GOD IS ONE / WE ARE MANY

GOD IS ONE

WE ARE MANY

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Our conceptions of God are as varied as we are.  Even so, all Christian understanding of God fall within four categories.  Both the New and Old Testaments offer commonly used categories to arrange our human observations of His Divine presence.  Ezekiel’s sighting of the four-faced Cherubim is the most obvious Old Testament instance, and those four perspectives appear in the New Testament in the four Gospels.

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 Arranging these four Cherubim faces alongside related gospels with the gospel’s theme of each provides four categories, which are often used to classify what we see of God in Christ.   

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Our responses to Him also vary.  The form of our reactions also fit within those four categories.  The Old Testament shows the four responses in many ways.  No examples are clearer than the individual personality types of Israel’s leaders during its wilderness wanderings: Moses, Aaron, the Levites, and the elders.

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Later, these same personality treats are evident in the tribe of Judah with King David, Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the leader of the mighty men.  Their personality type suited them for their roles. 

The New Testament echoes the Old Testament roles, what Judson Cornwall calls the “quadruplex” nature of human observations of and reaction to God as established in the church.  God “gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers."(Ephesians 4:11).  These church offices represent the range of responses, which arise out of individual temperaments, or personality types.  It is not surprising then, that the unique way each of us perceive God inspires very different responses to Him.  

These ministry-gifts indicate four personality classifications.  Overlapping Ezekial’s vision, the ministry-gifts of Ephesians, the leaders of the Old Testament, and the four gospels of the New Testament provides compelling Biblical prove that our individual responses to God stem from our different perceptions of Him.  It also highlights the mistake we make when we assume those who view and respond to God differently than us are deceived heretics.   

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1)    The LION is akin to Matthew, which presents The Messiah-Kingship of Jesus.  The major focus is God’s forgiveness, fellowship, and the fulfillment of God’s promised King.  Its New Testament parallel is the apostolic ministry-gift.

2)    The OX is akin to Mark’s depiction of the suffering servant of God in Jesus.  Its emphases on correcting disciples, patiently clarifying misunderstandings, while focusing on one’s personal costs is a perfect description of the prophetic ministry-gift

3)    The MAN matches Luke’s presentation of the Divine-Son of man, with its definite emphasis on tender compassion toward marginalized people, which perfectly fits the temperament of the pastor/teacher ministry-gift. 

4)    The EAGLE represents John’s view of the celestial messenger, with its abiding underlying theme of salvation, and heaven’s benefits through faith in Christ Jesus.  Therefore, it relates closely to the evangelical ministry-gift. 

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The four separate gospel accounts from four different writers reveal nuanced responses to individually distinct views of God.  What is more, each gospel targets various individual readers, who in turn gain their own subjective view of the most extraordinary Object, the One True God.  In so doing the four gospels affirm the validity of the quadrilateral personality designations.  More importantly, this four-sided structure validates our personal and individual observations of God, while sanctioning our distinct responses to those personal encounters. 

Furthermore, Ephesians 4:12 says all four ministry types are needed in the church, “…to equip his people for works of service.”

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That means that you and I possess personalities that likely fit into one of these four personality types or a blend of two or more.  The following character chart may help you identify your place in the body of Christ.  More importantly, linking the range of personality traits, ministry-gifts, and the roles they play in the church should make one thing very clear.  Brothers and sisters, who view God from different vantage points, and perhaps respond to Him in different ways are not, for those reasons, misguided backslidden apostates who bend “the faith” to accommodate the prevailing culture.  

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 Analytic methodical orderly “melancholic” people love tradition.  They are very social, seek to contribute to the community, and are good people managers.  This is an Apostolic personality type, well suited to the establishment of and/or leadership in a church or churches.

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Assertive competitive goal-oriented “choleric” personality types are also analytical, and logical.  However, they are less social, more pragmatic, less restrained, and straightforward.  Those characteristics fit the temperament of both New and Old Testament Prophets

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Tenderhearted humanistic conflict-adverse “phlegmatic” personalities usually are people persons.  They seek interpersonal harmony and close relationships.  All genuine Pastor/Teachers have these qualities.

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 Amiable spontaneous outgoing “sanguine” individuals love adventure, attract others, and exhibit high-risk tolerances.  This personality type finds it easy to yield to the call of an Evangelist.

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Today, Christians with all their varying character traits need to be encouraged to contribute their part within every Christian congregation.  “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  (Eph. 4:11-13)”   

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Those who perceive and respond to God differently will necessarily approach religious observances different, concentrate on divergent ministries, and favor dissimilar political points of view.  

Nevertheless, God arranged for all four personality-types to work together equipping His people for works of service.  Unfortunately, for generations Christians have divide themselves into separate groups based on their ministry-gifts.  It is common for these congregations to avoid working together, or even refusing to get along with each other.  This is as true of entire denominations and congregations as it is of individuals.  Nowadays, most identify with and associate solely with one particular ministry-gift.  They stay separated largely according to their particular personality type.

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The methodically tradition-loving congregations keep their antiquated version of church.  While, the dogmatic straight-talking prophetic leaning believers go out and form their own congregations.  The more spontaneously adventurous, got bored long ago and fashioned something new.  Whereas, those more socially concerned folks created congregations that serve the marginalized.  They are all Christian religions, but because they cannot see eye-to-eye on their ministries, they split and then accuse the others of infidelity to God. 

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Consequently, each of them is falling short of what God intended.  Had they kept their animosity to themselves, they could survive, as they always have, drawing their little quarter of the population who have their typical personality type.  Even if we, as the church, manages to continue in its disunity, we will still fall short of God’s ultimate goal, “to reach the unity of the faith in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”    

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Worse still, now that our political outrage with each other is flashing all over public media, our problem has grown much worse.  Presently, evangelicals and the prophetic leaning “Conservative Christians” take one side, and the more traditional and socially oriented “Liberal Christians” holdfast on the opposite side, each vehemently broadcast divisive slander at each other…and that before a spiritually hungry world.  

Brothers and sisters, we need each other.  Nether the world, nor God, need us divided.  The “Church” must unite as one if any of us, corporately or individually, hope to reach the maturity God in Christ Jesus died to give His Church.  As it is, those seeking God, are justified in looking anywhere else, other than the warring church.  Do we, who make up the Church, really prefer dying RIGHT, rather than growing united in the knowledge of the Son of God?  

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To be “one,” as He is one, we must recognize, as legitimate, the part of God our other brothers and sisters see.  I repeat, we each see God differently.  We each respond to God differently.  We cannot go on permitting pride in the way see God or the way we respond to Him, keep us apart.  What we believe as heresy today is most likely another aspect of our Heavenly Father we have been unable or unwilling to recognize yet.  It seems impossible, but reuniting is worthy of our prayer, if not immediate change.  If we do not, or will not, we need to ask ourselves if we really are Christians, at all.  It is what Jesus Christ Himself asks in His prayer to His Father: 

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 “My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.  Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  John 17:20-23