The Resilient Pastor by Glenn Packiam

Author:Glenn Packiam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ministry Resource;Pastoral theology;Christian leadership;REL074000;REL080000;REL108000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2021-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

Practices for the Presence

Paul, writing to the church in Ephesus, one of the pillar congregations of the early church, tells them how to think about their shared life together. In typical Pauline fashion, he draws three very powerful but very different images together so quickly that a middle school English teacher might chastise him for mixing his metaphors. He first describes them as citizens; then they are members of a household, a new family that is being formed in Jesus; then he switches again to say that the household is not just a family but a building: “So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household. As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:19–20).

Paul goes on to say that the church is not just any building but the temple itself: “The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord. Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21–22).

This temple imagery stretches throughout the letter. In Ephesians 3 Paul prays for the church to be able to grasp the width and length and height and depth of God’s love because in knowing God’s love they will be filled with God’s fullness: “I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). To be filled with the fullness of God is an echo of the glory of God filling the temple at key moments in Israel’s history. There are many ways to think about the glory of God. The Hebrew notion is about God’s weightiness, the very substance of his being.

Paul believes that the primary manifestation of God’s glory happened through Christ Jesus (see 2 Cor. 4:6; Col. 1:5). He references in the letter to the Ephesians the ascension of Christ as the precursor to him filling all things: “The one who went down is the same one who climbed up above all the heavens so that he might fill everything” (4:10). Christ came, died, was buried, and was raised up and exalted so that he would fill all things.

But the church is the place where God dwells now in advance of the day that he fills all things. Christ is already filling the church through the Holy Spirit; Christ is building us into a place that God can dwell by his Spirit (Eph. 2:22). As we experience his love—which the Spirit pours out in our hearts (Rom. 5:5)—we become filled with the fullness of God.

Now we see one final piece: the filling by the Spirit is ongoing. “Instead, be filled with the Spirit in the following ways: speak to each other with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; sing and make music to the Lord in your hearts;

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