Build Up
I recently watched a documentary on Ernest Hemingway and a segment in the programme made me think about New Testament descriptions of church. The segment was about Hemingway’s friend, the French artist and father of impressionism, Paul Cézanne. The documentary showed a series of painting Cézanne created of the same subject – Mont Sainte Victoire – each of them discernibly the same subject but each of them different.
What’s Mont Sainte Victoire Got To Do With Church?
So, what does this have to do with Church and what we will be looking at this Sunday?
Just as Cézanne painted Mont Sainte Victoire differently multiple times, but discernibly the same subject, so the New Testament “paints” different pictures of the church that are discernibly the same reality.
This Sunday.
This Sunday we are going to look at two of these pictures of the church, one found in Ephesians 4: 7- 16 and the other 1 Peter 2: 4-6.
I’m still working on my sermon, and so far, I’ve spent most of my time thinking about the Ephesians passage. Two repeated phrases have struck me. Verse 14 and verse 15 both use the phrase “we might…”
14That we might no longer be infants, wave-tossed and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human trickery, by cunning, in the service of the system of error, 15 but by speaking the truth in love, we might grow up to him in every respect, who is the head, Christ.
I wonder
I wonder what the phrase “that we might” makes you think of?
For Paul there was a negative and a positive: that we might not be X, but that we might be Y.
I wonder when it comes to church, when you think about QPBC, what is the Spirit saying we have not to be and positively what have we to aspire to?
It would be helpful to know what God is saying to you about this.
Communion
Both the passages we are thinking about are about being joined and built together.
This Sunday we will celebrate our union with Christ and the fellowship we have with each other as we take communion together. If you are joining us on-line for QP line please remember to have bread and wine ready for this. If you are joining us in Camphill or the All-In service bread and wine will be available in a COVID safe manner.
Looking forward to being with you on Sunday.
Brodie