
[3]
I Corinthians 4:1
[4]
I Corinthians 4:2
[5]
Philippians 3:8
[6]
II Timothy 2:15
[7]
Ephesians 2:18-22
[8]
II Timothy 3:16-17
[9]
II Timothy 4:1-2
[10]
I Corinthians 4:15
[11]
I Timothy 1:13
[12]
Colossians 1:13
[13]
Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5
[14]
John 15:1-8
[15]
I Corinthians 4:15
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