Ephesians 4:11 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Ephesians 4:11

Comments

God has given the ministry of the church. It is the gift, the provision of God, but do not let that reflect unduly upon the called people: the ministers, the instruments. It is not they personally who are a gift of God. They are not special or unique people. They are not endowed with any special or personal authority. It is true, some of them think they are. Not only popes of Rome who are not even saved, not even archbishops and bishops who wield authority and they should not: even some Bible believing ministers think they have authority over people and they over-shepherd and tell people what they must do in their lives. No, true ministers are to bring the word and teach it to the best of their ability and in all good conscience, so that it is God who rules by his word. They must show that everything is from the word; it is not their personal judgement or decision or authority ever.Because the ‘some’ is not repeated, friends often think that pastors and teachers are one and the same, and they may very well be – pastors and teachers combined in one person. But you should not drive a wedge between the words. There are still five offices, not four, that are mentioned here: five functions. So it can be that one person is a pastor and other people are teachers. But here are the offices, and we begin them with apostles. Apostle means set apart and sent out; they were special representatives of God. There were only apostles in the first portion of the age of the church. There were the twelve, but Judas was the betrayer, and there was another appointed by the apostles in his place, and then came along a 13th, Paul the apostle. He describes himself as one born out of due time. He was not born and raised with the other apostles. He was called separately, but he was called in a very similar way, personally by the Lord who appeared to him. He was inspired and taught directly by the Lord as the other apostles had been by following the Lord in his earthly ministry. There was only one born out of due time, only one who was not among the original twelve. Then ‘prophets’ – like apostles – were for that time. We have the strong impression from 1 Corinthians 14 that there were some prophets in all the early churches. When the teachers and prophets are named and mentioned at Antioch, there are just a few of them: only two or three at most. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 that when the prophets contribute to a service of worship and the junior prophets, the tongues speakers, there should be two or three at most. After that there are the offices that endure to this day. Evangelists, says the apostle – literally a proclaimer of the good news. In other words, a preacher of the saving doctrines of the gospel. Acts 21:8, Philip is called an evangelist. Timothy is called an evangelist, though he turns out to be more as time goes by: he is a pastor also. The evangelist is a convincer, a persuader, a remonstrator, an appealer, one who sets forth the redeeming love of Christ. The word ‘pastor’ means shepherd: those that feed the sheep. The word ‘pastor’ is from the Latin, to lead to pasture, to feed. A pastor leads to the word, whether he is working from the pulpit or whether he is talking to an individual believer. If he talks to an individual believer and all he can give them is his common sense, or some homespun psychology, well that is a shame. He cares like a shepherd. He watches over the flock. Teachers are trying to get things across in a way that people can retain. There is a lot of doctrine and a lot of facts and promises that have to be so taught that they can be retained. In the professional world, there is a whole body of knowledge which you need to retain or you are done for. Sometimes you teach structurally with points. Normally you teach in an expository manner, explaining the Scripture and allowing it to speak. But constantly when you teach, you will try to think of ways of making this memorable so it will be retained. If you just grind them out, one thing after another, and they are not memorable or retainable, they slip through the mind. Your teaching has to be easy to assimilate. You cannot go through the Scriptures too minutely because the mind cannot retain that. You cannot go through the Scriptures too extensively and certainly not tediously.

Application

The apostles were all poor because they were appointed to be examples to us and to ministers, who in a more limited sense, would follow them. Ministers today are not meant to be rich. If they are rich, they are disobedient to Scripture, and they are also very vulnerable. How do you become rich as a minister? Well, by running presumably a mega church. How do you run a mega church? There is only way to run a mega church – you cut corners and you compromise. You give people what they want. If they want Christian rock, you give them Christian rock. If they want contemporary worship, you give them contemporary worship. If you did not, they would go somewhere else and it would not be a mega church anymore. So because that is what makes you rich and you have fallen in love with being rich, you cut corners and you tell people, I am all for the Bible, and I stick to the word, but you do not, because you like the riches and therefore you cut corners.

The functions of pastor, teacher and evangelist can merge, but we distinguish between them because they must all be manifested in the church. If a church has one pastor or two or three pastors combining all the roles, they must make sure they honour all the roles. But sometimes they are evangelists, and sometimes they are pastors, and sometimes they are teachers. If they are combining all roles, they must perform all tasks. We have to be careful about that. We know there are some pastors and they are probably wonderful pastors and teachers who do not preach the gospel much, even though they believe it, so they are not serving as evangelists. If for some reason they feel it is not their gift, then they should appoint an evangelist also because all three functions must be represented in the church – evangelist, pastor, teacher.

You are a teacher, evangelist, pastor, called by God. It is something you must be dedicated to. God must equip you. You are called by him and by the church. There is no government in the church without consent. We Baptists, and Congregationalists too, were saying this long before we had democracy in this country, long before anyone had the vote. Non-conformists left the Church of England for this reason, well this was one of the reasons – the government of the church of Jesus Christ must be by consent. So God calls pastors and teachers, and the congregation must consent to them and appoint them and elect them and choose them. No government without consent.

Questions

Are there apostles today? No, the apostles were to pass away. It is through their teaching in the text of the New Testament that they continue today. All of them had certain characteristics. They had all seen the risen Lord, as had Paul, to whom the Lord appeared especially. People cannot call themselves apostles today, they have not seen the risen Lord, they have not been appointed personally by him and inspired by him. Besides, how would we know how to recognise them? How would we know how to appoint them? There are instructions in the Bible as to how to appoint a pastor, an elder, a deacon, a preacher, but there is nothing about how to appoint the most important of all, the apostle, because we are not meant to. They were once and for all to lay the foundation of the church – inspired by God, authenticated by him, capable of doing signs and wonders and mighty deeds which we are not, and examples to the church. They set up the pattern church for us to follow. The ancient traditions of the church show that most of them were probably martyred for the faith; they were dedicated.

What was the purpose of the prophets in the early church? Well, they did not yet have the whole Scriptures. The apostle Paul was still writing his epistles. The entire New Testament was not in place. During that period of the Scriptures being completed, there were small numbers of people able to by direct inspiration to know the doctrines and the word of God and teach these things. But of course, they died out. Again, there were no instructions in the Scripture about how to appoint prophets because they were pass away. As the hymn writer put it – ‘No need of prophets to inquire: The sun is risen – the stars retire!’ The sun being the word of God of course. The sun is up, the full light of gospel day is shining. The prophets are now eclipsed; their work is done and they passed away in the first generation of the church.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Ephesians 4:11 Commentary and Bible Study

Explain meaning of Ephesians 4:11