Paul’s Purpose: Christ Formed in Disciples Who Make Disciples
Paul had a clear goal in mind for new believers: that they should become disciples who bore the image of Christ
A. Making Disciples: travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you
Paul’s Goal: He tells the Galatians that I am in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you (Gal 4:19). My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
B. Making Disciples who make disciples
For Paul, all should be involved in the purpose to bring one another into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Chris.
In Eph Paul is explicit that the apostolic giftings and NT elders are given “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:…Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:… speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” Eph 4:12-13, 15-16
It is the saints doing the work; the elders and itinerants equipping the saints for their work as disciple makers with one another.