SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/9/2017
11:17 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Source of the Ministry”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
1:23c, 25a
Message of the
verses: “the gospel…of which I,
Paul, was made a minister…Of this church I was made a minister according to the
stewardship from God bestowed on me for you benefit.”
I think that the Colossian church had a great benefit
from having Paul a minister for them which was according to the stewardship
from God as we have seen given to Paul when He saved Paul on the road to
Damascus as seen in the ninth chapter of Acts and also when Paul gave his
testimony as seen in Acts 26. I can also
say that we today benefit greatly from Paul’s ministry and apostleship that was
also given to Him by God, for we have the benefit of reading not only this
letter he wrote, but many other letters that he wrote to different churches
from which we can gleam many truths to help us live the Christian life in a way
that is pleasing to the Lord.
The Bible, especially the New Testament shows us that all
Christians have been called to serve God in one capacity or another. We can read of different Spiritual gifts that
are given to believers, and although I don’t want to at this time get into this
subject I do want to say that every believer has at least one Spiritual gift,
one that is not what we call sign gifts that were given to the early church in
order to help it get established. The
gifts are listed in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter
4. These gifts given to believers are to
benefit everyone who is in the local church that they attend in order to help
it function in a way that pleases the Lord.
John MacArthur writes “Stewardship translates oikonomia, a compound word made up of oikos (‘house’) and nemo (‘manage’). It means to
manage a household as a steward of someone else’s possessions. The steward had oversight of the other
servants and handled the business and financial affairs of the household. That freed the owner to travel and pursue
other interests. Being a steward was
thus a position of great trust and responsibility in the ancient world.”
Now there have been some church leaders unlike Paul who
sought no glory for himself. Paul wanted
to be regarded in the following way as seen in 1 Cor. 4:1-2 “1 Let a man regard
us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2
In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found
trustworthy.” Paul desired to fulfill
the task that the Lord had given him to fulfill “16 For if I preach the gospel,
I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do
not preach the gospel. 17 For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if
against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me (1 Cor. 9:16-17).” John MacArthur writes of this passage “There
is no stronger passage to show Paul’s firm sense of the divine call in his life
than 1 Corinthians 9:16-17.” Paul had to
preach the gospel as he was compelled to do so for he even states “Woe is me if
I do not preach the gospel.”
It would be nice if all of those called to preach the
gospel have this great desire, and I feel very fortunate that the Pastor where
I attend church feels this great compassion to preach the gospel.
Believers today are not to be like those in Corinth who
used their spiritual gifts to benefit themselves, and I suppose that this is
true in many churches today, but it surely should not be true as we are to use
our gifts to minister to others so as we have looked at the source of ministry
we need to realize that it comes from the Lord and we are to minister to others
just as Paul did. Next we will look at “The
Spirit of the Ministry” as seen in Col. 1:24a.
2/9/2017 11:42 PM
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