The Church, the Falling Away, and the Restoration — John Shaqi
The Church, the Falling Away, and the RestorationShepherd, J. W. (James Walton)
Religion
The Church, the Falling Away, and the Restoration
Shepherd, J. W. (James Walton)
Churches of Christ -- Doctrines; Disciples of Christ -- Controversial literature; Disciples of Christ -- Doctrines
Every member of the Church was to participate in all the services of the
church; and the members not only were competent to do all the work
pertaining to the church, but they needed this work and service for
their own spiritual growth. In this service alone could the Christian
find the food and exercise needed for his growing wise and strong in the
inner man. The spiritual man could no more grow strong and active
without himself doing the worship and work of the church than the body
could grow strong while refusing the food and exercise needed for its
growth and life. In this service in the church man could alone find the
highest development of the soul and the mind and the body. One could no
more worship and do the work in the church by proxy and grow spiritually
thereby than he could eat and take exercise by proxy and his body grow
thereby. The well-being of every member demanded that he should take
active part in the worship, the well-being of the church demanded the
help of every member that it “may grow up in all things unto him, who is
the head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit
together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the
working in due measure of each several part, making the increase of the
body unto the building up of itself in love” (Eph. 4:15, 16). The point
emphasized here is that every member had his work to do, his office to
fill, and by this harmonious working of all the parts the body grew into
the well-proportioned body of Christ—the Church. The welfare and
development of the whole was dependent upon the proper workings of each
and every member.
Every child of God, by virtue of his birthright into God’s family, a
family of priests to God, had the right to perform any and every service
connected with the Church of God, limited only by God’s directions and
by the ability to do it decently and in order. All were encouraged to
take part in the service, and in doing the service each member
manifested his talent for the work and trained himself for fitness in
God’s work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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