Fully Trained

Fully Trained.  Like a sailor’s soundings that bounce (or don’t bounce) off the seafloor, our spiritual questions (even if unanswered) help us orient to our largely invisible spiritual topography. How deep is the water? At what rate is its depth decreasing or increasing? For which harbor are we aiming? Which landmarks exist along the way, and where? How will we know when we have made measurable progress? What factors or qualities must be present by the time we arrive? Spiritual growth is highly navigational in practice. 

Therefore, it is no surprise that Paul uses nautical terminology and imagery to describe and instruct us toward spiritual maturity. “No longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:14). The weather doesn’t drive the boat just as surely as the wooden bowsprit fastened to the foremast doesn’t lead the crew; the captain leads the crew with his hand on the rudder and the map nearly memorized in his mind.

Yet, steering is only a slice of the captain’s job; his primary responsibility is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:12), which is another nautical term. To equip, fundamentally means to make something or someone adequate, whether mechanically like a fisherman mending fishing nets or a physician setting a broken bone, occupationally like training an apprentice, developmentally like guiding a child into adulthood, or morally like restoring to spiritual health a brother who was caught in sin. In the fifteen times that word (Greek, katartizo) is used in the New Testament, it is translated as restore, prepare, mend, train, unite, supply, create, and equip. To be fully trained as a sailor, or a saint, involves risk and reward.

Paul’s instruction to pastors/teachers in the local church was to make the saints (i.e., church members) adequate for participation in their own and the group’s journey toward spiritual maturity. To be equipped is not to be finished, of course, but to be functionally ready collectively to “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Everyone onboard knows and does his/her job in the church, looks out for one another, recognizes the pitfalls, and understands generally the purpose and destination of the journey. This is something akin to the root idea behind our antiquated nautical idioms, “to know the ropes” (on a boat), no longer “wet behind the ears,” because he has “found his sea legs.” In modern parlance, we might similarly say, “next man up.” If the captain/pastor washes overboard, then the crew can continue the journey since he equipped them to do the work of ministry.

So, then, where are we going as a church? We are going toward the spiritual maturity of the individuals in the church and the whole church. How will we know that we are making progress? We can measure progress as the equipped saints start doing the work of ministry!