(OPINION) Charisma – “Take heed to yourselves and to the entire flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know that after my departure, dreadful wolves will enter among you, not sparing the flock. Even from among you men will arise speaking perverse things, to draw the disciples away after them” (Acts 20:28-30). In this particular passage of Scripture, Paul was speaking to the church at Ephesus, issuing a warning to the elders of the church before he went on to Jerusalem, never to see them again. Paul knew that believers would face wolves coming from the outside as well as from within the church itself. It was a warning to keep watch both over themselves and the flock.
I pondered this passage and Matthew 7:15-16a the other day, “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruit.” It is a menacing image to think that there are metaphorically wolves in the midst of the body of Christ adorned with sheep’s clothing. Though this speaks of their current time, it also rings true in our time. These passages are wake-up calls to the church even now that it is time to discern the wolves among the sheep.
When Paul told the elders of Ephesus this, there had already been false teachers infiltrating the church in Galatia and Corinth. Paul wanted them aware and alert. The gospel of Jesus Christ was not to be polluted or twisted. To do so would bring a gospel that could not save. It would be a gospel of rapacity. This is the meaning of ravenous in Matthew 7:15. READ MORE