BODY VERSUS BUNCH

How we plant ourselves in the Body of Christ is as important, if not more, than just the act of attending church.

Ephesians 4:16 comes to mind, "from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

As we look forward to seeing you on Sunday, hear this clipping from one of T. Austin-Sparks' many books transcribed from his audio teachings. Be patient as you weed through some of his verbiage:

Body Versus Bunch

You see the difference is this: Take a bunch of flowers, a bunch of roses or any other particular kind of flower. They are of the same species, and they have the same life in them. That is a congregation, not a body!

The difference between a bunch of flowers which are all alike, all sharing the same life, and [versus] the root and the plant, is a very big one. Give me the rose, root and plant or bush, and what shall I have? Well, I shall have this difference that, whereas the bunch of flowers has the life, it just goes so far. That is all and there it ends. It will never go beyond that.

Give me the plant or bush, and it will grow. It may pass through a paroxysm [fit] of death for a season, but next year it will come back again and there will be more; and then another experience of dying and resurrection, and again there will be more, all in the same plant. That is a body, that is an organism, not a bunch. And that is the difference between a congregation, so many Christians, units coming together as units, and [versus] a spiritual organism, a local expression of the Body of Christ: and it is the Body which is God's thought, not a congregation, not the bunch of flowers.

But oh, the Lord's people are so much like the bunch of flowers! It is true they are all of the same species: they are Christians, they are children of God, they are all sharing the same Life, but oh, they are not there as one organism in one place growing with the increase of God, passing through corporate convulsions of death and resurrection and making spiritual increase in that way...God's thought is of the root and the plant as a whole, a living organism here and there as representing and expressing Christ Himself. The plant grows and makes increase. The bunch simply goes so far and then it stops.

   T. Austin-Sparks, God's Spiritual House (chapter 4, pp. 43-44)