The goal of every parent should be to see their children become independent, growing up to maturity as evidenced by their being fruitful and contributing to the rest of the community. When a church starts out, it needs lots of close supervision, instruction, and guidance, but as it grows, it is able to become autonomous that is, self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. Paul modeled this attitude toward those he served, and left us a great apostolic example of a fathering servant. Apostles move beyond planting and go into the building stages. One of the ways they do this is by bringing focus and purpose to the community of believers. Paul’s writings never stray far from his purpose, which was to encourage the saints’ hearts, uniting them in love with a view toward his ultimate goal that they would have complete experiential understanding concerning the Sacred Secret. [10] In fact, Paul mentions an aspect of the Sacred Secret in every one of the Church Epistles. [11] His entire life focused around the Sacred Secret, and all of his various purpose statements reinforced his vision. [12] Like Paul, apostles must never lose their focus on unity in the one Body; it is their very purpose. [13] In order to carry out the mission of building the Church, apostles must also be visionaries. They know that “great vision precedes great achievement.” [14] Being practical, they recognize the reality of the present situation, but they are visionary in the way their focus is on what could and should be. They see future possibilities as present realities in the same way that a builder “sees” the finished product before he picks up the first tool. He knows what it should look like and he knows how to get there. An apostle is not a head-in-the-clouds idealist who sees things through rose-colored glasses. No, he sees the state of the Church as it really is.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:32:07 +0000
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