Why Christians should go to Church no. 3 - Spiritual Gifts

The Bible teaches God gives Spiritual gifts to believers so they may edify (ie strengthen or build up) the body of Christ. Christians who remove themselves from fellowship have basically removed their spiritual gift from others in the family who need it. 

Your gift needs to be available for the nourishment of the body as a whole. This, naturally, gets back to the ‘body’ analogy of 1 Corinthians 12.

In addition, every Christian needs to be ministered to by the other parts of the body. I have found one of the most challenging verses in the Bible to be 1 Corinthians 12:21.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” (1 Cor 12:21)

Believe me I have encountered plenty of Christians I can do without, yet God says otherwise. Surely that, then, is a reflection of my own maturity. I still have a way to go on this journey, that much is clear.

Obviously these other body parts exist, at least partly, for my benefit and even if I do not appreciate them, they have something to offer me which I cannot provide for myself. The head cannot walk and the hand cannot see. I need them, so I remain a part of the body.

Not so with many Christians today. They have taken the view that the body does not serve their needs and so they have amputated themselves. They are convinced God is happy with this and does not require them to pay any attention to the welfare of the other parts of the body (the head of which is Christ I might add!).

But the repost from these believers is often that they are indeed using their spiritual gift, just not in a local church. They perhaps convince themselves they will become itinerant evangelists. It’s as though they have found the one spiritual gift which God does not require to go anywhere near a local congregation.

If you ever ask them, their answer will be that they intend to continue to faithfully pursue personal Bible reading and prayer, then will embark on a personal witnessing campaign amongst their neighbours in order to fulfill the great commission.

I have three problems with that.

1. We are one

Firstly, God has instructed us to do more than fulfill the great commission (ie Matthew 28:18-20). We are told to remain bonded as a family while we go about his business. This is for our benefit.

This is what Jesus meant in the garden of Gethsemane when he prayed,

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name - the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are one. (John 17:11).

He was not praying that we would all agree on the carpet, service times or what songs to sing. That’s 'uniformity' and often when I talk to Christians about remaining united in the body, this is what they think I mean (or at least what they insist I must mean so their error will not be exposed).

Jesus was praying for the Father to united his people as “one”. It contains the idea of the scattered many being brought together, not those who are together being split up.

2. Go and make disciples

Secondly, the great commission tells us we will ‘go and make disciples’. What does an out of fellowship Christian then do with all those new believers after they have been converted?

After all, his/her modus operandi is to be disconnected from the local Church. Do they start their own church with him or herself as Pastor? That puts them right back where they started.

Do they shake the dust off their feet and walk on to the next town? If so, then they are either saying it is God’s will for new Christians to be in a church, but not the mature ones or that no one should ever bother being in a church. Perhaps baby Christians should simply carry on by themselves until Jesus returns.

All this time they have been trying to convince us they don’t need a local Church but now they want us to believe they are focused on the fulfilling the great commission! That does not compute.

Most likely, they don’t actually travel anywhere. They just remain in their homes & don’t go to Church. They hope that at some point they will bump into a non-believer and the gospel will safely work its way into the conversation.

If these people were genuine itinerant evangelists, we would bless them as they went, but they rarely are. They are Christians who have either been hurt or become disillusioned with local Church and have consequently 'downed tools' for God.

The real evangelists I know (ie those with that very gift) still go to Church! They have the support of a body of believers somewhere and make themselves accountable to them. Christians who withdraw from other believers are withdrawing their gifts and cannot be ministered to in return & from what I have seen certainly do not want to be 'accountable'.

Often, in my experience, these out of fellowship Christians (and please note I am not saying they are not Christians) will have several core beliefs which they understand to be non-negotiable and very often these beliefs have to do with issues the rest of us think mature Christians can legitimately disagree on.

It could be the version of the Bible used, a particular understanding of the end times or the use of spiritual gifts, but whatever the issue, it will become so great a problem they will not be able to fellowship with people who even believe differently, let alone practice differently in Church.

Somewhere along the line, you will be able to find a dominant, even charismatic Bible teacher who planted these ideas in their heads (which should be a warning in itself to those of us who teach!). Many would go to a Church if they could find one where everyone agreed with them on every single issue, but there aren’t many of those so they make do with mp3’s or perhaps nothing at all.

A percentage of disaffected Christians are not even at that point. They simply have given up on Church of any kind and are merely growing cold in the world. They don’t do much of anything. They go about their business and maintain a private belief in God, but won’t listen to what he says about their own need for fellowship. They simply disregard or disagree.

3. Every member ministry

Thirdly, every Christian has a responsibility to minister to the Church. Here is the real problem with the “it’s only about me and God” view. Put simply, every Christian is gifted by God and every one of these gifts is for the building up of the Church (1 Cor 12:7).

This is Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 12. Notice how he starts the chapter;

Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. (1 Cor 12:1)

I’m afraid those who have come to the conclusion that God does not expect them to use their gifts in the Church (ie for its edification) are, as Paul puts it, ignorant.

In verse 7 Paul declares that, ‘the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good’. Notice the capital ‘S’ in Spirit. This indicates the author’s intention to highlight the Holy Spirit, not us being ‘spiritual’.

In other words, if you have God’s Holy Spirit in you (ie you are a Christian), you will have a spiritual gift and this gift is “for the common good” of the body.

Even evangelism is not a private gift but brings glory to God as Christians show the practical outworking of the gospel by declaring what God has done to an unbelieving world.

I cannot accept the view that it is God’s will for some Christians to withdraw their spiritual gift from the Church when those very gifts were given so that the Church would be built up. It is in contradiction to God’s revealed word on the matter.