Allow me to thank all of you who lovingly prayed that my surgery would be successful. Thank you also for helping us one way or the other. Our family felt so encouraged. I remember some of you assuring me not to worry for they will take care of the church. Those are words that pastors would love to hear. Let’s have more of that. Not the surgery, of course. Seriously, let’s have more of the pursuit to follow the Biblical pattern for the church, which is spelled out in Ephesians 4:11-13 as we continue our series on spiritual gifts. “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” There are three categories of gifts; the support gifts, the service gifts and the sign gifts. This morning we will look at the support gifts. Let us pray…
If we look at the context, our Lord is described here as a victorious king who conquered another kingdom. In his victory parade, the king gives away to people the treasures. Ephesians 4:7 tell us, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” Among the gifts that He gave us are gifted men. Verse 11 goes like this: “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers”. Note the words “It was he”. God chose these men out of His grace, not because of any merit or any superior qualities on their part. It was His sovereign choice, just as it was His wise decision to give each one of us at least one spiritual gift so we can effectively serve our place in the body of Christ. No one can boast about it. It was all by His grace. The gifts that Ephesians 4:11 tell us are called support gifts. These are gifted men strategically positioned for leadership to equip or train believers for ministry. Let’s look at them one by one.
Let’s take the first two, the apostles and prophets. I would try not to be too technical. But there’s a lot of controversial claims nowadays that we have to deal with it. We have to defend you from error and make sure we remain in the truth. There is a sense that the apostles and prophets belong to the early stages of the church. Why? In Ephesians 2:20 it says that the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” Note the word “foundation.” When do we lay down the foundation of a building? When it is half-finished? When it is already finished? Or, before we even build anything? We lay down the foundation at the beginning, not in the middle or the end of the construction.
The word “apostle” literally means “one who is sent” or “a messenger.” Our Lord Jesus chose the original apostles to bear witness for Him, sending them as His representatives. In fact, when they replaced Judas, look at the qualification that Peter had set in Acts 1:21-22: “Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.” Anyone who would claim to be a modern-day apostle would find it impossible, not just difficult, to meet that criteria. By the way, that’s the only time in the Bible that they replaced an apostle. There is no such a thing as apostolic succession. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the popes succeeded Peter as the chief apostle. But, if we follow that logic, then they should have twelve popes at the same time and not just one at a time.
The word “prophet” literally means “one who speaks before”. Somebody asked me yesterday, “Does God give the gift of prophecy until today?” Do we have modern-day prophets? My answer would be yes and no. It depends on what kind of prophecy we are talking about. If we are talking about foretelling or giving predictions about the future, then my answer would be “no.” God gave us sufficient prophecies about the future. The Bible is already complete, nothing to add to or subtract from the word of God. The prophets proclaimed the words of God when the Bible was not yet completed. If the prophecy we are talking about is forthtelling or proclaiming what is already revealed, then my answer would be “yes,” we still have prophets today.
Other than being the foundation of the church, the apostles and the prophets served as conduit of God’s revelation. In Ephesians 3:5 Paul talked about “the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.” They wrote the Bible under the guidance of the Spirit. That’s why if you would ask me, “How did the church councils knew which book goes to the New Testament and which should be rejected?” my answer would be “One of the criteria is that an apostle or a companion of an apostle wrote the book.” Someone wrote that the apostles and the prophets were like the delegates of a constitutional convention. Once they wrote out the constitution, the constitutional convention is dissolved. So, in a sense, we don’t have modern-day apostles or prophets as far as being the foundation of the church or giving the revelation of the Lord. But that doesn’t mean we miss out on their ministries because we have the Bible, the fruit of their labor.
However, in another sense, there are those who fulfill an apostolic or prophetic ministry today. But they don’t have the same degree of authority as the foundational apostles and prophets who gave us God’s revelation. Look at 2 Corinthians 8:23, “…as for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ.” The word “representatives” come from the Greek word where we got the word “apostles.” So, there is such a thing as messengers of the church, or to be exact, missionaries. They are not the foundation. They don’t give revelation. They lead in the formation or planting of churches, especially in places where Christ is not yet known. Paul wrote in Romans 15:20, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.” They are the pioneers. They may not be technically called apostles. But they do carry on the apostolic work. What about prophets today? Well, as I have said, if you are talking about prediction, then we don’t have prophets today. But if you are talking about proclamation, then we do have them today. 1 Corinthians 14:3 tell us, “But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.” They are what we call preachers today. Again, technically we don’t call them prophets. But they do fulfill a prophetic work.
Now, I have discussed this at length because of so many false teachings we see and hear nowadays. For example, a group would boast that they are the only Christian church because they alone have apostles or the apostle for the last days. Or, there are churches where so-called prophets would try to run your life by making decisions for you such as the choice of a mate or a career. The truth is the antidote against the poison of error.
Let’s look at the evangelist. I’ve read somewhere that the word “evangelist” describes a person who sells soap at that time. He would get a tramp and then give him a bath in full view of the crowd. Then, the soap-seller presents him clean, giving the audience sort of a before and after picture. That’s an evangelist. He proclaims the gospel so that people would see what a difference it would make in their lives if they accept our Lord Jesus as Savior.
The last support gift would be a pastor-teacher. In the Greek, pastor and teacher are joined together. A teacher may not be a pastor but a pastor has to be a teacher. He shepherds people by teaching them to obey the Word, so that they would grow in their relationship with the Lord. We will talk more about the evangelist and the pastor-teacher next week.
I want to spend my few remaining time with the first point in our outline. We will look at the last two next week.
Note their job description as spelled out in verse 12: “to prepare God’s people for works of service”. The emphasis here is that the leaders of the church would be more effective when they empower or equip the people they lead to do the ministry and not just do it themselves. So the leader’s responsibility is to BRING OUT THE BEST in you. That we support every one of you to be what God wanted you to be. The leaders are the equippers and the members are the ministers.
Yes, we may send out missionaries. We can and we are supporting missionaries financially. But, that is not the end. We can visit them on a short-term basis. My wife Ellen has joined a team before on a short-term mission work. I tell we would find it a blessing because not only that we can see the mission for ourselves, where our support goes, but we can also see the need in the mission field more clearly. We would see that there is world out there. When we look at our problems here, we tend to be overwhelmed or stressed out. But when we get to see the work out there, we see our lives in perspective. We can also encourage the missionaries. It is my prayer that people here in our church would experience the joys of short-term mission work. We already saw that the evangelist proclaims the gospel. But note that the evangelist also prepares God’s people for service. That means that it is not the sole responsibility of the evangelist to share the Gospel. It is also his task to train us to do personal evangelism. All of us are tasked by the Lord to share the Good News with others.
Brothers and sisters, would you be willing to be prepared for works of service? Would you allow your leaders to bring out the best in you?
