As much as we exert control over our words, our words can exert a kind of control over us. This is especially true of common metaphors. We use particular figures of speech to discuss certain subjects, often without thinking. In turn, those figures of speech influence how we think about the subjects themselves—probably more than we realize. They constrain our thinking, for better or worse. They can calm tensions or inflame them; they can foster unity or diminish it.
In debate, for instance, most of us use architectural imagery. An idea is foundational; she demolished his case by destabilizing his assumptions; you should build or construct your argument and support or reinforce it with further examples; her view has structural weaknesses that make her position shaky, rather than robust, and at risk of collapse.
But some metaphors work in more insidious ways. Over the past few decades, political discourse has seen a marked increase in military language: culture wars, battles for the soul of the nation, fights for justice that involve occupying frontlines and gaining ground. We think of public policy in terms of allies and enemies, battlefields, skirmishes, and threats. We declare war not just on nations but on terror, poverty, drugs, obesity, waste, and a host of other abstractions.
Unsurprisingly, this terminology makes our thinking far more combative and binary than a range of possible alternatives. Consider, in contrast, the same situation described with clothing metaphors: The fabric of society is unraveling and frayed, full of moral tangles and knotty problems and in need of stitching back together through weaving close-knit communities, repairing past injustices, patching up disagreements, and threading the needle between extreme positions.
Metaphors are hugely influential in understanding the nature and purpose of the church. Scripture gives us plenty of images for thinking about the people of God. Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city on a hill. Peter says we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are a field and a garden; we are branches in a vine, members of a body, sheep in a fold, crops in a harvest, warriors in a spiritual conflict; we are citizens of heaven, children of God, the bride of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Each metaphor highlights different aspects of what it means to be God’s people as well as the privileges and responsibilities we carry as a result. We need them all. If any of them is missing, we will quickly become imbalanced in ways that threaten to damage or divide.
If, for example, we see ourselves as soldiers armed with shields and swords without remembering that we are also a bride beautifully dressed for her husband, we could end up with an excessively militant picture of the church. The reverse is true too. If our imagery is bridal without also being martial, we might assume the church is a lover and not a fighter, when the New Testament presents us as both (Eph. 5:22–6:20; Rev. 19:11–21:14). This could easily pave the way for compromise on issues that require courage.
Scripture has good reason, then, for supplying a wealth of metaphors for the church. Not only do these metaphors offer useful portraits of God’s people and the callings he places upon them, they also point back to the gospel itself, challenging and refining a variety of cultural assumptions that can distort our reading of God’s Word.
To illustrate the importance of keeping the full range of church metaphors in mind, consider two images favored by the apostle Paul: the church as body and the church as household.
On the one hand, the church is an interdependent body (Rom. 12:4–5; 1 Cor. 12:12–31). Its members have nonidentical but equally important parts to play, which precludes anyone thinking themselves independent of, or beneath, anyone else. On the other hand, the church is a household (Gal. 6:10; Eph. 2:19; 1 Tim. 3:15). That means order and structure remain important, and some members carry more responsibility than others.
We need to hold both images in mind. If we think carefully about the different ways each works, we might be able to better navigate contested areas of church life today, including spiritual gifts, church government, and the ministry of men and women.
Consider spiritual gifts. When Paul addresses the use of charismatic gifts in the church—prophecy, languages, healing, interpretation, and the like—he usually employs the body metaphor. “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,” he writes, “so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us,” including prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, giving, leading, and showing mercy (Rom. 12:4–8).
The body is the perfect metaphor for charismatic life within the church. God has given us many different gifts; no individual is sufficiently gifted or godly to get by without the contributions of others. Consequently, nobody should think their gift is sufficient for life in God, and nobody should think they have nothing to bring, but each should use their gifts for building up the church.
Charismatic Christians (like me) revel in passages like this. But notice the potential hazards. If everyone’s gift is equally valuable, how do you recognize different levels of gifting, maturity, or wisdom? If we need all the gifts to flourish, how do we stop meetings from descending into chaos? How do you prevent the “eye” from going on endlessly about all the heavenly mysteries it claims to have seen, while the “liver” and the “kidneys” suffer in silence? If, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:26, “each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation,” how can these things “be done so that the church may be built up”?
The answer: by remembering that the church is also “God’s household” and thus “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). All of its members are equally valuable. But households (rightly) differentiate between fathers and mothers, parents and children, family members and guests, staff and visitors.
As a household, the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20). It has order, a structure, and different levels of maturity and authority. It includes overseers, deacons, and experienced saints who know the Scriptures inside out, alongside quarrelsome men, gossiping women, new converts, heretics, and outsiders (1 Tim. 3:1–5).
You may have seen what happens when one of these two metaphors drives out the other. Some congregations are so eager to let every part of the body contribute that there is no quality control, no liturgical shape, no church order, and no doctrinal clarity. The result is a household of God lacking walls, doors, and pillars. Other congregations are crystal clear on the offices, roles, and qualifications of everyone in the household, so much so that only one or two members are doing most of the load-bearing.
The interplay of body and household imagery can even help reframe debates over men’s and women’s roles in the church. On this topic, many believers find it hard to square the two distinct strains of Paul’s teaching. In 1 Corinthians, it appears that women pray and prophesy publicly, and everyone can bring hymns, teachings, and interpretations of Scripture (14:26). In 1 Timothy, however, women seem to be restricted from doing this (2:11–12), and Paul lists exacting qualifications for the church’s elders (3:1–7).
Some interpreters use one teaching as a lens through which to read (or minimize) the other. Some argue that the two letters must have been written by different people. I have made the case myself that Paul uses the verb teach somewhat differently in his letters to churches and his letters to individuals.
In many ways, however, the difference in Paul’s emphases reflects a difference of metaphor. Because the church is a household, it needs to maintain distinctions in a way that reflects good order; because the church is a body, it needs to value the contribution of every member. Because we are a body, we are interdependent; because we are a household, we are not interchangeable.
If either of these pictures is missing, our ecclesiology gets smaller, often in self-reinforcing ways. I cannot prove this, but I suspect that when churches stress either the body or the household metaphor over the other, they will find this hampers their practice of spiritual gifts and church government, while diminishing the service of men and women alike.
For a mature view of the church, we need all the images included in God’s Word. In Ephesians alone, we learn that the church is a body (1:23), a new humanity (2:15), a citizenry (v. 19), a household (vv. 20–22), a temple (2:21), a family (3:15), a light (5:8), a wife (vv. 22–23), and a soldier dressed for battle (6:10–18).
All these metaphors give essential guidance to God’s people in the here and now. Ultimately, though, they testify to the full scope of what God has already accomplished in knitting together a people for his own possession. Whatever its visible faults, the church of Christ will fulfill all the callings God has given it, to his everlasting glory.
Andrew Wilson is teaching pastor at King’s Church London and the author of Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West.
This article appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Christianity Today as "Mixed Metaphors".
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