This is one of those topics you rarely hear anyone who isn’t a charismatic or Pentecostal talking about—what are the Ephesians 4 Ministries (or sometimes ‘fivefold ministry’) and should local churches care about them?
Except, I recently noticed a definitely-not-a-charismatic friend mentioning them. This piece from Rhys Laverty that builds off some of my blogging (and this article) mentions in passing the historical warrant for the office of the ‘Teacher’ from Ephesians 4. I’ve mentioned these guys before. Which is to say nothing more than that this isn’t just an intramural charismatic discussion, even though I’m sure Rhys doesn’t want to restore the office of apostle or prophet.
We’re talking about Ephesians 4.11-14, which describes gifts that the ascended Christ gives to the church for the purpose of equipping saints for ministry and building up the body until we all attain maturity. It mentions four or five ‘gifts,’ but these are people rather than gifts that might be given to people (i.e. prophets rather than the gift of prophecy).
We have the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds (or pastors) and the teachers.
One of the first questions we have to grapple with is who these people are. They’re given by the ascended Christ, so we’re not talking about anyone prior to Christ’s ascension. That in itself doesn’t mean that the term apostles doesn’t refer primarily to the Twelve plus Paul. We might then consider that they’re given for the maturity of the Church: I think we’re a long way off the kind of maturity that the New Testament ascribes to the church. It’s a reasonable inference then to expect all five (or four) of these gifted individuals to continue being gifted to the Church in the present day.
I’m well aware that isn’t a strong enough argument to persuade anyone who doesn’t think that the sign gifts (like tongues and prophecy) are continuing to the present day. You’ll find a good argument for that in Andrew Wilson’s Spirit and Sacrament. Often we get stuck on the idea that apostles might continue—but it’s always worth noting that the word is used more widely than the Twelve in the Bible (e.g. Acts 14, Galatians 1, 2 Corinthians 8, Philippians 2) and it just means ‘sent ones.’ James and Barnabas do seem to be being called apostles, the others could just be ‘messengers.’ Good arguments for the continuing of the apostle can be found in Dave Devenish’s Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission. I’m persuaded of Devenish’s definition of apostles—given in his title—that keeps a particular place for the twelve apostles of the Lord. Others might describe them as missionaries or church planters, but there are those who plant churches in the New Testament without being described as apostles, Titus stands out here.
I was in a Newfrontiers church for around a decade, which is a self-consciously apostolic network, with local churches submitted to apostles and receiving oversight from them. I’ve been in a network that doesn’t teach or acknowledge these things most recently, but I do think we end up missing something vital. For Anglican friends, apostles are basically Bishops (there’s a throwaway comment to offend everyone).
Four or Five
How many gifts are there here? The question arises because of the grammar, it’s possible to read this as pastor-teachers rather than pastors and teachers. In essence ‘pastors’ and ‘teachers’ are grouped together differently as though the English read ‘the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers’ and we assumed they’d not used an Oxford comma deliberately. You can read this as ‘pastor-teachers’ (four gifts) but that grammatical construction doesn’t always mean the two terms are the same thing (Bill Mounce points to apostles and prophets in Ephesians 2.20).
If we read this as five gifts there needs to be a different relationship between Pastors and Teachers than with the other three.
Personally I lean towards the five, because we find ‘teachers’ mentioned in a few places in the Bible without another mention of ‘pastor-teachers.’ I understand why others want to hold them together, it’s usually a desire to ensure that ‘teaching’ is pastoral or a desire to ensure that pastoring involves teaching too. I’m firmly on board with both concerns. I wonder if we should suggest that all teachers are pastors (elders) in a way that we wouldn’t with the previous three. Hoehner suggests that the first three are itinerant and the last two are local. That’s plausible too.
Are these Offices?
That really depends what you mean by ‘office.’ A different way of framing the question would be ‘should we ordain people to these positions?’ I understand that, for example, the Apostolic Church ordains people to all five offices.
I think it’s important that we recognise who these people are, and that we then commit to using them in that capacity within our churches and networks. My argument for that would contain some of the same pieces as my argument for the importance of clearly recognising elders in a church: people need to know who they should be listening to about particular things, it honours the gift by recognising it, and you can’t develop or use what you don’t recognise.
I have a reticence about it though. Elders and Deacons are clearly the two ordained offices in the New Testament church. You can notice this in nearly every single one of Paul’s letters. I think that Elders and Pastors are the same thing, largely based on 1 Peter 5 (Mitch Chase works through the argument for this, very clearly, here). I’m not sure that we should give the same weight to ‘ordained’ prophets or apostles or teachers as to Elders or Deacons. One of the arguments in the other direction is the mention of the Pastor or Shepherd in Ephesians 4 as that does seem to speak of them in the same breath; I think this is where the grammar helps us out a bit.
I also have a reticence that isn’t so much about the text but more about the way it feels, when people start calling themselves a capital-letter Prophet or Apostle (less so with Teacher or Evangelist, if I’m honest), it feels icky. Putting aside that I’d like to keep capital-letter Apostles to refer to the witnesses of the resurrection (see Wilson on that), it just doesn’t seem like something you should ever call yourself. Rarely does the person who turns up at your church and declares themselves a Prophet lead to equipping the saints for ministry or the building of the church into maturity. There are exceptions, but it’s going to make most Pastors nervous about whether this person is humble or teachable, however wonderfully gifted in the prophetic they might be.
I think it would be wise to only use titles for those that others already recognised as holding that position in your church or network have in turn recognised. I also would lean towards every church needing these giftings but only using the titles to refer to people who are working across multiple churches in a network or denomination and have been recognised as such by many.
Developing the Gifts
The thing is, wherever you land on the questions I’ve tossed about above, you should be looking to develop these gifts in your church, network, or denomination (networks are denominations with better fonts).
How are you developing, and then listening to, those who are gifted in the prophetic? Who is Fathering your Pastors and pushing you into mission? How are you developing those gifted at evangelism to equip the saints rather than do it all themselves? How are you developing Pastors to shepherd the flock? And, the one closest to my heart, how are you developing those with teaching gifts to do more than preach but also to grow everyone up into maturity?
There’s lots more to be said, and I suspect everyone will find something to disagree with above, but we can’t say less.
Photo by Luis Quintero on Unsplash
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