“Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were EDIFIED; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were MULTIPLIED” (Acts 9:31).
“Edified”—“Multiplied”—the words have a pleasing sound in our ears. They both mean increase. “Edified” signifies increase in size. Multiplied, increase in numbers. Would that these two words were true of every Christian assembly!
“Edified”! The word comes from a word which signifies building. A building is an edifice. Stone added to stone or brick to brick, the building is edified, increases in size. Or we get the simile of the growth of a body, increase in size through the assimilation of suitable nourishment.
So we read, “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, makes increase of the body to the EDIFYING of itself in love” (Eph. 4:16).
Of what does true edification consist? It is not the mere accumulation of Bible knowledge. That has its use, but if knowledge rests there and goes no further, all that is needed is a retentive memory, much reading, and lo! you may become a veritable encyclopaedia of Scriptural knowledge. If no more than that, your knowledge might fitly be described by Scripture as the knowledge that puffs up.
In contrast to the knowledge that puffs up, we are told it is “love” that “edifies” (see 1 Cor. 8:1). What an emphasis is laid in Scripture upon divine love! Love is the measure of our increase. Not increase of knowledge, useful and proper as that is in its place, but increase in divine love. In every book in the New Testament we are exhorted to divine love with one notable exception. That is John’s third epistle. There we read of that undesirable character, Diotrephes, “who loves to have the pre-eminence” (v. 9)—the wrong kind of love, springing from self-love and the flesh.
Divine love is faithful love. It is not sickly and sentimental, agreeing with everybody and everything, and never making a stand for the truth. On the contrary one filled with divine love would be under the guidance of the Spirit of truth.
“Edified!” We may well ask ourselves the question as to increase. Love is the measure of the Christian.
That a whole chapter should be devoted to the subject, and that it should come between 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 is most arresting.
Chapter 12 is taken up with the subject of the Holy Spirit’s place and activities in the assembly, and chapter 14 with the way that it is worked out, even in edification. “He that prophesies speaks to men to edification” (v. 3). “He that prophesies edifies the church” (v. 4) “That the church may receive edifying” (v. 5) “Seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church” (v. 12) “The other is not edified” (v. 17). “Let all things be done to edifying” (v. 26).
May edification mark Christian assemblies, but it will mark them according to the place that divine love has in the hearts and practical lives of their members. Love will make a pastor of one man, a teacher of another, an evangelist of a third, a help of a fourth and so on.
“Multiplied”! Increase in numbers! Surely this will come about by the preaching of the gospel. Are we multiplying? We may be told that there is nothing in numbers. Such a platitude is probably a cover for lack of earnestness, initiative, fervour, prayerfulness. We read, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32). “And believers were… added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women” (Acts 5:14). “Then the apostles called the multitude of the disciples to them” (Acts 6:2). “A great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed” (Acts 5:14). “And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few” (Acts 17:4). Blessed multiplication! We have the example of what this means in the early church, and we may well be exercised about it.
If believers are increasing in the true knowledge of the Lord and the truth, increasing in love to Him and to each other, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, then true edification will be the assured result, and multiplication, increase in numbers, will assuredly take place. Let those two words haunt our memories, “EDIFIED”—“MULTIPLIED,” till we turn them to intense and practical effect in our own lives.