The Purpose of Apostolic Insight

“To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly {places.}” Ephesians 3:8-10 NASB.

Over the years I have heard much speaking about the purpose of apostles. For some strange reason, I have not been impressed with too much charismatic teaching on it nor the cessationist view of the apostle being merely an establisher of doctrine and scripture writer. While being true, I have a hard time accepting what I see as a very limited view of the function and substance of an apostolic man. I by no means have some kind of superior grasp on this topic, but rather I am stretching myself and reaching for an apprehension of this thing. So the point of what follows is not to be heard on the subject but to actually find out what my own thoughts are. Writing helps me dig into things in my head (and the word) and get them out.

For me, the way I’m struck by this passage is by certain words seeming to leap out at me. The phrase “bring to light” is one Greek word, photidzo, and it speaks of causing something to be seen. Because of my trade (termite guy) I automitically think of a man (me) in a crawl space needing a flash light to see hidden things and causing them to be exposed or made known to the home owner. The homeowners don’t normally even know what to look for if they ever did dare to darken the door of thier crawl spaces, so it’s my job to search and tell of what I find. This word photidzo also is used figuratively of giving someone insight or understanding of something, to make a thing known. I’m thinking that this is where we derive our word for photography from.

So what is it that Paul is making known to us? What is this grace (divine enablement) given to him for? He says it is to understand what is “the administration of the mystery…hidden in God.”

The next word that jumped out at me was the word “administration”. Now, when I say it jumped out at me, I mean that somehow I was led to look deeper into the meaning of the word, as with the previously discussed word photidzo. It’s the word oikonomia, from which we get our word for “economy”. It speaks of the administrating of a household or an estate in the hands of a steward. It can mean a household’s finances or a religious system but is used here to speak of the outworking of the mystery of God that was once hidden. Paul was given grace to “flesh out” for us how to “live out” this life in a practical (spiritual) sense. In fact, he lived in his flesh what this mystery is and that’s why he could tell folks “follow me as I follow Christ”. He didn’t just teach it to the mind, he modeled it to be seen. This is awesome to me because this is the kind of learner I am. If someone had handed me a book on termite control and elimination and lectured me on it for an hour a week for a year, I would have been practically useless. But because book learning was coupled with a flesh out of the actual work, I learned it and am quite proficient in it sufficiently to teach it to others. I have not just been told how deep to dig a trench, I have seen them dug. I haven’t just been told how to use the hammer drill, I have seen it done. Now I can do it.
So the first and most important reason for apostolic insight is to demonstrate the Life of God in such a way as to cause others to know what it is and to be able to do it as well by following your example.

Paul was given grace to give insight to us as to how to manifest and work out the Life of Christ.

Why?

“…in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.” v.10

What is the manifold wisdom of God, and why do we have to demonstrate it to demonic agents? Why didn’t Paul emphasize the mystery of God being revealed to the world first with the devils simply looking over their shoulder?

Good questions.

When he speaks of wisdom in this verse, is he speaking of clever sayings? Is this the kind of wisdom that can figure out riddles and puzzling matters? Is this the kind of wisdom that comes up with inspiring truisms?
I suspect that wisdom properly understood in this passage is something alltogether other than what we might be quick to say wisdom is.

I did a quick search on the phrase “wisdom of God” and 5 specific places really jumped out at me. In these verses, the wisdom of God is shown to be a way that He does things and I believe that in Ephesians 3:10 it is a mode of being that He desires to be manifested in the lifestyle of the Church. Here are those 5 verses:
Ezra 7:25 “You, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God which is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges that they may judge all the people who are in {the province} beyond the River, {even} all those who know the laws of your God; and you may teach anyone who is ignorant {of them.}”
This is a wisdom who’s function is to make distinctions, judgment calls. It’s seen here as a way of making manifest the wisdom of God that affects living, understanding and learning. This in turn will cause righteous living that will be a demonstration of God’s economy.

Luke 11:49 “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and {some} of them they will kill and {some} they will persecute…”

I like how Luke has the wisdom of God personified as speaking. It reminds me of Proverbs.
Anyway, again we see the wisdom of God as a way of thinking something through, a revelation of a system of doing things and a demonstration of a system of values. It’s a demonstration of a system of values in the sense that the world’s value system would never intentionally do things the way God just said He would do it. The world sees this as foolishness; “You mean you purposely send people who will die and THAT is how you further your kingdom?” The world values its own life and the preservation of the self life. The kingdom of God values humility, obedience unto death, e.g. “they loved not their lives even unto the death.” This is wisdom.

1 Corinthians 1:21 “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not {come to} know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

Hopefully by now you can see what my commentary will be before I give it. But still, I see the wisdom of God here as a way of doing something. In fact, the wisdom of God was to keep Himself hidden, only to be revealed through the means of preaching (for the most part; see Romans 2). Again, it’s a revelation of a way of administrating something, a way of living as opposed to clever and insightful sayings that make you say, “aahhhhhh, I see!”, though I love that sort of demonstration of wisdom.
It’s the wisdom of God to do something in the exact opposite manner from the worlds way, the way which the world believes is expedient to the self interests that it holds dear. This way of life is inspired by the powers of darkness that Paul speaks of and I believe that this is why they must be broken in this manner. Oops, I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyhow, a few verses later (v. 22-24) Paul says this: “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Jews want signs; God says, “no”. Greeks want what they esteem as wise words; God says, “no”. God’s wisdom is to almost purposely be offensive; He cannot and WILL not bow down to what man wants. He will not meet us on our terms but we can ONLY meet Him on His. This is wisdom demonstrated. It thumbs its nose at the world, the flesh and the devil. Jews saw it as a stumbling block to see their Messiah as crucified; Greeks thought it was just stupid; to us who are the called, Christ is the power and wisdom of God. It’s a wisdom that when demonstrated, breaks upon us internally beyond comprehension in the conscious mind. It’s inner persuasion; God’s way of saving is so totally opposite from what humans see as wise that it can only be pulled of by God Himself and a church that has been radically apprehended by this truth!!

I wish I had time to elaborate on Romans 9-11, but suffice to say that the mystery of Israel and the Church was so profoundly awesome to Paul that he could hardly contain himself at the end of chapter 11. We would think that if God wanted to save Israel, all He needs to do is manifest like He used to. BUT, the wisdom of God is to preach and to have a church that is a living demonstration of Christ Himself so as to drive Jews to jealousy, that they may see in our lives the LORD whom they know not.

So let’s revisit the phrase “manifold wisdom of God”, coupled with the fact that Paul tells us that it is to be demonstrated to the powers of darkness.
The word manifold seems to be an artistic word in the sense that it is generally used to describe the many colors used in art work or elaborate clothing. Think Afghan blanket, or a Van Gogh. Or even think musically of something multi-layered like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven…or Iona. I’m reminded of Bob Gladstone’s message this morning where he spoke of it being a supernatural thing that God did in making the church what it is, bringing many different ethnic backgrounds together to make them one man. I like looking out over the assembley at FIRE church and seeing black folks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Germans, Asians, native Africans in traditional attire, clean shaven whitey’s, not so clean shaven whitey’s and everything in between. I like the multi-colored scenery and it reminds me of this word “manifold”. But as far as it touches the word wisdom, how do we flesh that out? It seems as though the “backwards” way that God does everything has millions of different ways and as many scenario’s that it can play itself out into. It’s not limited to the way of salvation; it includes the way a man runs a business, his family, his finances, his physical labors, etc. You should see the looks and hear the comments I get at work for how I view my job and how I work. The world has no ability to gauge this kind of wisdom. God calls us to be the servant of all, not climb the ladder and step on anyone you can on the way up. This can be immensely requiring on a day to day basis.

“You mean to tell me that the way you work at your 9-5 can break demonic strongholds?”

Well, yes, I do mean to tell you that. How and why I cannot say, I only know that this demonstration of a wisdom from another kingdom is something that hell cannot win against and when the powers of darkness see that you are not one of their “churchianity” participants, you are no longer tolerable. Satan doesn’t like salvation, but he’ll tolerate it. He hates discipleship, but he’ll tolerate it. When you live and act as if you’re totally free from their influence to cut corners, tell white lies, manipulate with words and reserve special little secrets of compromise for yourself, they no longer have any power. They’ve thrown money at you and you don’t budge. They’ve thrown easy, desperate housewives at you and you run like Joseph. They whisper ways of saying something to someone that will get you what you want even though it’s against their will and you will only speak truthfully (truth isn’t just a technical category of true vs. false; it’s motive encompassing as well).

So then, to wrap this up, I see the purpose of apostolic insight as being something that communicates God as God in a way sufficient to reproduce who God is in the earth through a Body of people who are demonstrating a wisdom, a lifestyle and mode of being that is not only free from the influence of the powers of darkness, but by that very demonstation can break their influence and in such a way stand out as a city on a hill, a light that cannot be hidden. It actually teaches us how to work out God’s wisdom, how to “administrate” His riches of wisdom in the way we live. IN THIS WAY will the world look on with jaw agape and either run to us or from us. The world will love us or hate us, but they will no longer be able to ignore us as they now do as being nothing more than a microcosm of a some benign culture that is a cutesy Sunday get-together-club.
This insight isn’t for ooing and aahing a crowd, displaying insight for scintilation sake. It is to reproduce the image of Christ “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13) But even then, the purpose doesn’t stop. We read on that this will cause us to mature and not be tricked by false doctrines as they blow through the church. Rather than being swept away, they simply blow through and go away.

OH! so much more could be said on what it is to come into the stature of Christ and what a real knowledge of God is. “Who is sufficient for these things?”

I pray that we will be.
I hope this is of some benefit to your souls. God bless you,
mark jr.