We, the church, are the Bride of Christ. What I must remember is that the church is not my ‘bride’, it is not an extension of me.
When I interact with the church, I can interact with it in two ways:
- as individuals to whom I am accountable and am in relationship with.
- as an entity.
I suspect that I can only treat it as an entity when I bring prophecy to the church. Whilst I can bring my own ‘chat’ to individuals with whom I am in relationship, if I bring comments to the church surely there is much more of an onus on me to bring God’s word, to bring prophecy?
Most of our communication is within our tightly knit groups. Only some is ‘broadcast’. When we ‘broadcast’, both the purpose and responsibility is different. When we broadcast we are not seeking one to one discipleship, encouragement or accountability, we are surely bringing an edifying message of God to the church?