A REMINDER from Randy: Our brother, Art Mealer, who has been a part of the gatherings in my home for several years now has authored THE SERVANT COMMUNITY: EXPERIENCING THE PROMISE OF EKKLESIA. I have had fellowship with Art for, I am sure, over a decade, even before he started coming to the gatherings in our home.
He has been a part of “house church, simple church/organic church” gatherings for, I think, well over 30 years, because He had an awakening regarding the Biblical template for ecclesiology. But, really, that awakening was about much more than just the form and function of gathering. And, this book is not necessarily an apology for “house/simple/organic” church, nor is it an attack on more traditional fellowships. It is simply an exposition from the scriptures regarding the drastic reshaping of leadership advancing the mutual servanthood that Jesus promoted as “The New Greatness”. And, it is an exposition of the church as we find it in scripture, which represents a radical alternative to what we know and experience in the world. Art is a very solid student of the scriptures and, I believe, the Holy Spirit has been at work producing this work through his hands to edify believers and strengthen the church.
As with most books, I would not agree with everything written here. But, having watched Art labor diligently in the Lord on this work, and… having helped with some input and editing (at his invitation), and… having him in our fellowship for sometime, I can strongly recommend it. I started encouraging Art some years ago to work to finish it, because I had a very real sense that the LORD would use it powerfully to touch people with a clear understanding of being called to being a part of The Servant Community that is the church/ekklesia. And, I think you will find insights in it that you will enjoy and find edifying. I certainly pray you will. You may want to share it with others as well, or suggest they read it.
Here is a link to it on Amazon: The Servant Community by Art Mealer
This week I had lunch with a dear friend and brother. The fellowship was good and it gave us an opportunity to touch “stuff” in each other’s lives, and encourage one another in His purpose for us. In our fellowship we also touched lightly in conversation on the subject of the many friends we have, these days, sensing a great revival coming soon. This friend and I were not so sure we could confirm that sense in our other friends. And, we discussed having some sensing that if revival does come it will be coming out of deep darkness covering things, perhaps even troubled times. But we pray the revival comes, perhaps without the trouble.
[Isaiah 60:1-2 NASB95] 1 “Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. 2 “For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.
This discussion caused me to revisit a passage in Luke 5 where Jesus discussed breaking down the old to establish the new. I’ve found God’s restorative move often involves not so much refurbishment but new beginnings. Not patching and repair, but new creation in the place of old. New lives for old.
[Luke 5:33-36, 38-39 NASB95] 33 And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the [disciples] of the Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35 “But [the] days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” 36 And He was also telling them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. … 38 “But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins. 39 “And no one, after drinking old [wine] wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good [enough.]”
To add context Luke 5 is a passage based on the testimony miracles. The night of no catch is followed by casting the nets again to a catch that sinks boats and causes the first disciples to follow, a paralytic healed, friends who ripped off the roof to bring their friend to the healing of Jesus by the forgiveness of sins, calling Matthew and sitting with tax gatherers/sinners, and confrontation with the religious order and leaders of the time. It is the juxtaposition of the Kingdom with religion and specifically the religion posited by the Pharisees.
In the passage above, in verses 33 – 39, what is Jesus saying as He talks about the Bridegroom and His attendants and times for fasting? What is the picture of the parable of old garments and patches with new cloth, or new wine in old wine skins? And, we must ponder what new wine is there that challenges that taste or the old?
What is He saying about your life, or the church, or the old and new covenant? Has it to do with Judaism and Christianity? It is about practicing religious ritual and tradition or moving under the guidance and in the freedom of the Spirit?
I think the basic point here is very clearly and simply that Jesus is declaring the Kingdom. A different Kingdom than they had ever seen, considered and certainly… different than any they (the Pharisees who questioned here) had known. Things are now going to be different. He is establishing a new order and His Kingdom.
If we consider the question about the Bridegroom and attendants. Jesus and His disciples were being accused of being too celebratory, and not seriously fasting and praying enough. The Pharisees thought them just too happy! But, Jesus couched his answer to that in the cultural traditions surrounding a wedding which, at the time, could run over several days of feasting and joy. It was put into a cultural context they could understand. There was less emphasis on ritual and more on the celebration. Jesus said plainly “the Bridegroom is among them! They can’t be expected to fast right now!” But He made it clear that a time would come. He was proclaiming Himself to be the Bridegroom, in essence the Messiah, but they did not have ears to hear or eyes to see.
In the parable of the patch. His point was again very clear. I will not be patching the old forms and function with a new piece of cloth. That would only destroy both the old and the new. The new patch would shrink and simply damage the old preshrunk used garment making it more ragged, and to be in greater disrepair than it was in the first place. I will not be “fixing” up this old system, but establishing a new one.
In the wine skins parable He is reiterating and emphasizing that He has no intention of trying put this new Kingdom and freedom in the Spirit, into old forms and practices. He will not patch or reform the old, but put new wine into new wine skins. His disciples will not go to the rabbinical schools of the Pharisees, but will follow Him.
There will be new wine and new priestly garments.
And in verse 39 when He says “And no one, after drinking old [wine] wishes for new; for he says, “The old is good [enough.]”, is simply making it clear that He understands many will resist the new He is establishing. They will say and think. “the old is good enough”. Most of us get comfortable with “oh… we have always done it this way!” Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not bound to the old way or old forms. Neither are we to be taken in by the new and shiny, just because it is New and Glittering. We are to be focused on what Jesus is doing and that which He is establishing. Jesus didn’t destroy the law, He fulfilled it. He gave us new and greater commandments.
There are so many applications from this passage that may be applied to both our personal lives, as well as the church. Too many to go into here.
But here are some questions to consider-
Personally – Do you find joy in the presence of the Bridegroom? Do you also
know when He calls you to fast and pray?
-Have you ripped piece of cloth from your new life in Him to try
and patch your old life in and of the flesh?
-Are you trying to keep life and freedom in the Spirit
bound in the old skins of life or traditions or religion?
-Are you living under Pharisaical judgements or trying to hold
others to those kinds of standards?
For the Church – Are you still applying new garment patches to an old
garment?
-Have you been willing to let Him put new
wine into new wine skins”
The following is another piece I wrote about this passage a while back. I thought might offer some insight as well, particularly regarding what the LORD may do in His Body, the Church, the fullness of Him that fills all in all. And what our responsibility in a time of revival may be.
Here is the Matthew 9 context
[Matthew 9:14-17 NASB95] 14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 “But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. 17 “Nor do [people] put new wine into old wine skins; otherwise the wine skins burst, and the wine pours out and the wine skins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved.”
The wine skins discourse begins with a question of comparisons. Why do the Pharisees fast, yet your disciples don’t?
Jesus’ first response is simply that while He is with His disciples, the Bridegroom with His wedding attendants, it is not a time for them to fast. An interesting, kind of left -handed, way to say the Pharisees are not in the Bridal party isn’t it? I won’t go into that, but to say that leads to His use of the visual examples of patches and wine skins. He does say the time for fasting by his disciples, the Bridegroom’s attendants, is coming.
Then He shares the visual examples. Again, in doing so He essentially is saying that He is establishing a new order, a new creation if you will. The old one will not do, or hold, what the Bridegroom’s wedding plans are going to establish, which will replace it. It must be replaced because it cannot be repaired to hold the new.
First, with the garment repair example, He says you can’t just put this new order on the old as a restoration effort.
In those days, fabrics were not preshrunk. If you took a patch from a new piece of fabric, and put it over a hole in old garment that had been washed many times and was already shrunk by wear and washings. The first time you laundered the garment the new piece of fabric would shrink and end up tearing a worse hole in the old garment.
Jesus was not here to repair the old order, old garment. Particularly one that had been interpreted and distorted the way the Pharisees had, putting heavy burdens on others. He was not going to reform Judaism. He was going to replace it with something new. His design was not going to stick a patch on that, knowing it would destroy the old and the new.
Next, or secondly, with the wine skin example, He makes it clear that the new order will require a new form as well. No one puts new wine in an old wine skin.
If you put new wine in an old wine skin, the aging/fermenting process will stretch the old skin which, in this case has not shrunk, but rather has already been expanded to its limits stretching the seams, and the new gasses from new wine inside will burst the old skin. It, and the new wine, will be lost. New wine requires new wine skins. New order, new creation, new function, requires a new form to accommodate ongoing change.
This leads to a discussion of form and function, and how they must be matched, fit, and accommodate each other. Too much to go into here.
There is a very real application here today to the church. The institutional church-as-we-know-it, has some ability to make some change, but is often like the patched garment. It is limited and can’t stand much departure. It can move from hymnal to overhead/computer projected lyrics, but much more movement or change from the platform to spectator mode, information exchange to calling to costly discipleship, may rip and tear it apart.
The old form cannot adapt to new function well.
The same may be said of organic or house churches in some ways. Can it move beyond simple Bible study or church-as-we-know-it meetings moved inside a home, to being relationally a community of servants, outside of hierarchy, manifesting Jesus as His body to one another and the world and principalities and powers.
The new form if it keeps relying on old functions doesn’t make room for release of the new order.
I have shared in the past about Soul-based worship from captivity in Babylon. It seems we are always resistant to God establishing His new order, new creation, by His Spirit in us. We want to apply our mind/our intellect and knowledge, our will/to do and build our way with what we “think” He will bless, and our emotion/producing warm fuzzy holy ghost goosebumps…. Rather than worship in Spirit and Truth using His revelation and ideas, His knowledge of good and evil, His ways over our designs and plans, and peace in His presence over titillation and emotionalism.
Jesus was essentially speaking against religion and religious systems in these examples. He was saying religion cannot be reformed. It cannot be patched and new wine must go in new skins.
I hear much talk these days of a coming great revival, God doing new things, a fresh work. I pray this may be true.
But, if it is, I believe what He does will probably be outside our organized religion and comfortable accepted way of doing things. He will establish new boundaries. New wine skins/forms for new wine/new ways of functioning. Old things pass away when new things come.
This not only will require change in the way things have always been done, but letting go of some things that will move outside of the comfort zone of the way we “think” things should be done or operate.
Man is interested in conformity of order. The Holy Spirit is interested in order. Conformity? Not so much. As one teacher recently said He moves in “orderly spontaneity”.
If we do see a time of new wine let us not embrace the frustration of trying to put it into old skins. We will just end up tearing one another apart. Old skins are set and brittle and just cannot handle new wine. Guard relationships, but if God is giving you new wine, do not force it on those who may be old wine skins. Gently work with new wine skins.
It may be possible to get new wine in an old wine skin. But Jesus makes it clear. It is not wise. He was not willing to do it. You risk bursting the skin and losing the wine.