Made, Not Born

Note that full maturity is not for just a few people. The goal is to "present everyone mature in Christ" (Co. 1:28, emphasis added). "Everyone" (literally, "every man," panta anthropon) appears three times in the Greek and in the ESV. In practice it may be that not everyone grows, as they should, to maturity. But that should not be the case. It is not excusable. We cannot rest until all are discipled to maturity. This is a problem with large churches unless there is a concerted attempt to ensure that everyone in the large church is in a small group. Otherwise it would be easy for people to come just as consumers. They get lost in the crowd as anonymous recipients of the programs offered by the church.

Numbers are important because they represent people who have come within the sound of the gospel. This is why Acts twice mentions the number of people who had joined the church (2:41; 4:4). But our focus should not be simply on numbers. We must ensure that everyone has an opportunity to grow. Each individual is important to God and thus to the local church also.

A minister, visiting a family in his congregation, noticed there were many children in the house. He asked the mother, "How many children do you have?" She began to count off on her fingers saying, "John, Mary, Lucy, David...." The minister interrupted, "I don't want their names--I just asked for the number." the mother responded, "They have names, not numbers."

Everyone must be cared for, and we must not rest until that is done. As a church or Christian group grows, structures have to be set in place to ensure that individuals are not overlooked. If that is not done, even thought the church may claim to have grown, it has not grown in the biblical sense. It has just become fat!

- Ajith Fernando, The Call to Joy and Pain: Embracing Suffering in Your Ministry

Thabiti Anyabwile has a great meditation upon this quote. Read it here.