To Encourage You

Colossians 1:1-2 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”

Do titles and definitions matter in the Church of Christ?  So many words are used so carelessly regarding spiritual things.  Some examples are shown in the opening verses of Colossians.  Here we have four words that we often hear in church settings, but which are used in ways that God, the author of the Bible, the very source of these words, never intended for them to be used. These words are the following: apostle, brother, saints, and Father. 

The word “apostle” is sometimes used to refer to people who are alive today, but the Bible only uses the term to specifically refer to the 12 men Jesus originally called to found His church, as well as Paul, and several other close associates of these men, such as Barnabus, Silas, Timothy, Andronicus, Titus, and Epaphroditus.  These men had certain very specific qualifications. They were all eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ (Acts 1:22-24) and their role as an apostle was authenticated by “signs, wonders, and miracles” (2 Corinthians 12:12).  Some of these men, like the Old Testament prophets, gave us the written words of the New Testament.  They were unique individuals, and obviously, none of them is living on the earth today, no matter how often we hear the term “apostle” used to refer to someone.

Then there is the word “brother.”  We all know what a brother or a sister is in the physical sense.  However, the Bible often uses this term in a strictly spiritual sense.  When it uses this term in this way, it is referring to those who are in the family of God through faith in the Lord Jesus.  So often we hear the term used today in the sense of the “brotherhood of man.” As human beings, we’re all one big happy family, one brotherhood, correct?  Well, yes, and no.  In that we’re all members of the “human family,” so to speak, we are related in one sense.  We are all derived from one ancestral pair, Adam and Eve.  However, in most cases when the Bible uses the terms “brother” or “brothers in Christ” it is referring specifically and only to those who are in God’s family by virtue of their faith in God. They only are spiritual brothers who have been born again and thereby adopted into God’s family (Ephesians 1:5).  It is only those people who can truly be called “children of God” (1 John 3:1) and “brothers in Christ.” 

Another term: “saints.”  We so often see churches with names such as St. Peter’s this or St. Paul’s that.  Some of us may be familiar with the process of “sainthood” within the Roman Catholic Church.  It is these saints and only these that the Roman Catholic church calls “holy” men or “holy” women.  One fact about this “canonization” process is that no one can be named a saint until at least five years after their death.  Then, the bishop of the diocese in which the individual dies must petition the Holy See.  Then there is a long, drawn-out process including the need for at least two miracles in that person’s life and formal steps such as a “Cause for Beatification and Canonization,” a “permission,” a “Positio,” etc.  Interesting how convoluted and complicated man can make things when he steps outside the clear guidance of God laid out in the Scriptures.  According to the Bible, the canonization process of the Roman Catholic church has absolutely nothing to do with true sainthood.  A “saint,” according to the Bible, is a person who is “set apart” to God, declared to be holy by virtue of the holiness of Jesus that has been given to that person as a gift of grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, a “saint” is any born-again believer in Christ.  Every single place the word “saint” is used in the Bible, it always means “Christian.”  It is interchangeable with it. Each and every true follower of Jesus Christ is a saint, regardless of what the Roman Catholic church would have us believe. 

And finally, there is the word “Father,” in reference to God.  People play fast and loose with this word as well.  So many people think of God as our Father, every one of us, for don’t we all pray “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name”?  However, Jesus made very clear that it is only those who have been saved from their sin through faith that can legitimately call God their Father.  To the religious Jews who made the vehement claim to Jesus that “We have one Father – even God” (John 8:41), Jesus replied “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires . . . If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God” (John 8:42-47).  I’m sure that reply was quite a shock to their system – as it should be to anyone else that assumes God is their Father simply because they are alive. 

May God help us to understand His Word, including the individual words He uses in it, to convey to us spiritual truth.  Indeed, our very lives depend on not only having ears to hear His Words, but also having a heart inclined to understand what He has said.  He has clearly told us what He means by what He has said.  May God help us to not be confused about this by virtue of inaccurate definitions that others have made up, often in an attempt to justify themselves before Him.