Sermon Transcript — August 30, 2003
Have you ever heard friends reminiscing about a past activity that they all did together? Imagine four guys if you will, talking about a Feast of Tabernacles that they attended where all four of them were roommates. If it's been fairly soon after the Feast, one of the guys might be able to give you a pretty good day by day, blow by blow account of just about everything that they did. Another one might focus on all of the activities that they were involved in. He might talk about serving as an usher, maybe even helping with parking, how many widows they helped with transportation, where they went out to dinner, all of the activities that were associated with the Feast. Then there might be a third guy, he might think about all of the new people and friends that they had the opportunity to get to know. He might remember every single one of their names and be able to tell you something about the individuals. Then there's the fourth guy, and maybe all he could just talk about was the overall impact of the Feast; the meaning of the Feast and how he was just blown away to understand and comprehend God's plan and what was taking place and that seems to be all that he could focus on. Well, if you overheard these four guys talking and all reminiscing with their slightly different explanations, what would you conclude?
Some might reason, there are too many differences among these four and it's obvious the Feast didn't really exist. Others might say, well you know there's three of these guys, they're kind of on the same page so maybe there really was a Feast of Tabernacles, but this fourth guy, he's just a little bit spacey. Maybe he had a little too much to drink or whatever. Then there might be others that would conclude: I believe these four really did go to a Feast of Tabernacles, I think they're just relating things from a slightly different prospective; things that particularly struck each one of them.
I don't know whether you stopped to thing about it or not, but the scenario that I just painted for you is the way some people interpet and understand the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There are some people that think because there are differences between all four of those; that the four didn't really know what they're talking about and we can't trust anything that they say. That's a very liberal school of interpretation. Then there's another group that would say three of the guys are sort of on the same page but the fourth guy we're not so sure about.
Anyone that starts studying the gospels has heard of the synoptic issue. That word synoptic includes the little word optic; like optical in eyeglasses and how one sees things and so scholars say: " Matthew, Mark and Luke, they see things similarly but John, he's just off in his own world." Then there are others and by the way, we are in this others category ourselves, that we say all four of them are valuable and all four of them contribute to the understanding that we have about the life of Christ and His reason for coming and what it all entails. So, all of this works together and we're the richer for having all four of them.
Today I want to share some information with you that show the unique differences between each of these gospel writers to illustrate a biblical principle. This principle is that God is a God of variety, who has created human beings with many different personalities and temperaments; that He loves each one of us and works with all of us. Just like God loves all people, we too need to learn to respect and appreciate personality differences. This of course is easier said then done.
Let me take you to a scripture that I think illustrates part of the difficulty we Christians have in doing this. In I Peter, chapter 1, verse 22, Peter writes this:
I Peter 1:22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.
Most of us can understand the concept that we're supposed to love one another, who will argue with that? No one can, can we? But when we start taking it to another level of loving one another fervently and doing it with a pure heart, we're going to another level of love.
Most of us have found ways to get along with most people. But sometimes it's a little bit difficult to get along with one or two or three others and we in our hearts or our minds have some reservations regarding that we're not quite as fervent about our love for them and we may even have to question whether our heart is really pure as we try to get along with those particular individuals.
I'm reminded of a highway sign, a population sign that I saw a couple of times when I lived out in west Texas. It was a time when I pastored a number of congregations; all the parts of west Texas and I was into New Mexico and part of southern Oklahoma and those people out there had a sense of humor, at least some towns did because I'd see signs; something that said: "Home of Thirty-two Hundred Happy People and Two Old Grouches." I saw that sign a couple of times, I remember seeing it in southern Oklahoma and I remember seeing it in west Texas and I thought, I like these people, they've got things pretty well nailed down, pretty realistic (some people say you have to be realistic, the wind blows out there, you've got to have your feet anchored to the ground and be pretty grass roots to be able to handle that). I don't know whether you've stopped to think about it or not but it seems as though that two old grouches, most of us probably know those two old grouches (now I'm not talking about marriages here). But it seems like among any group of people we have someone with whom it's a little bit harder for us to connect, it's a little bit harder for us to understand where they're coming from. Those are the challenges that we Christians face and it seems like we all know those grouches. They may even be in our own congregation.
So how is it that we can really reach this level that Peter is talking about to love everyone fervently and with a pure heart. This is a challenge and today in my message that I'm going to share with you, I hope I can give you a little bit of information that can help you more closely reach this level of love that Peter is talking about, to be able to understand people a little bit better and work with them.
For those of you taking notes, let me give you the title of my sermon, it is: "Temper Your Temperament." A little play on words there, "Temper Your Temperament." As for inspiration and source material for this sermon, I want to thank my wife, Teddy who has done a great deal of research in this area and through her studies and my studies and a number of discussions between us, we've discovered some information that we hope will be enlightening and encouraging for each of you.
Let me begin with a little bit of technical information. I'm going to get into the gospel writers and their accounts in just a moment but let me begin with a little bit of background information about this word temperament. It is spelled temperament. There is an a in there that a lot of people don't realize is there. The definition of this word temperament is one that many of us may think of in the sense of temper as in; he or she has a temper. Well that is correct but that is only a partial definition of the word temperament. Temperament is actually much broader than that and if you will check several dictionaries, you'll find that the word temperament can actually include and primarily mean a middle state or balance, a calmness of mind, character, composure, and a right disposition or balance. As such, one's temperament is his or her normal disposition. It's the way we normally look at things; our normal mood, our normal way of thinking and acting. Recognizing that people have different dispositions or personalities, philosophers back since the time of ancient Greece have developed various systems of classification.
Some terms such as choleric and phlegmatic have been used. Others have used names of animals like otters, lion, and golden retriever. Others have used colors. The Myers Briggs-System, which my wife and I are very interested in and have done more research with, actually uses letter combinations to talk about temperaments with combinations such as sj, nf, sp and mt. I believe that all of these systems of personality types have value, some more so than others and some backed by more academic research than others. The interesting point to me is that of all of these, almost every one of them come down to there being four basic types of personalities, our temperaments, the different words that are used to describe them and interesting enough it seems that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John represent these four different temperament types. Now if you didn't understand some of the things that I was saying in terms of the terminology, the letters or whatever, don't worry about that; you're not going to miss anything in this sermon because I'm going to share some things with you about each of these gospel writers and you'll just be able to understand it for the gospel writer himself.
So let's begin by examining them just a little bit more closely. You know, many books have been written about the gospel writers; particularly you all heard I'm sure of the Harmony of the Gospels, a book that will try to harmonize all of the accounts to see the big picture, everything that takes place. Well today what I'm going to try to do is show you some of the unique differences between each one of the gospels. Now this isn't meant to be disharmony, don't get me wrong here but I'm going to try to show you the differences, and the distinctions between them because that's how we're going to see some things about each of these particular authors.
One of the things about understanding temperaments is something that most of us realize when it comes to speakers. We have a saying in the Church of God that a speaker is known by his entrances and his exits. That's one way to get a thumb-nail sketch very quickly of someone and one of the things I want to do with you today is to take you through some thumb-nail sketches, some entrances and exits of each of the gospel writers and show you how each was motivated with some unique and very different prospective of what struck them about Jesus Christ.
Now one of the things about Matthew, if we start studying Matthew and I'll take these just in order as they come beginning with Matthew. Many scholars have recognized that Matthew is the sensing, judging kind of person that is an individual that most likely would be the useful kind of person; a caretaker, someone with a strong work ethic, someone who believed in and desired hierarchy, would uphold traditions and family, clubs, work and society. He'd be a saver, a stabilizer, a perpetuator, and the kind of person that had a high need to be responsible. He was duty bound, dependable, reliable, patriotic, sequential, literal, practical, realistic; some of the terms that are used to describe such an individual.
How do we come to some of these ideas and by the way, I'll just say these are hints or indicators that we have and I'm going to share with you how it is and where these indicators of Matthews temperament comes from. H.C. Thiessen in his introduction to the New Testament, pages 132 & 133, wrote this about Matthew. He said: "Matthew was not conspicuous among the apostles but we can see his fitness for the task of writing a gospel account. As a tax collector, probably under Herod Antipas, he had the standing of a civil servant and would need to know, not only his native Aramaic but also the Greek spoken in Galilee. His ready acceptance of Jesus invitation shows that he must have cherished the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. We note that he quotes or alludes to the Old Testament more frequently than any other of the gospel writers. He quotes from both the Hebrew and Septuagint, he makes use of Hebrew parallelism, his thought and outlook are Hebrewism, he speaks much of the Kingdom of Heaven. We feel impressed that this gospel was written by a patriotic Christian Jew. As a tax collector, we get a certain feel that he probably was someone that would be very dependable, could be literal, he would take care of the details and what he said would be absolutely true." Now that's exactly the way it seems that Matthew turns out to be. Matthew's account happens to be the longest of the gospels. It is also chronologically in structure containing many details in a logical sequence and shares the similar viewpoint as I said with Mark and Luke. The main theme of Matthew's gospel is to show that Jesus was the King prophesied to come to Israel. Those events in His ministry are singled out and emphasized that set forth His claims as the Messiah set to fulfill all the prophecies concerning Him and compared with Mark and Luke, Matthew has more than thirty sections which are peculiar to his gospel, all of which pertain to the King and His Kingdom. So this theme of the King government structure hierarchy, things falling in place is something that is special about Matthew's writing. Within the text, the Companion Bible tells us that the term Kingdom of Heaven is used thirty-three times and the Kingdom of God, four times. There are sixty Old Testament references to Messianic prophecies and the words righteous and righteousness occur more often in Matthew than the other three gospels combined. It's the only gospel which the word church (ecclesia) appears and it contains fifteen parables and twenty miracles and of these, ten parables and three miracles are found only in his account and it's the only gospel to tell of Judas's repentance, (that's found in Matthew 27), of the Jews request that Christ's blood be upon them and upon their children, of the sealing of the stone, the setting of the guard, the fabrication of the story that the disciples came and stole the body while the guards slept and of the rising of many of the saints after Christ's resurrection. Matthew was the one that gives us these details and in one sense the longest most complete story. So a little hint here; if you're looking for something in the gospel accounts and you don't know where to go, the law of probability says go to Matthew, the longest and most complete.
Now, let's look a little bit at the introduction, the way Matthew begins
so we can see if we can sense just a little bit here and understand. Is this
truly what Matthew was like? When Matthew began writing in his particular gospel,
we see here:
Matthew 1: 1 & 2 The book of the genealogy of Jesus
Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot
Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.
Abraham the Father of the Faithful; Matthew looks back to Abraham starting with these genealogies, does it incept fourteen generations each, three of those coming down to Jesus Christ, the legal genealogy being of Joseph and Mary. According to tradition, according to structure, the way that it would be, that's the way Matthew begins.
One of the interesting things about righteousness and doing what is right which is something that Matthew focuses on, we see right away at the beginning that it has to do with the relationship between Joseph and Mary in verses 18 through 25 regarding the birth of Jesus Christ. Let's notice this; as Matthew is concerned about people doing and practicing righteousness.
Matthew 1: 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child.
Verse 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man (Matthew's the only one that talks about this being a just man, righteousness and justice, an honorable person) and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.
He goes on to show how both Joseph and Mary were just righteous individuals trying to do things God's way and how they both practiced righteousness and as through God's intervention through an angel, who said it's o.k. for you to take your wife. We notice something else, that little tidbit of information that we probably don't pay much attention to just reading through the story, verse 25 but Matthew records it for us saying of Joseph:
Verse 25 He did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son and called His name, Jesus.
Some people say: "Well look, if I'm going to get married, I should have my conjugal rights, you know, I should be able to do what I want to do."
Righteousness, honorable people, here is an account of Matthew recording of Joseph and Mary being those kind of people.
As we come to the end of Matthew's account in chapter 28 we find that Matthew focuses on the commission of the church and who has the authority as Jesus Christ is the King of the Kingdom as He's quoted, so many of the prophecies showing that Jesus was the Messiah and as we come to the end of Matthew, Matthew is still talking about those things.
Matthew 28: 18 Then Jesus came and spoke to them, saying: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Verse 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 20 Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen
Authority was right and good in Matthew's temperament. He didn't chafe at authority, he realized authority was right and good and especially with Jesus Christ as the King and so he talked about there being authority. We see this in Matthew's account and Matthew's temperament.
Now when we come to Mark, we come to a little bit different personality. In the Myers-Briggs terminology and David Kersey, this would be an sp of sensing perceiving individual. For those of you who are not familiar with that terminology, this is the kind of person that is very action oriented. They are the ones, when they see that's there's a problem, they'll jump in and solve it. They work best it seems, under crisis. They are very fraternal, their language is operational and functional, literal, practical, they're in the here and now, they're getting things done. Now where there is a problem or a difficulty, this type of personality jumps right in there and this temperament handles it, takes care of it. They say: "Not a problem, we'll fix it."
Others may become flustered but this particular temperament is very action oriented and this is the way that Mark seems to be. There are some connections that authors have made with Mark and particularly in a relationship to Peter. A number of scholars think that the two of them were very close to one another. It appears as some have said that Peter was well acquainted with Mark's mother, went to her home when he was miraculously released from prison. We read about that in Acts 12. Mark probably assisted Peter during the time he wasn't with Paul or Barnabas and some scholars will say that Mark's gospel is a summation of Peter's memoirs.
H.C. Thiessen in his notes, in the introduction to the New Testament says, quote: "Temperamentally, Mark seems to have been quite a lot like Peter, man of action, people that would do things, step forward when something needed to be taken care of."
It's also rather interesting that Mark's account is the shortest of the four gospels. Mark was written, apparently in Greek. That was a style that was neither technical or slangy, somewhat simple, the narrative is commonly terse and concise. That comes from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. So Mark was a doer and his focus seems to be that Jesus was the servant of God, that Jesus did things. Mark is a gospel of deeds. Jesus is a strenuous worker, hastening from one to another. The word immediately is used 26 times in Mark's account. Matthew by contrast uses the word 5 times, Luke once, John twice. So everything with Mark is: then we immediately did this and then we immediately did that and after that we were doing this. So Mark focused on the action. It was good action, good things that were being done. It's also interesting that Mark begins his gospel, not with the genealogy, stating the authenticity of Jesus lineage nor with mention of the virgin birth or the childhood years but with Christ's ministry. That is His purpose with being on earth so Mark just jumps right into the action, what needs to be done.
Let me show you how this starts. Let's go to Mark chapter 1 for a moment. As I was saying, there's no genealogy here, in fact if we start looking through this, if your bible is somewhat like mine, you'll see with the subheads that there is a lot of action.
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Verse 2: As it is written in the Prophets: "Behold, I send My messenger
Here's John the Baptist, we get John the Baptist taken care of in about
six verses. Then in:
Verse 7: There is one that comes after Me.
Now Jesus Christ is being introduced. We see the baptism of Christ and now by verse 9, we're ready for John to baptize Jesus Christ. In verses 12 and 13 we see the temptation of Jesus in two verses, no need to take a whole chapter for that and for Mark, this man of action and verse 14, Jesus begins His Galilean ministry. If your bible is like mine, just look at the subheads there.
Then we come to verse 16 and we can talk about choosing fishermen to be disciples. Before verse 21, we read about Jesus casting out unclean spirits. Beginning in verse 29, Peter's mother-in-law healed, verse 32 many are healed after the Sabbath sunset, verse 35 preaching in Galilee, verse 40 Jesus cleanses a leper. All this is done in one chapter. Action galore, you know, let the film roll, we have accomplished things and they're all good things. I'm not making fun of Mark; I'm just saying Mark was a doer.
Now isn't it also interesting that Mark was the one that didn't impress Paul at one point and Paul thought he was a slacker. We don't know exactly why it was that Paul came to this conclusion, maybe it was early on with Mark, maybe Mark got bored with the day-to-day routine of what was happening and maybe he felt like he needed more to do. Something else may have distracted him. Later on that changed but Mark definitely was a doer, in fact if we come down to the end of Mark, chapter 16 in verses 14 through 20, we see the way that Mark ends and remember his focus has to do with Jesus being the servant of God and all the ways that Jesus served and all the deeds that were done, we still see the action taking place here at the end.
Mark 16:14 Afterward Jesus appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.
Verse 15: And He said to them: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Verse 16: He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Verse 17: And these signs will follow those who believe:
Here is some action
In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;
Verse 18: they will take up serpents; and if they drink
anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick,
and they will recover."
Verse 19: So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
Verse 20: And they (disciples) went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
Let the action continue and it did, that's what Mark saw and doing, being a doer of the law is important. Mark certainly epitomized that.
Well after Mark, we come to Luke. Now Luke begins to change focus slightly. Matthew and Mark have been very focused in the present and the deeds that had to be done at the moment, in the here and now, very well grounded, feet on the ground and Luke begins to have a bigger vision. Luke begins to think somewhat more what we would say intuitively. He was also the kind of person that was very people oriented. In Myers-Briggs, would say that he was inept, and intuitive feeling type of personality. What this means, he was someone that was hypersensitive to conflict, very supportive and sympathetic, valued cooperation among people, a great encourager. Many of these types of temperaments are poetic and fluent writers and very people centered. They seek meaningful relationships, are compassionate, tender, merciful, visionary and imaginative. Now some of that we might start gathering from the little simple statement in Colossians 4, verse 14 that tells us that Luke was the beloved physician. What I suppose is that Luke had great bedside manners. If you were sick, or weren't feeling well, Luke could be very sympathetic, filled with empathy, caring for you, about a person, would remember your name, would know you individually. It's hard not to like someone like this. Luke is rather interesting, as the scholars tell us, is probably the most polished of all the writers of the New Testament. His Greek particularly in chapter 1, verses 1 through 4 is considered to be the most classical Greek that we have among all of the gospel writers. Maybe some of that had to do with his training, from his medical background.
Luke narrates the story of Jesus as a piece of history. The New Bible Commentary says that of all the writers of the gospel, he comes the nearest to writing a biography of Jesus, although he's recorded the facts that are vital for faith rather than the general details of appearance, character, physiological development and so on. Like John he has given us an artist portrait of Jesus, rather than a photograph, he's given us a true portrait. As I said, that comes from The New Bible Commentary.
Luke's main theme is to show that Jesus was in God's sight the ideal man. He's presented as the friend of publicans, sinners and other outcasts of society, a champion of women and children, the ultimate physician manifesting great compassion, tenderness and sympathy. Luke is the only gospel writer that tells us about the events leading up to, including the birth of Jesus. He presents this information with great insight into the lives of Elizabeth and Mary as they realized the significant of the children they bore and Luke records the historical roots of Jesus extending back to the first man Adam, thus identifying Christ and all subsequent humanity as sons of God. Luke includes 11 parables that are not represented in the other three gospel accounts. These stories highlight the importance of relationships, repentance, forgiveness, Godly righteousness as opposed to self-righteousness and apostasy.
There are 11 parables that are unique to Luke and every one of them seems to relate to human beings. These include: the parable of the two debtors, the one of the Good Samaritan, the unfortunate friend, the rich fool, the barren fig tree, the lost pieces of silver, the prodigal son, the unjust steward, rich man and Lazarus, the unjust judge and the unfortunate widow, and the Pharisee and the Publican.
Another theme that Luke develops is that the ideal man is dependant on God the Father in prayer. Christ is represented as praying 15 times in the four gospels and 11 of those accounts are in Luke. Luke includes a great deal of teaching on prayer, not found in the other gospels so if you want to study the subject of prayer, Luke is the great gospel to turn to. It's also interesting that Luke has a great deal to say about praising God and worshipping God, begins in the temple, worshiping, praising God and ends there as well.
Let's notice Luke, chapter 1, verses 1 through 4 and as I mentioned are some of the most classical words in Greek, but as we come down to verses 8 and 9, we read:
Luke 1:8 So it was, that while he was serving as priest
before God in the order of his division,
Verse 9: according to the custom of the priesthood, his
lot fell to burn incense (speaking of John the Baptist's father) when
he went into the temple of the Lord.
So worshiping God was part of the beginning of Luke.
We come to Luke, chapter 24, verses 52 and 53, we again see a picture of worshiping God. This ideal man is one that is connected to the Father in prayer as I mentioned, one of the themes of Luke and Luke mentions so many stories about people and individuals.
Luke 24: 52 And they worshiped Him, (speaking of
the disciples) and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
Verse 53: and were continually in the temple praising and
blessing God. Amen.
So Luke has a little different prospective.
As we move to John, everyone realizes from John, chapter l, verse 1 that John was an intuitive in the sense of a big picture thinker.
Some believe this is the beginning of the bible. John was thinking about the big plan of God. Some of the descriptors for John as an New Testament gospel writer, intuitive thinker was that he was a person who probably wanted to be very competent, enjoy complexity, was intellectuality curious in value of deep thinking, a conceptualizer, a visionary, an inquiring attitude who liked puns, abhorred redundancy or stating the obvious and was one of the great thinkers in the sense of putting the whole picture together. Some say that he was the gifted son in his family, the genius, that he had all of this insight and of course his gospel is the one that's considered to be all on its own. The main theme of John's gospel is to show that Jesus is God and he tells us that specifically himself.
He also uses many different names or titles for Jesus, words and titles such as the Word, the Only Begotten, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the True Bread, the Light, the Shepherd, the Door, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Resurrection, the Vine. This type of temperament hates boring repetition, likes the different connections. So many of these are introduced by the formula I Am, showing that Jesus truly was God.
We're so familiar with John, chapter l, verse 1 and it says:
John 1: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
It goes on to describe that Jesus came and dwelt among us.
Verse 14: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
That's where John begins to prove to us that Jesus truly was the Christ. In fact if we go just a little bit further into his writing in chapter 20 and verse 30 and 31, John will tell us specifically that this is why he wrote his gospel.
John 20: 30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
Verse 31: but these are written that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in
His name,
You see one of the interesting things about John; this was apparently all that John really focused on. While the other writers covered pretty much Jesus whole ministry, if not His life, the book of John covers about 20 days, about 20 days of Christ's life. One third of it is devoted to Christ's crucifixion. As far as John is concerned believing that Jesus is God is the most important thing there is. The rest of the material is kind of irrelevant, extra, it's there; this is the big picture, this is what really counts. In fact the big picture concept of John is there as we come to the end of the book as well, chapter 21 in verse 25.
John 21: 25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.
That is a big picture thinker, a visionary, you never run out of books and things. This area needs to be explored, this could be done more; John saw it that way. Yet John gave us what he felt was the most important.
Now you see, all of these writers gave us important material, but they were all struck in slightly different ways.
Let's try to process a little bit of all this different information now in the sense of what does this mean for each of us and the fact that we all have different temperaments, different perspectives, different ways of looking at things too?
Let's go to I Corinthians, the 12th chapter, beginning in verse 12 with the New Jerusalem bible. You will probably get the jest of this from whatever translation you have but this particular one deals with some of these differences as to who we are as people, I believe in an interesting way.
I Corinthians 12:12 For as with the human body, which is a unity, although it has many parts, all the parts of the body though many still making up one single body, so it is with Christ.
In other words within the church, we're just like a body, there are many different parts and I would suggest to you that we have many different temperaments and personalities among us.
Verse 13: We were baptized into one body in a single Spirit; Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as freemen and we were all given the same Spirit to drink.
Verse 14: And indeed the body consists not of one member but of many.
Verse 15: If the foot were to say: " I'm not a hand so I do not belong to the body," it does not belong to the body any less for that?"
Verse 16: Or if the ear would say: "I'm not an eye and so I do not belong to the body," that would not stop its belonging to the body.
Verse 17: If the whole body were just an eye, how would there be any hearing? And if the whole body were hearing, how would there be any smelling?
Verse 18: As it is, God has all the separate parts into the body as He chose.
Verse 19: If they were all the same parts, how could it be a body?
Now we understand that in a physical sense, don't we? Now when we have trouble on a basketball court, catching a ball or something, saying: "I'm all thumbs." The problem is we need our thumbs but we also need our other fingers too, don't we? We need all parts of the body to operate properly and when one part doesn't operate properly, it can be a real pain, can't it? Some of us discover that and if you haven't discovered it yet, you will as you get older, that's just the way it is. With the body is comprised of all these parts and the body of Christ is comprised of all different kinds of people with different temperaments and different ways of looking at things; different ways of being impressed. Now it doesn't mean we can't share and understand other perspectives. We should be able to do that, in fact we should grow in that as we mature as Christians.
One of the interesting things about this analogy to the body to me is that one of the important concepts for us to understand in terms of temperament is we can't say: "Well, if God would just throw out all those other temperaments and just leave temperaments like me, we'd get along real well, we can have great peace." But that wouldn't be good, that wouldn't be healthy. God knows what He's doing. God chooses all the parts that are going to be in His spiritual body. This goes on to talk about how important it is that we respect that.
Verse 25: So that there may not be disagreements inside the body but each part may be equally concerned for all the others.
Verse 26: If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain and if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.
Verse 27: Now Christ's body is yourselves and each of you with a part to play in the whole.
It's interesting to me that we don't get to pick who is called to this way of life. God the Father does that and I can't help but wonder just a little bit if God on His throne doesn't sit down and look at us saying: "I wonder what they're going to do with this temperament or this personality that is now part of the body? Are they going to learn to work together, are they going to respect each other?" I believe that is part of the challenge God gives to us to help us mature and grow in Christian character. God wants us to learn how to do that.
Some of the things my wife and I have learned through the years is that we've tried to learn about temperaments and personalities of people because we've come to understand that people don't generally try to rub others the wrong way. People don't generally do that on purpose, it just comes naturally. We can do that without trying. But most of us don't purposely try to do this, it's just because we're wired a little bit differently. Just like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all saw the same event and were all struck by different aspects of Christ's ministry; all four of them were important. But they probably at times irritated one another and they had to learn to respect one another. I believe that they did.
My wife and I have also learned that when it comes to learning about these temperaments and differences in personality, we need to start with ourselves. When we start with ourselves and understand who we are it makes it easier to understand others. In that process we have to realize that understanding differences and temperament and personality is never permission to sin. It's never an excuse to break God's law. We can't say: "Well that's just not the way I am." Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all kept the Sabbath, I believe they all kept God's Holy Days. They all tried to live righteous lives. I don't believe any of them rejected the things that the others were saying. But they did have in some cases some changes to make. They had to work through some problems and some difficulties. You see there's a scripture that you're probably familiar with back in Romans the 12th chapter. Let's turn there. I might just mention this passage in I Corinthians 12 and also Romans 12 also talk about the concept of spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are not the same thing as temperaments or personalities. Gifts are related but they're slightly different concepts and gifts seem to be talents that have been developed that people are able to use. Some of these may be closely associated with temperaments but they're not necessarily one and the same but very closely related.
In Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 1 we read a scripture that we often read during the Days of Unleavened Bread and Holy Days and at other times of the year because it reminds us that we've been called, not to stay just who we are but to change and to become bold and into the image of Christ.
Romans 12: 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Verse 2: And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
We've been called to change from who we naturally are. I've talked about tempering our temperaments; each one of us has been called to temper our natural, human temperament with Godliness, to become more God-like.
Verse 3: For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
Verse 4: For as we have many members in one body, but
all the members do not have the same function,
Verse 5: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and
individually members of one another.
Here's the picture that God has in mind for us. This aspect of conforming to God is one that is so very critical.
When we stop and think about the gospel writers, two accounts come to my mind immediately that show these individuals themselves likely changed in terms of their temperaments, that they tempered them to become more God like.
We talk briefly about Mark. One time it appears that Mark abandoned the service of the ministry and Paul didn't think he was really cut out to be a minister and who said: "This is not for him," for whatever the reason was at the time. Barnabas felt that he was and in time it seems Mark changed whatever it was that Mark had done because later on even the apostle Paul said Mark was profitable for the ministry. That showed that Mark could change and I believe that God has confidence in each of us that we can change and should change and should temper our temperaments with Godliness.
There's also the account of John that a latter writings of the bible, John is known as the apostle of love, isn't he?
Do we recall that he was also called the son of thunder? So it seems that John was able to make that transition; that he tempered his outlook the way of dealing with things.
I don't know for a fact but it appears to me that in I Corinthians, the 9th chapter, in verse 22 that the apostle Paul may have understood some of these things about working with different types of people. He certainly did in the bigger picture, whether he understood it as we might say today in terms of temperament or not but he did realize that he needed to work with people in different ways.
I Corinthians 9: 22 To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men. That I might by all means save some.
Paul tried to reach people where they were, what made sense to them, how they were wired. I think that is valid and important information for us today as well. Instead of putting down individuals that may have a slightly different temperament, slightly different way of thinking, we need to learn to understand how they think and appreciate them.
One of the great lessons my wife and I learned had to do from a lady that my wife worked with when we were in Spokane, Washington.
My wife worked with some of the school boards in gifted education. This was a lady that was a very prominent, wealthy woman but she dedicated her time to many boards and one day she and Teddy were talking about a problem in that area that had to do with two different sides, two very different opinions about how to solve a particular problem. This lady, with worldly wisdom made a remark to Teddy and she said: "You can't hope to persuade someone who you offend." That was another way of saying, we need to learn to understand different personalities and temperaments and individuals as to who they are. That's a Godly principle as well, that is we can come to respect one another, we can grow in the instruction that Peter gave us, that we can truly come to fervently love one another with a pure heart.
In Ephesians, the second chapter, I want to close with what I believe is a very inspiring passage and it just goes to show that even though all of us are different, even though we have different ways of viewing things, even though we may be wired just a little bit differently, God has a picture in mind for each of us that shows we are all going to be growing into one body and unit.
Ephesians 2: 19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
Verse 20: having been built on the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,
Verse 21: in whom the whole building, being joined together,
grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
Verse 22: in whom you also are being built together for
a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Just like a building is put together, we have a building that we are able to enjoy right here and what a beautiful building it is. But there are many different building materials that are here; we got some glass right over there, we've got drywall, we've got wood, we've got trim, we've got paint, we have carpet, we have lighting, it's electrical conduit in here. God is building His building, the church and we're not all exactly alike but in God's sight, it is a beautiful picture, all harmonizing and working together. I believe God is looking for us to do that; that is certainly our future, it's what God wants us to do. So as Christians we need to come to understand our temperaments and temper with the character of Christ so that we can mature into an appreciation of others with different temperaments.
God, through His Holy Spirit is working through us to mature His body into a holy righteous people. Let's make sure we do our part to facilitate this process.