SERVANT LEADERSHIP - The Blue Letter Bible Institute

Servant Leadership – Lesson 22 8
Equipping, Edifying, Protecting by Damian Kyle
moved here in 1985 about all the different kinds of odd doctrines that ran through the
body of Christ. Back in 1985 the deliverance ministry was huge! The demon possession
of Christians and casting demons out of Christians was just unbiblical, but it was huge
and running through the whole body as a way to produce holiness and victory in the lives
of Christians.
Then the positive confession doctrine came into the church and it is still around today.
Then there was the school of the prophets; we were told that these guys are the ones we
need to listen to, and the office of the prophet was elevated way beyond its biblical
position. And then the health and wealth doctrine; and then there was the laughing in the
spirit. Then there was the drunk in the spirit, and the barking in the spirit, and the roaring
in the spirit, and all of these kinds of things that were going through the church. And then
the church growth program which required this skit thing that we were told to do. And
after you do that one, then the church growth thing was tied to the home fellowships.
None of these things can ever take the place of the Word of God.
I know of a man that I watched first-hand take a very healthy church and wipe the whole
thing out. Every Sunday he would come into the pulpit and what he preached about on
Sunday or for the next six Sundays was based on the latest Christian book that he had
read. So he would say, “We have to do this now.” And six weeks later it was, “No we
have to do this now.” And soon after people listen to that, they get fried. They are wiped
out under the weight of it. Soon they are starving for the word of God and the church just
begins to disintegrate because God gives us a hunger by His Spirit for the Word in our
lives.
And so, all of these odd practices have gone through the body of Christ and it is so
gracious of God, because of His word, that these false doctrines have hardly ever even
created a ripple in this body. They just made their way through and all of us here have
just continued moving on. Why? Because the word of God is being taught and that is the
expectation that you bring into the study, and that is the expectation that you bring into
the other Bible studies throughout the week. And when that is the expectation, not for all
of these other things but for the Word of God, then it is going to out-live all these fads. It
is going to out-live the heavens and the earth, and so it produces a unity within the body
of Christ. The unity of faith.
Now in verse 13, it says that the church is to be a place where we all “come to the
knowledge of the Son of God.” The word “knowledge” there is an interesting one. There
are several words used for “knowledge” in the original language. This one is epignosco.
The word gnosco in the Greek language is not talking about a head-knowledge. It is a
knowledge that comes by experience. And epi means a more intense form of gnosco. So
it is not just talking about a mental or a doctrinal knowledge of Jesus as the Son of God—
though that is very important—but this is talking about an experiential knowledge of the
Son of God.
The church is to be a place where we come, not only to grow in our knowledge of the
word of God, but in growing in the word of God we are to grow in our knowledge of the