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A Biblical View of God's Servants, Work, and the Church · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the deep Dive.
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Today we're digging into a really vital and I think often
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challenging topic. We're doing a structural
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critique of modern evangelical missions and missiology.
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That's right, and we've got a stack of sources here, but they
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all really zero in on one specific passage of Scripture,
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First Corinthians chapter 3 as the main corrective lens.
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And the case they present is, well, it's pretty strong.
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The core argument is that a lot of contemporary missions work is
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being built on, let's say, shaky ground.
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It is. The critique is direct.
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It suggests that many current practices are suffering from a
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weak ecclesiology. Ecclesiology.
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A faulty view of the Church. Exactly.
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And if you misunderstand the nature and the God-given
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function of the church, you will.
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It's almost inevitable you'll produce a flawed missiology.
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That's how you define and carry out the Church's mission.
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So the goal for us today is to take Paul's correction to the,
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Well, the carnal and divided believers in Corinth, and apply
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those biblical correctives to how we view the people who do
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the work, the work itself, and of course, the church that
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Christ established to carry it all out.
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OK, let's just jump right in because the central contention
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here is, well, it's arresting. The sources we've looked at
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summarize the current structural flaw in missions with two
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phrases. Yeah, and they're not gentle
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terms. Not at all.
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Personal pietism and ministerial entrepreneurism.
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What does that actually look like on the ground?
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Well, those phrases are really describing A fundamental
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breakdown in accountability and I'd say authority, personal
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pietism that speaks to the individual workers, subjective
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sense of calling. That feeling of God told me to
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go do X. Exactly.
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It's that sincere but often misguided feeling that bypasses
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or even supersedes the local assembly.
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And then ministerial entrepreneurism is just the
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practical result of that. How so?
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Well, if I believe my subjective call from God is the supreme
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authority, then I start to treat the mission field like a startup
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company. I devise my own creative plan, I
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go out and secure the funding and then I launch, often with
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myself as the CEO of the whole operation.
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So the flaw isn't that the missionaries are bad people or
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have bad intentions, not at all, but that the whole flow of
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authority is completely reversed in the New Testament model.
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The assembly, the pillar in support of the truth.
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They're the ones who decide to send.
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The individual is commissioned by the body.
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Precisely. But in this modern
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entrepreneurial model, the individual determines their own
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call. They developed their own
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ministry niche. They create, you know, a pitch
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deck essentially. And then they present this
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finished plan to a local church. So instead of being genuinely
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sent, the missionary is really just dictating their independent
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plans to the church. Yes.
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The assembly is then presented with the kind of fate accompli.
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It's either you fund this specific vision that I have, or
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I'm going to go find another church that will.
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Now I can hear a listener pushing back on this, saying,
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look, practically speaking, if my local church is kind of
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resistant or maybe lethargic about missions, shouldn't the
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motivated individual push the agenda forward, right?
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Even if it means stepping outside those traditional lines
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just to get the gospel out there?
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How do the sources handle that practical objection?
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They handle it by saying that the ends do not justify the
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means, especially when the means you're using actually destroy
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the very entity Christ established to carry out the
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mission in the 1st place, which is the local church.
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The moment a Christian says my personal vision is clearer and
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more important than the local assembly's oversight, they've
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just fundamentally undermined ecclesial authority.
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And the result of that. The result is that the Church
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ends up serving the missionaries.
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Independent vision rather than the missionary genuinely serving
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the collective, biblically regulated mission of the whole
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body. And this leads right to the core
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problem identified in our sources, the marginalization of
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the local church in missions, this entrepreneurial
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environment, you know, it might generate a lot of activity,
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maybe even some impressive looking numbers, but it reduces
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the church's essential God ordained role.
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It reduces the church to a funding source, pure and simple.
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In this privatized model, the local congregation is seen less
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as the divine agent of the Great Commission and more like.
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A bank or maybe an administrative hub?
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Right, an administrative hub for the individual worker.
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Their role is just to support the missionary directly from the
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budget or indirectly because the church is where all the
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individual donors are sitting in the pews.
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OK, we need to slow down here and really consider the full
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consequences of this idea of the privatization of the Great
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Commission. It's unbiblical, we get that.
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But why is it so ineffective for carrying out the Lord's purpose?
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Because the goal of the Great Commission isn't just about one
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off conversions. The mandate includes making
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disciples, baptizing them, and then teaching them to observe
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everything Christ commanded. Those are functions that require
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an organized, stable, teaching, accountable body.
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In other words, a local church. So when a para church or an
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entrepreneurial ministry focuses only on that initial conversion,
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the planting let's call it, and then just leaves the watering
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and the whole institutional structure up to chance.
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The work struggles to grow deep, lasting roots.
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The effect of the Commission is tied directly to the structure
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Christ himself established for it.
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And this is not a new problem. This is exactly what Paul was
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correcting in Corinth, this carnal way of thinking where
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people were prioritizing charismatic individuals and
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their own subjective feelings. It produced flawed views of the
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work, the workers and the church.
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That's why First Corinthians 3 is such a potent corrective for
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our situation today. The Corinthian assembly was
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being torn apart by divisions, and those factions were all
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based on who they preferred. I follow Paul, I follow
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Apollo's, I follow Cephas. Or even I follow Christ, but in
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a way that creates kind of super spiritual faction.
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Exactly. They were using the names and
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the status of God's gifted servants to advance their own
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purposes, their own factions, and in doing so they were
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dishonouring Christ, the Master of the Church.
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OK. So let's use Paul's framework
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here to correct these carnal ideas, starting with the
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servants themselves. That's First Corinthians 3
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verses 5 through 9. The sources identify three
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specific flaws from Corinth that we need to avoid.
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Right. The first flaw is focusing on
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servants instead of the master. This comes right out of verse 5.
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Paul asks what then is Apollos and what is Paul?
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And he answers his own question. He says we're just servants,
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Diaconoi, through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave
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to each one. We should absolutely appreciate
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gifted preachers and teachers and cross cultural experts.
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They're gifts Christ gave to the Church, of course, but Paul's
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point is that the human voice must never ever override God's
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voice, which comes to us only through scripture.
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The servant is only useful insofar as they are accurately
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transmitting the masters message.
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And the danger today is that we just replaced the names Paul and
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Apollo's with, you know, the famous, successful, charismatic,
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modern missionary or the really influential messiologist.
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And when we elevate those voices.
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We risk fostering a spirit of pride and even worse, we risk
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subordinating Scripture to what the sources call theories and
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traditions of men. That's where the reliance
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science on the social sciences comes into the critique, isn't
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it? If our primary text for
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developing a philosophy of missions is some model derived
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from, say, cultural anthropology or sociology instead of the
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Bible. You're essentially saying that
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the master's book isn't sufficient to guide the master's
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work. Which is a huge problem for
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those of us who affirm the sufficiency of Scripture
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following the clear teaching of, say, the Westminster Confession.
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It's a massive problem. The Bible was written as a
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missionary book to people in the middle of grappling with all
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sorts of different cultures. It provides a fully sufficient
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foundation for mission practice. It defines the message, the
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methods, the structure. So to say, well, the Bible tells
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us what to say, but we need these secular models to tell us
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how to organize and execute. Is to diminish the Masters own
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comprehensive wisdom. OK, the second flaw is tied
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directly to this. It's thinking that servants are
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the source of success. This from verse 6.
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This is just pure man centered. It's the very thing that was
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driving those factions in Corinth.
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And Paul's counter is just perfect.
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I planted Apollo's watered, but God was causing the growth.
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It's the ultimate theological mic drop, isn't?
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It it really is Paul and Apollo's.
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They had clear roles. Paul brought the initial gospel
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message. He established the congregation.
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Apollo's came later to nurture and instruct those believers.
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But the success, the growth, the conversion, the flourishing that
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is due solely to God's sovereign power, and that truth just
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demolishes any basis for pride in human strategies or methods
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or techniques. In a world that's obsessed with
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metrics and visible outcomes, you know, the size of the
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building, the number of baptisms, the speed of
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expansion. This is a constant battle.
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It is we get preoccupied with immediate visible success, and
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that exalts the models of growth above the master of the harvest.
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We start chasing what works in one context and trying to
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replicate it everywhere else. And that's so dangerous because
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the standard for success in Christian ministry is often
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mistakenly borrowed from the corporate world growth, profit
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visibility. But the true standard for the
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Christian steward, as Paul clarifies just a chapter later,
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isn't results. That belongs to God.
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It's faithfulness. It is required of stewards that
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one be found faithful. First Corinthians 4.2.
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That's the one. We are accountable for how we
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run the race, the faithfulness of our planting and our
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watering. Not for how quickly God decides
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to make the crop grow. OK, so the third flaw brings us
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right back to the heart of the critique about ministerial
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entrepreneurism. It's forgetting that servants
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are under God's command versus 8 to 9.
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Right. The Corinthians were acting like
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free agents who could just pick their favorite leaders.
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And modern entrepreneurs often act like free agents who get to
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pick their own mission field and their own special focus.
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But Paul reminds them, each servant has his own labor that's
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been assigned by God, and they are accountable to him.
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They're God's fellow workers. And that truth is both
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incredibly freeing and at the same time, immensely sobering.
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How is it freeing? It's freeing because the servant
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is rescued from that crushing burden of trying to please 1000
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different donors or critics or cultural expectations.
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You have one master. But it's also sobering, as the
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source materials point out, because the final assessment
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belongs to Jesus alone, and his standard is faithfulness to his
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assignment, not success based on our human metrics or our own
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subjective feelings of fulfillment.
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This is exactly where we have to challenge the modern low bar
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definition of missions. If we reduce it to just going
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somewhere to do something for Jesus and the servant is the one
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defining the somewhere and the something based on where they
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feel a leading or you know where the funding is easiest to get.
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Then they're the ones calling the shots, not the master.
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Precisely. But Christ left very clear, non
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negotiable commands about the scope and the objective of his
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mission for the Church. I mean, his own life is defined
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by doing the will of the one who sent him.
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You see that all over John's Gospel.
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Over and over John 4, John 5, John 6.
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And then right after His resurrection, Christ commissions
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His followers to continue that work.
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John 17, John 20. We are commissioned servants of
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the Master doing the assigned work of disciple making and
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church establishment. We are not ministerial
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entrepreneurs who get to design new plans or new definitions or
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new structures based on our own dreams or our human ingenuity.
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That's the bottom line. So to some of this section,
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parnal views of the servants, they shift the focus from the
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master to the individual worker, they wrongly attribute God's
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success to human genius. And they forget that the worker
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is always, always under the authority, the one who sent him
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right? So if the workers mindset is
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corrected, the next question is naturally, what about the work
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itself? Paul shifts from the planter to
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the plant in the next section. He does.
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Now we move to correcting the carnal ideas about the ministry
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itself, the work which he addresses in First Corinthians 3
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verses 10 through 15. And Paul's whole approach to
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ministry, which valued faithfulness and divine wisdom,
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was a direct contradiction of what the Corinthians, who were
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sort of seduced by worldly charisma, really wanted.
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Ministry, whether it's local or cross cultural, it begins as a
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stewardship, is rooted in the grace of God that's given to the
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servant. As Paul says in verse 10, that
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divine assignment provides both a call and the capacity to
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fulfill it. It's really an act of Divine
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Mercy that we get to participate in the harvest at all.
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And as stewards, the faithful focus has to be entirely on
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God's approval, not on man's applause.
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The source rightly brings in that parallel statement from
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First Thessalonians 2.4. We speak not as pleasing men,
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but God who examines our hearts. The Corinthians wanted a
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ministry model that was attracted to their culture.
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You know, eloquent, powerful, appealing to the intellect.
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Paul was only concerned with being faithful to the specific
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instructions given by the Lord who called him.
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And this concept of faithfulness leads right into Paul's
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description of himself as a wise master builder in verse 10.
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Now, given the context of chapters one and two, where he
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spent so much time arguing about the foolishness of human wisdom
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versus the wisdom of God, what does being a wise master builder
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imply for missions? It implies that the builder is
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constructing according to the divine blueprints.
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Paul had just spent chapters arguing that God's wisdom is
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manifested in the cross, a message the world considered to
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be complete foolishness. So the Corinthian church was
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built on the foundation of Christ and the divine truth of
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the gospel. A wise master builder,
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therefore, is one who only uses God's truth, the message of the
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cross, as His materials and His method.
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The foundation is absolutely Christ.
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Verse 11 makes that non negotiable, but then Paul
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immediately warns let each man be careful how he builds upon
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it. That shifts the attention from
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the message, which is Christ, to the methods how we build.
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Yes. The structure, the building
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materials, the methods we use to gather and maintain the body,
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all of it must be governed by God's wisdom, not by human
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preference or what seems culturally attractive.
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The moment we try to make the message of the cross more
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palatable or make the church structure more like a
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contemporary business model, we're introducing building
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materials that are inconsistent with the foundation.
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And this brings us to the really sobering implications of the
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test of fire in verses 12 through 15.
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This passage teaches that ministry done the wrong way will
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prove to be utterly worthless, regardless of any temporal
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earthly perception of success. Paul lists 6 building materials,
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right Bold silver, precious stones versus wood, hay, straw.
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We have to see the key distinction here.
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It's not about the commercial value of these materials.
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It's about their durability. It's about their durability in
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the face of fire. Gold, silver and precious stones
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will survive the fire. They'll retain their value.
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Wood, hay and straw will just be instantly consumed.
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OK, let's try to illustrate that with some modern ministry
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examples. If a ministry is prioritizing
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faithfulness to the Word, you know patient expositional
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preaching, strict adherence to the biblical requirements for
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elders, slow, deep discipleship that's building with gold,
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silver, and precious stones. It is.
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It takes longer. It might not produce huge crowds
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right away, but it is enduring. Now contrast that with a
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ministry built on wood, hay and straw.
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This might be a ministry that prioritizes, say, speed of
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expansion. It uses human charisma marketing
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techniques, programs designed to draw big numbers by appealing to
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felt needs rather than God's revealed instruction.
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That ministry might look incredibly successful today,
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huge crowds, multimillion dollar budget.
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But if the methods and the structure are based on worldly
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wisdom and consumer appeal, that entire structure is just
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vulnerable to the coming test. So on that coming day, when the
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quality of each Christian's work is assessed, those works that
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were built on human ingenuity, the wood, hay and straw, they're
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going to be exposed as a mirage. They offered some temporal
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satisfaction, but they lacked any eternal substance.
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And this assessment is so crucial for every believer who
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laborers, especially in cross cultural work.
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This is a judgement of service and reward, and it's distinct
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from salvation itself, as verse 15 confirms.
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Right salvation is secure by grace through faith.
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Yes, but the work itself must bear eternal fruit by following
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God's design. Think about it, if a missionary
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successfully gathers a large group of people but fails to
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organize them as a biblically structured local assembly, maybe
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they just maintain an independent para church
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structure instead. That labor in terms of building
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God's designated structure is fruitless.
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OK, so if the work itself must be done God's way, let's pivot
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now to the object of that work, the church itself.
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The source material argues that the root of all the Corinthians
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carnal thinking was this mistaken notion that the church
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was their possession. Yes, a platform for their
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preferred leader or their preferred doctrine.
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And Paul immediately corrects this dangerous possessiveness.
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He introduces 2 metaphors in verse 9 that communicate a
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singular overriding truth. You are God's field, God's
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building. The church belongs to God.
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It is his property, his investment, his project.
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So the field metaphor helped them grasp the different
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complementary roles of the workers, planting and watering
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right, and the building metaphor helped them understand the
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different quality of the work, gold versus wood.
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But the core theological take away from both is divine
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ownership. And then he expands on this
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concept in verses 16 and 17, describing the local
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congregation as God's temple. This is one of the most powerful
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statements in the New Testament about the local assembly.
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He uses the plural you addressing the collective body,
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the local church in Corinth, as the holy dwelling place of the
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Spirit of God in that community. And this is where the Reformed
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emphasis on the regulative principle really comes into play
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for missiology. If the church is God's temple,
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then he's the architect and he dictates the rules for its
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operation. Absolutely.
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Just think about how God gave these minute specific
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instructions for the construction and all the
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activities in the Old Testament temple.
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The New Testament contains His explicit sufficient will for the
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operation and the mission of the local church.
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You think of first Timothy 3.1415, where Paul tells Timothy
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why he's writing these instructions.
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It's so that Timothy will know how one ought to conduct himself
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in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God,
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the pillar in support of the truth.
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That's it. The church is not some flexible,
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fluid, man made organization. It is God's house, and its
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mission must be regulated by His Word.
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The definitive manual left by the Master.
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And if that's true, then the church can't possibly be viewed
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as, you know, a dispenser of spiritual goods and services
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that are just designed to meet consumer demand or fit into a
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cultural niche. Yeah, God rules it.
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Yes. And this leads to that truly
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terrifying concept in First Corinthians 3.91 of them.
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If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.
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The temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.
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That is the ultimate warning. We often read that verse and
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think of it as just a historical threat that was limited to
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Corinth. But if this applies to our
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modern structures, that means this carnal mindset isn't just
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ineffective, it's lethal to the church.
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The Corinthians desire to embrace worldly wisdom and
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elevate human leaders was actively destroying the unity
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and integrity of God's holy dwelling.
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It was. So if this warning is still
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active today, then when individuals prioritize their own
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subjective dreams or ministerial endeavors over the established
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commands and structure the local assembly, by redefining the
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mission, the roles, or the structure, they're placing
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themselves in direct conflict with God.
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Yes, in conflict with God who guards the sanctity of his
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temple. That is a massive consequence
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for the evangelical missions movement, which is heavily,
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heavily populated by independently run operations.
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It's a sobering assessment that really brings us back to the
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necessity of fixing our ecclesiology.
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If we don't return to the biblical blueprints, we risk
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divine judgement on the work. That's right.
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That sets the stage perfectly for our next section, the
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centrality of the Word and the Church in Messiology.
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We've established that a weak ecclesiology produces a flawed
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messiology. So what does the biblical
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healthy model actually look like?
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Well, it starts with the sufficiency of Scripture.
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Christ is still in charge of the mission today, and His Word has
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to have active, functional control over the local church's
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messiology. We cannot undercut the
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sufficiency of the Bible by, you know, setting it aside in favor
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of developing methods for cross cultural ministry that are
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controlled by disciplines outside of Scripture.
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And if the Word is sufficient, then the local church has to be
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central. The Great Commission itself
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presumes this structure. Matthew 28.122 mandates making
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disciples, which includes baptism and an ongoing teaching
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ministry. And you can't perform baptism or
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a sustained teaching ministry without a structured body and
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assembly that performs these rites and functions corporately.
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The book of Acts illustrates this right away.
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The converts on the day of Pentecost, they believed they
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were baptized and they were added to the fellowship of God's
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people. And what did that fellowship do?
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They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching Acts 2.
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Conversion leads immediately into the life of the assembly.
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And beyond that, the model established by the very first
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missionary teams confirms this. Paul and Barnabas were sent out
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from the local church in Antioch.
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They went out and they started local churches, and then they
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consistently reported back to the congregation that it sent
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them, detailing all that God had done with them.
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You see that in Acts 13 and 14. Accountability, sending,
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reporting, it's all centered on the local assembly.
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And that contextual clarity is vital for understanding First
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Corinthians 3. When Paul talks about planting
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and watering in verse 6, he's not talking about generalized
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evangelistic rallies, no. He's talking about the specific
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work of establishing the Corinthian congregation and
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strengthening those specific disciples.
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Yes, the planting was bringing the initial gospel and gathering
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the people. The watering was the ongoing,
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sustained instruction that Apollo's provided to build them
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up. So whether Paul uses the
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agricultural metaphor or the architectural one of laying a
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foundation, he's referring to the work of establishing and
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strengthening A structured, accountable congregation of
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Christ's disciples. So the primary task of missions
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and missionaries is to start and strengthen local assemblies.
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That's it. Evangelism is absolutely
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indispensable to missions. It's the means by to which the
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people are gathered, but it is not the sum of missions.
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Missions springs forth from the local church, it starts new
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local churches, and it is accountable to the local church.
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OK, this critique then has to address the para church world
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because it currently organizes and drives so much of modern
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evangelical missions. The source material argues that
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these ministries are meant to aid the local church, So what
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happens when they fail to stay in that assisting role?
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The danger arises when they become hyper church or even anti
22:51
church because they operate structurally above or in the
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place of the local assembly. When they raise their own funds,
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set their own policies, establish their own field
22:59
priorities, and just completely bypass local assembly oversight,
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they're structurally unsound from a biblical ecclesiological
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perspective. I think we need to be really
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clear about the terminology here.
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The sources suggest we stop labeling these independent
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operations as parachurch, which means alongside the church, and
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instead call them hypochurch. Meaning under the Church.
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Is this just a semantic change, or does redefining them as
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Hypochurch necessitate a total restructuring of their funding
23:29
and their accountability models? It is not just a semantic
23:32
change, it's a theological necessity.
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If the local assembly is indeed the pillar and support of the
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truth, as First Timothy 3.15 teaches, then any ministry,
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whether it focuses on translations or education or
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specialist evangelism, it has to be subordinate to the assembly.
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So yes, if we accept the term hypochurch, it forces a total
23:51
restructuring. So for instance, A hypochurch
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ministry wouldn't be self governing.
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Its board, its mandate, its funding structure would ideally
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be accountable to ascending or steering committee that's
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composed of elders from solid, confessional local
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congregations. That would be the ideal.
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The missions goals would be restricted to serving the
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establishment and strengthening of local assemblies rather than
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being diffused across, you know, a myriad of other good things.
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Exactly. Missions has to center on the
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creation of stable, accountable local congregations.
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Otherwise, we're just creating these islands of good deeds that
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lack the necessary theological structure to withstand the fire
24:28
of opposition or the test of judgement.
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That's a great way to put it. And that distinction between the
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specific restricted mandate of the Church and that myriad of
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good things leads us right into the discussion of the modern
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conceptual shift away from the biblical pattern.
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Yes, the material traces a significant conceptual erosion
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that really began in the early 20th century.
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This is when the term Larger Mission started to extend the
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definition of missions work beyond the core tasks of Gospel
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proclamation and planting assemblies.
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It became more expansive. It started including activities
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like general education and social reform, right?
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Then, in the second-half of the 20th century, this was
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solidified by the concept of holistic mission, which
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explicitly included social action, relief work and
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community development as inherent, non negotiable parts
25:17
of the Church's mission mandate. And while organizations like the
25:20
Lausanne movement deserve credit for advancing evangelism
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globally. They do.
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The material points to the movement as a key example of how
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this negative conceptual shift was formalized and distributed.
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The definition of the mission just became so broad that it
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lost its specific focus on the ecclesial mandate.
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It did. The source quotes the 2010 Cape
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Town Congress definition of the work of the Gospel, and the list
25:44
is just it's extensive. It includes evangelism and
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discipling, for sure, but it also lists peacemaking, social
25:51
engagement, ethical transformation, bearing witness
25:54
to the truth, caring for creation, overcoming evil
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powers, suffering and enduring under persecution.
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And the list just keeps going. And when the definition of the
26:03
work of the gospel becomes that vast, it ceases to be a
26:05
specific, measurable mandate that's tied to the local
26:08
assembly. Instead, it just becomes a
26:10
generalized call to social involvement and ethical
26:13
behavior. It blends the unique task Christ
26:16
gave the church, making disciples, with the general
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responsibilities every believer has in every sphere of life,
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like being a good neighbor or working justly.
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Let's press this point though. Why is this expansion so
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problematic? I mean, if a missionary is
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trying to make disciples and they also build a clean water
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well, isn't that just being a good example of Christ's love?
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It's not that clean water wells are bad.
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Of course not. They are good and necessary
26:41
social actions. The problem is 1 of
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classification and mandate. When we label caring for
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creation or peacemaking as the church's specific mission, we
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dilute the unique specialized task Christ gave only to the
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assembly. Matthew 28 is a specific narrow
26:58
mandate about teaching, baptizing, and gathering
27:00
disciples. If everything a Christian does
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is mission, then nothing is mission, and the specific unique
27:05
task of the Church being the pillar in support of the truth,
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it gets lost in a sea of generalized social reform.
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The sources cite Christopher Wright as a chief voice for this
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really expansive viewpoint. He defines mission as all that
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God is doing in his great purpose for the whole of
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creation, and all that He calls us to do in cooperation with
27:25
that purpose. Right.
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And then he defines missions, plural, as the multitude of
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activities that God's people engage in by means of which they
27:32
participate in God's one mission.
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So in this fear, mission is just everything God is doing, and
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missions are all the good things Christians do to help them out.
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And his final argument, according to the sources, is
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that it is unseemly for one kind of mission to dismiss another
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out of a superiority complex or to undervalue itself as not real
27:52
mission out of an inferiority complex.
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And that argument that all the good things Christians do are
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equally real mission, is exactly the approach the church must
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reject if it wants to maintain any kind of biblical focus.
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It deliberately blurs the lines. It places a Christian who is an
28:08
environmental activist on the same footing in terms of the
28:11
church's mandate as a church planter who is teaching the
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whole council of God. We lose the specific, limited
28:19
and measurable mandate Christ gave the assembly, making
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disciples through baptism and teaching, which requires
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starting and strengthening local congregations.
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So it sounds like the central argument driven by First
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Corinthians 3 is a call for strategic limitation.
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The Church, because it is God's temple and it operates under his
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divine instruction, has to limit its corporate energy and
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resources to those things that are explicitly mandated.
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Evangelism that leads to discipleship.
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Which is then solidified in the local assembly through teaching
28:49
and the ordinances. That is precisely the
28:52
conclusion. Like the carnal Corinthians,
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contemporary believers need their subjective,
28:56
entrepreneurial ideas about God's servants, God's work, and
29:00
God's church to be challenged by the objective truth of the New
29:03
Testament. The only way to ensure the work
29:05
is built with gold, silver and precious stones is to ensure we
29:08
are following the Masters architecture.
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This has been a really detailed look at the sources.
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So to summarize the core truths that Paul confirms in First
29:16
Corinthians 3, missions workers are assigned servants.
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They're pointed by Christ to specific roles, not
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self-directed entrepreneurs seeking fulfillment.
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And they are certainly not the source of ministerial success.
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God is therefore the work they undertake must be conducted
29:32
God's way, following His design, so that it will have eternal
29:36
value and pass the test at the judgement seat of Christ.
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And finally, all of this regulation is necessary because
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the Church, the local assembly, is God's holy temple.
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We have to live and minister within it with holy reverence,
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ensuring that God's Word has active, functional control over
29:53
every aspect of life and ministry, especially missiology.
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It all comes back to defining the mission correctly.
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If Christ's specific mandate is to make disciples and establish
30:03
assemblies, ensuring both baptism and teaching happen
30:05
within the context of the local assembly, we have to move beyond
30:09
subjective feelings and entrepreneurial speed.
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If Christ's mandate is to make disciples within the context of
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the local assembly, what specific steps must you take
30:17
today to ensure your personal efforts and the efforts of the
30:20
church you belong to are building with gold, silver, and
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precious stones rather than wood, hay or straw?