Mutual Encouragement
When a local campus ministry asked me to come and speak, I got excited. I had a lot of information to share on the topic they'd requested. As I prayed for our time together and practiced my talk, I wanted to encourage them in their faith. I thought of ministry as going in one direction: from me to them.
If the Apostle Paul told me he was visiting me, I would want it to be a one-way mentorship. Jesus personally called him to be an apostle, he started churches from Galatia to Greece, and he wrote thirteen letters of the New Testament. I don't know what I would teach him about being a disciple, except perhaps what not to do. In English, that's how Romans 1:11 reads: Paul will impart a spiritual gift to the Romans to strengthen them. But in Greek, the verb is passive: "so that you may be strengthened." Some scholars call this a "divine passive"; it's a way of saying God will do the strengthening. Because God is the one who will strengthen the Christians in Rome through Paul, Paul explains that God will also strengthen him through their faith. He tells them in Romans 15:14, "My brothers and sisters, I myself am convinced about you that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another." He ends his letter by praising "him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus Christ" (16:25). When people ask me how the Bible studies I write will help them, I feel stuck. If I say either, "They won't do anything at all for you" or "God is the one who does all the strengthening" I've given an incomplete answer. In his grace, God strengthens us as we seek to mutually encourage one another. Because I wasn't expecting the students to minister to me, I left without the gifts God intended to give me that night. We're responsible to help each other be like Jesus, but only because God is the one who strengthens all of us.
What does it tell us about God that he designed the church to be a community of mutual encouragement?
What makes it hard to let someone else encourage you in your walk with God?
What do you need from God to encourage someone else in their faith?
Whether you struggle to give help or receive help, tell a trusted friend which is harder for you. Then take turns praying for God to strengthen both of you.