Rarely has a church received more from God than the people of Corinth did. First planted in foundational truth by the apostle Paul, the Corinthians were then watered by the eloquent flow of scriptural insight from Apollos. Later they would be enriched by the testimony of the greatest living witness to the ministry of Jesus in that day, the apostle Peter. Corinth was indeed favored of the Lord. Not only was the church full of the Word, but the abundance of spiritual gifting in Corinth seems unparalleled even by New Testament standards. Considering the great wealth of revelation, insight, and charismatic expression that was deposited in this early Christian community, it would seem right to consider this setting as a model of all that the Church today should become. However, even a casual reading in our Bibles of the Corinthian correspondence reveals not a model, but a mess.
According to Paul?s writings, the Corinthians were a fellowship of factions and fornicators?a congregation of carnal charismatics whose gatherings were egotistic exhibitions of spiritual gifts. A diagnosis of the local body of Christ at Corinth would use such terms as disunity, dysfunction, and disorder. Their ignorant use of their gifting was a symptom of their confusion concerning their identity. The Corinthians did not base their identity on who they were in Christ. Instead, they sought to establish their identity by gathering themselves under the name of a famous preacher. They said, ?I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ.? By joining themselves to a well-known name, they gained a mark of identity and an elevated sense of importance that was not of God.
What Is Our Identity?
The corinthians also sought to establish their identity through whatever gift of the spirit was demonstrated in their lives. the corinthian church was full of members who, just as they elevated their favorite preacher above any other preacher, also elevated their personal gifting as the source of their identity. evidently many of the corinthian christians prophesied or spoke in tongues and felt that their gift was not only greater than the others, but that they themselves were ?more excellent? because of their gifting. the resulting use of charismatic gifts as a mark of identity, instead of as a ministry to the body, caused the confusion and indecency present within their congregational gatherings. it is into this setting that paul wrote the following words:
I write not these things to shame you, but as my be-loved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church (1 Corinthians 4:14-17).
The order of God within His Kingdom is the order of father and son. Paul writes to a chaotic, charismatic culture as a father to sons and sends Timothy as a model of what a son in the ministry is really like. The apostle then says that this is part of his ?ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church.? If we are ever going to find our way out of confusion, we must find God?s ways in the Kingdom.
We have to return to the principle of God in father and son. This truth has been lost in the Church because we have modeled our relationships according to modern practices of business management rather than following a biblical pattern. We hire pastors and leaders to perform certain functions within an organizational structure that mirrors the operation of a chicken or hamburger franchise more than it reflects spiritual truth.
The Local Franchise
Today a local church will associate with large ministries or denominational headquarters and serve as a franchise representative of that well-known product line. The local church receives its name, logo, and organizational security by attaching itself to a nationally known ?chain.? Pastors become CEO?s of locally run franchise outposts that hire assistant managers to perform in specific areas: visitation, music, youth, office administration, etc. The pastor, along with his
assistants, help to recruit and train a volunteer staff to perform programmed tasks. This results in more business and recruitment of new customers, which will support more buildings at better locations. We call this church growth. We call this success. What does God call it?
We are doing things God never told us to do. God never told us to form ourselves like the nations of the world. He never said to develop systems that slice truth into separate camps by naming and numbering the people. We have made our denominations so we can appear like all the other nations. The organizations of God?s Kingdom should be modeled after His Word, not the principles of this world.
There are some who know that denominations are not the answer for them. So they form ?fellowships? and call them ?Non-denominational? or ?Independent.? By calling themselves these names, they feel covered enough to commit the same practices, sometimes with even more corruptness than the very system they left. Shakespeare said that, ?A rose by any other name still smells as sweet.? A system that still follows worldly principles of power and relationship is still the world, regardless of its official position or title.
Where Are the Fathers?
Because the Church has not followed the ways of her Redeemer, non-biblical relationship has produced a non-biblical generation. God does not call us just His ?ambassadors? or ?ministers.? He calls us His children, His sons, the Church of the firstborn, His Bride, and His Body! We have built ministry relationships based on the kingdom of this world, not the Kingdom of our God and His Christ! That is why we are great at building churches, but not at participating in true Kingdom experience. Our enormous numerical growth is dwarfed by the power of 120 men and women in the upper room. The purpose of the Church is to be an outpost for the Kingdom, not a man-made, man-patterned institutional, bloodless machine that produces programs and numbers, but not sons and daughters.
When Paul tells the Corinthians that they have ?ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers,? the apostle is referring to the root of their problem being a lack of mature father leadership. The word for ?instructor? here in the Greek is paidagogos, which means ?boy-leader.? This term refers to a servant whose official position was to make sure the children went to school. Fathers are substituted by hired servants unrelated to spiritual inheritance.
Today there are thousands of ministry people who have been educated in the finest schools. Many have supplemented their formal education through audiotapes and videotapes as well as from books and magazines from qualified scholarly sources. Although there has never been a greater flood of biblical material available, there are precious few drops of biblical power manifested. We reach millions with information, but without spiritual relationship, impartational truth is not given and received. The reason we have not seen a manifestation of power in biblical proportions is because we are not giving and receiving impartation by biblical pattern. We have ten thousand ?boy-leaders? in Christ but not many fathers.
With a lack of fathers comes a lack of identity. We need so desperately to belong, to have boundaries, to know who we are in God. An orphan may seek many years for any information he can find concerning his heritage, for without a family line he will never really know himself. He may have many brothers and sisters, but without knowledge of his father, he can never recognize their kinship. Without proof of his lineage, he may be the recipient of a large inheritance that he will never be qualified to receive.
Many Christian leaders today can, when questioned, give you a list of men whose teaching has influenced their lives, but these same leaders cannot point to a father in the ministry. So, like the Corinthian church, we have ample instruction and abundant gifting, but we have not many fathers. As a result, we gather under the banner of a particular teacher or organization for our identity. We use our particular gifting as our source of personhood in the Kingdom. This perverts the very purpose of the gifts God gave to men. The product of this disorder is a sick, infantile Church. Unable to walk in the Spirit, she totters and sways, fulfilling the lusts of her flesh.
What the Church must have is a renewal, not only of the Holy Spirit, but of relational patterns in ministry. We must rediscover the wonderful truth of impartational relationship in the order of father to son. When we find God?s order, we will know our identity and fulfill our purpose in the Kingdom of God.
Excerpted from You Have Not Many Fathers by Dr. Mark Hanby, with Craig Ervin. Published by Destiny Image Publishers.