Bonsai

Bonsai means “tray planting.” It is a form of art and/or entertainment that can make plants seem miniature or cause them to be shaped artistically.

Using string and clippers, you can control the shape of a tree and create an artistic expression in an organic medium. You have not changed the nature of the tree, though – just the shape.

Chinese tormentors used similar methods to shape the feet of Geishas as children. They made art to please men by trying to control the organic as it grew. One of the instructions of Yahweh in the covenant of laws He gave Israel was not to create hybrid forms of any plants or fruit. He likes things to grow like He designed them.

We cannot change the DNA of the ekklesia, but we can cramp it and control it and shape it so that it looks like we want it to. We need to find the desire of the Head of the Ekklesia as we lead it into growth. Structures created in Roman Catholic Mythology, Greek temple worship, and pop culture have made the Bride of Jesus unrecognizable in many times and places.

What does her Lord think she should look like? How can we become the nurturers that bring forth the beauty and strength and character that He wants her to exhibit in the earth?

So, what is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Now the one who plants and the one who waters are equal, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s co-workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to God’s grace that was given to me, as a skilled master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But each one must be careful how he builds on it, because no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid—that is, Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work.  If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, it will be lost, but he will be saved; yet it will be like an escape through fire.

Don’t you know that you are God’s sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone ruins God’s sanctuary, God will ruin him; for God’s sanctuary is holy, and that is what you are.

(1 Corinthians 3:5-17 Holman Christian Standard Bible ®©)