Here’s just a quick follow-on to yesterday’s blog, It Takes All Kinds of People. It also takes all kinds of organizations:
But God has carefully designed each member and placed it in the body to function as he desires. A diversity is required, for if the body consisted of one single part, there wouldn’t be a body at all! So now we see that there are many differing parts and functions, but one body. (1 Corinthians 12.18 – 20, TPT)
A simple lesson is that this must go beyond the localized way we usually think of it. No single individual, no single church, no single denomination, no single para-church organization, etc. can do all of God’s work. To reiterate the aircraft carrier metaphor, God has A LOT of ships out there!
- Each ship has a variety of people on it to make it work.
- All the ships together make the Navy work.
- Even the Navy is only one part of the armed forces.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2.19 – 21, NIV)