Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
4For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, 5thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..
I’m still thinking a lot about this passage in Romans, along with its counterparts in Ephesians and I Corinthians. I want to understand, for my wife and me, how to be a part of Jesus’ church, His body, keeping constantly in view that He is our Head.
This may be another rambling post, but sometimes I just have to put on paper what I’m puzzling over. Where do I begin? I think the backdrop for my current confusion is what we’ve experienced in most of the “churches” we’ve been a part of over the years. Joan and I were both saved as college seniors and began to attend church. From there, I would say it was all downhill. We expected to, in fact, find Jesus-people, but I’m sorry to conclude that the vast majority of “church” people we’ve known probably weren’t even really born-again.
We have certainly known some wonderful, sincere Jesus-people over the years, but, overall, “church” has been more of a distraction than a help to us. I found out early that no one likes questions. That is what got me studying the Bible myself – I figured if I can’t get answers from the church-people, then I’ll just have to find them myself. Then, for many of the people who were held up as examples, it was nothing less than shocking to see what hateful, critical people they actually were.
Then there was the problem of “church” itself. One of my earliest memories of “church” was sitting in a meeting and thinking to myself, “I don’t think what’s going on here is what’s going on in the Bible.” At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on what I even meant by that. With this study, I’m seeing that this is exactly the problem – that the churches I’ve known were nothing but headless bodies. They were all busy, busy, busy, but none of it really had anything to do with Jesus. It was just religious “busyness.” I remember looking at one church we were in and realizing we were nothing but a Sunday morning religious club. What I mean is that there was no difference between what we did and what you’d find in the local butterfly collectors’ club.
We had our meetings, raised money, planned projects and basically offered “religious” people a place to practice their “religious” hobby – but, in reality, it had nothing to do with Jesus. There was lots of crowing about the Bible, but the real truth was no one actually cared what it said. “Church” was all about traditions of “how to be religious,” and whatever you do, you’d better not question any of it. All that activity was nothing but a headless body flopping around.
All of that is what I’ve come to call “Church-ianity.” It is not Christ-ianity, because Christ has nothing to do with it. My problem now is what do about it all? Although our experience with “church” has been, on the whole negative, yet obviously it was Jesus who ordained that there should be a church. And, then, the entire New Testament is written to local churches, with pastors and teachers and deacons and all the rest. So even if, in America, “church” has almost completely lost “its connection to the head,” we can’t just “throw out the baby with the bath.”
Somehow I have to figure out what it means for us personally to participate in our local church without getting sucked back into church-ianity. In my own heart and life, I have to figure out what it means to live for the glory of Jesus, to keep Him in view, to make sure He is my Head, regardless of whether others do the same – and to do all of that in this American “religious” system which I believe is nothing but that flopping headless body.
It helps immensely that the Lord brought us to our current church where I think they are actually doing a good job. However, I still have this clouded brain that can’t figure out how to pull it all together. I’ve been here many times down through the years. I have often found things in the Bible that send my head reeling. Like all of this, they would drive me crazy, trying to figure them out. But I would just keep praying over it and studying in the Bible, asking the Lord to teach me, and suddenly one day, the lights come on, and I can move on to my next conundrum!
It has been wonderful the things the Lord has taught me. I’m thankful even for things that might have taken a couple of years to figure out. Sometimes, there is as much blessing in the seeking as there is in the finding!
That’s where I am now.
I hope this post is not discouraging to anyone. Usually that has been the effect of my questions if I shared them at all. You may not have had the same experiences as me or struggled through these questions. Maybe it seems obvious to you what the answers are. However, this is what the Lord has conjured up for me currently. There will be answers. Jesus is a great Savior, but the “wells” of our sinfulness run very deep and sometimes it seems to take a colossal work on His part to do His grace-work in our lives.
Plunging ahead. Lead on, O King Eternal!
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