Matthew 16:18
18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church (ekklesia), and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. NIV
Christ spoke about “building His church” and “building” communicates a very deliberate process to produce an intended objective.
We started to look into mechanisms the Lord is using to build His church. I want to continue to explore the whole issue of building because it is very important in the development of church in the earth.
Correct building of church (church, being a system of correct human existence and ruler-ship in the earth) is not possible without the consideration of certain realities. During the Pentecostal-Charismatic dispensation, the Bible Schools would teach us theology and then launch us into the realm of building. “Study” (and in fact correct study) is important but is not sufficient to producing church builders. We want to explore the kind of “context” that must be in place for church to be built to its rightful position.
Considerations and Context for Church Building
1) Understanding the “whole counsel” of God
The first thing we will look at in this article is the whole issue of “God’s counsel”.
Act 20:27 "For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God, NKJV.
We can never really build correctly without firstly understanding “the whole counsel” of God.
The word “counsel” is defined as: intention as a result of reflection, the counsel preceding the resolve, aim, a decree, purpose, will or volition. The word is also used to describe “the assembly of the council” (or a parliament-like gathering).
This word expresses the inward predisposition (or inclination) and bent (or resolve and determination) from which active volition (or decisions and choices) proceeds. Hence this word does not simply define what God is saying or doing but it focuses on internal platforms and motivations that give shape to the speaking of God. It is one thing to know what God is saying, it is another thing to know the inner motivations that give shape to the speaking of God. In most cases, the church has always had access to the speaking of God but has seldom understood the inner motivations that give shape to the speaking of God; as a result, the church has often not worked out the purpose of God accurately or fully.
To further understand this word, let us look at Eph 1:11.
Eph 1:11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, NKJV.
Note here that Paul separates “will” from “counsel”. We often go as far as understanding His will or purpose but fail to understand “the counsel” (i.e. the inner motivations) giving shape to the purpose.
Paul is then saying in Acts 20:27 that he has not only proclaimed God’s purpose to the elders in Ephesus but he has also proclaimed the inner motivations of God giving shape to His purpose.
Paul says “God works all things according to His counsel”, so therefore the activity of God or the workings of God are informed by His counsel.
God’s counsel produces purpose and activity.
We said that this word also describes “a parliament-like meeting”. In this context, the counsel is the inner motivations and deliberations that produce a set of purposes and actions. For example, a parliament may pass a piece of legislation designed to prevent child-labour. One cannot just run with the legislation (on child-labour) without understanding the inner motivations and deliberations that produced the legislation in the first place. It’s like; the constitution of the country can never be above the underlying motivations (counsel) that give shape to that constitution. So whenever the underlying motivations change, it goes without saying that the constitution or legislation must also change.
To make yet another example, if a parent instructs a child to have a bath every evening, until that child grows to understand the “counsel” or inner motivations giving shape to the instruction, that child will see this as an unnecessary burden. The underlying motivation in this case may be to produce a hygienic family. The question then is, when we hear God, are we hearing “an instruction to have a bath” or do we understand the “counsel” giving shape to that instruction. Are we hearing Him say we must start or be part of churches or do we understanding His counsel informing His speaking.
Consider this scripture:
John 15:14-15
14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. NIV
Jesus here highlights two different positions. One is represented by “a servant” who simply performs the instruction without understanding the basic motivations that led to the instruction. The other position is represented by “a friend” who performs instruction out of an intimate understanding of the underlying platforms that form the basis for the instruction.
Jeremiah 23:16-18
16 This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you;
they fill you with false hopes.
They speak visions from their own minds,
not from the mouth of the LORD.
17 They keep saying to those who despise me,
'The LORD says: You will have peace.'
And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts
they say, 'No harm will come to you.'
18 But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD
to see or to hear his word?
Who has listened and heard his word?
NIV
The word council here in the Hebrew describes “a company of people in close deliberation, intimacy, consultation, assembly”. In its root meaning, the word means “to sit down together, to consult, to take counsel”.
According to this scripture, we do not qualify to proclaim God’s word until we have understood the inner motivations in the heart of God. And so therefore to be prophetic is not to simply hear God but it is also the ability to understand God’s inner motivations that drive His speaking.
Isaiah 55:10-11
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
NIV
God speaks because there are certain things He wants to achieve. He does not speak in order to give us an encounter or a religious experience. In order to hear correctly, we always need to go beyond “what He said” to understand “the desire” that drove the speaking.
Matthew 16:18
18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. NIV
Now that we have understood the principle of “God’s counsel” let us then look into Jesus declaring for the first time that He would build His church. We will now realise that the declaration came from “an underlying motivation and desire” for something. There is counsel that informed and drove God to actually build the church in the earth. Anybody involved in church building, anybody involved in teaching and preaching must be sure to understand this counsel of God. This means that the thing that drives “the process of church building” is not so much leaders’ desires, dreams and visions for the church but God’s counsel.
This kind of perspective, reasoning and sight into God’s processes allows us to begin to interpret things differently, where we can ask ourselves a set of questions and come up with different answers. For example, some of us may be familiar with the Restorational Moves that were kick-started by the Reformation of Martin Luther, the German Reformer in the 1500s. Since the 1500s till now, God has been systematically and progressively restoring and bringing the church to its ordained place. Perhaps the most familiar movements for most of us will be the Pentecostal Movement in the 1900s and Charismatic Movement in the 1950s. I want to pick on some of these movements and ask the question, “What was God really doing”, what was the counsel (underlying intent) behind what was happening?
· In the 1980s, God restored the office and ministry of the prophet back into the church. We know that the prophetic is a mechanism of sight into or of accessing God’s purposes and we also know that when God brings us to a place of sight into His purposes, He is expecting that we conform and obey. So what was God after? What really was He doing, what was the underlying motivation (counsel)? God was building a church (a people) that would walk in the accuracy of His purposes by obedience and thereby partner with Him in advancing the kingdom. God was not restoring the prophetic ministry so that we would have “spectacular church services” every Sunday. The question is - what happened? I think we generally produced spectacular church services and failed to walk in the accuracy of God’s purposes. We were left with the ministry and activity of prophesying and lost sight of the counsel of God, to produce a people of accurate understanding of and obedience to the purposes of God.
· In the 1990s, God restored the office and ministry of the apostle back into the church. As per the article that came out last week, we know that the apostolic grace deals with the understanding of God’s designs and architecture for human life. That is, the apostolic is a mechanism for understanding God’s designs. So what was God doing? What was His underlying motivation? God restored apostolic ministry in order to produce a people (church) who have an understanding of correct designs for human life, but what happened? We got excited with the title of “apostle” and most of us quickly shifted offices from “pastor” to “apostle”. We didn’t even spend enough time to consider correct definitions of an “apostle”. Many became and still become apostles under wrong definitions. We thought apostleship was a “promotion” from pastor-ship. God’s heart motivation was to produce a church that is design-oriented, a church that understands correct designs for human life and therefore a church that can build correct life (correct lifestyles, families, communities and systems) and a church that can teach nations on the correct structures of life as Isaiah prophesied in Isa ch.2.
These two examples, which I hope most if not all of us can relate to, reveal the reality of God’s counsel as the activator of God’s activity in the earth. Moreover, the examples show us that if we do not process the doings of God correctly we are most likely to miss the intent for which God does certain things.
Therefore church that is built without due consideration of God’s counsel runs the risk of being wrong structurally and of missing the mark operationally, even though it may seem to be functioning well.
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