Posted by Rick | Bible Studies | newtestamentpattern.net/

In the 'New Testament' of God's Word the Holy Bilble, the word Church is always used to identify believers and NEVER refers to a physical structure, temple, or building.  The Church is the Body of Christ - people - saved sinners who love the Lord Jesus, because He first loved them.  The Lord Himself told us that the Church is the Christians and never a building.  " For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”  Matthew 18:20

                                         Authority & Function

Authority in the Universal Church

This next part of our study is divided into three categories.

- Firstly, ‘Authority in the Universal Church’, 

- Secondly, ‘Authority in the local churches’ and 

- Thirdly, a special section looking at the word ‘pastor’ - ‘The pastoral system’.

  This third section is necessary for two reasons: 1) we must ask to which of the first two categories does this role belong? And 2) extra space and attention is required to examine this function in the light of strongly preconceived ideas found in our age and culture.

It will help us tremendously to a more balanced view of the New Testament teaching on this subject if we think of the word ‘authority’ as always implying a gifting or ministry, also as being a ‘function performed’, or simply a ‘recognized role’, not an ‘office held’ (see glossary for note on ‘office’).

While Christians must always respect and acknowledge and indeed benefit from every true minister of Christ, we must not falsely ennoble such roles; e.g. today we equate the title ‘minister’ with something and someone quite respected, professional and qualified.  In biblical times the word simply meant a servant, someone to be used or even abused!  Honour where honour is due, but let no man think of himself as anything more than a mere bond slave of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

Mat.16:18 is the first occasion that the Lord himself directly mentions the Church, He says “... I will build My Church and the gates of hell (that is, all the plans and conspiracies) shall not prevail against it.”  In Colossians we are told: “for by Him (Jesus Christ) were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.  And He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead: that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.” (Col. 1:16-18).  Emphatically it is always, ever, His Church, and He is the absolute authority in it, over it and through it.  Therefore, no man, whether he be called an apostle or an elder or whatever, has total authority in His Church.  Having established incontrovertibly His authority over every believer, we will go on to look at the people He has given to His Church who bear a measure of that authority.

“And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.” (Eph. 4:11,12).

“And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers...” (1 Cor. 12:28).

As previously mentioned, the word ‘pastor’ will be examined more closely later. This leaves us with apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers.

The context of both of the above quotations is very clearly the ‘One’ (universal) Body of Christ.  In the Ephesians quote the passage leading up to it refers to the “one body” (vs. 4).  The same phrase is used in the Corinthian passage (vs.13). Of course, all of the local churches are a part of that One Body, but we must not think that in every local assembly there were apostles, prophets … etc!  These ministries exist in The Body of Christ as a whole, not every local assembly.  One hallmark of these men is that they spend much of their time travelling in order to: 1) evangelise the unconverted and establish new congregations, and 

2) visit established assemblies in order to further edify them.

A little further on in this study we shall be looking at ‘Authority in the local churches’.  Those with authority in each local church are called ‘elders’.  An obvious question that will be asked is: Can a person with a ‘Universal Church gifting’ also serve as an elder in a particular local church?  Certainly at the beginning of the New Testament Church this was so.  All of the original apostles were also elders in the church at Jerusalem.  However, none of the later apostles are ever shown to be elders in any local assembly.  With Paul it is very clear that he was permanently itinerant.  There may also have been some extra special sense to the title ‘elders’ given to the original twelve?  It does not appear that these two roles continued to be compatible - (see ‘Appendix 2’ for more on the development of the Church).  What about the other four ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4?  We will consider the last two, pastors and teachers, to some extent in the section entitled ‘The pastoral system’ where we will look at two possible interpretations in reference to these.  As for prophets and evangelists also acting as elders in a local church there is little to go on to make any clear statement on this.  It is not the purpose of this study to try to delineate every last detail of the ‘outward’ form of the Church but rather centre on the clearly defined roles that are found in Scripture.

[If this last paragraph seems confusing at present you may find it helpful to read the section on ‘Authority in the local churches’ and then return to this part].

All authority in God’s Church works by willing submission and mutual respect of one another’s consciences.  Every individual believer shall give account of himself or herself at the judgement seat of Christ.  Therefore, the Church of God does not have an unquestionable chain of command.  This does not mean we are all our own masters.  We are equally accountable if we reject another man’s authority/counsel when he is genuinely acting under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  The spiritual man must judge (weigh up) all things!

Before looking at the ‘universal ministries’ it is necessary to read a little more of the quote from Ephesians 4 in order to see why these ministries exist: “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.  For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ...”  

Where the A.V. text reads “for” the work of the ministry the marginal rendering in some study Bibles is “unto.”  This is a very different emphasis as this means that ‘the ministry’ is the work of all the saints (i.e. every Christian) not just a select few. The job of the select few i.e. the apostles, prophets etc. is to equip the saints (all Christians) for this work.  We cannot here delve into the question of “what is the ministry?”  In short, it is the God-given privilege for every believer to act as a spiritual priest in serving (ministering to) both God and fellow man. (See Glossary under Ministry for more).

The following is an overview of four of the five ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4 - apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers.  As for the question of “do all these ministries still exist today?”  for those that believe that the Scripture is inspired by God as a pattern for all churches, at all places, at all times the argument is resolved (see Appendix 1).  Of course, this still leaves the situation of there also being false apostles, false prophets etc!  Here we will simply look at some key references to those who were the genuine ministers of God.

APOSTLES [GK. APOSTOLOS] - means delegate, ambassador, messenger, he that is sent, also translated once as ‘messenger’.

We all, of course, are familiar with the original twelve apostles and how Judas, in effect, turned out to be a false apostle.  In Acts 1:26 we read that Matthias was appointed as replacement for Judas and it seems his appointment is acknowledged and confirmed in Acts 2:14 - there were the eleven, plus Peter. 

Some feel that as Matthias is afterwards never mentioned again in Scripture, in reality God’s choice of replacement was Paul.  He is clearly called an apostle in many instances starting with Acts 14:14.  The same verse also confirms unambiguously that Barnabas was an apostle.  In Gal. 1:19 we see that James the Lord’s brother had become an apostle.  A careful reading of 1 Thessalonians shows that Silas and Timothy were referred to as being apostles (1 Thes. 1:1 & 2:6) though some argue that the “we” refers only to Paul and Silas and may not include Timothy (see 1 Thes. 3:1,2).  In Philippians 2:25 Epaphroditus is called an ‘apostolos’ – translated as ‘messenger’.

So, we have eighteen or nineteen references to persons named as apostles in the New Testament.  By simply taking account of the meaning of the word ‘apostle’ and by examining what we can of the lives and deeds of all the above mentioned we might easily be led to conclude there were others that seemed to be authorised to act in the same capacity.  There is Titus who was told to appoint elders in Titus 1:6, Apollos who is named alongside Paul and Peter (1 Cor. 1:12) and possibly Sosthenes (see 1 Cor. 1:1, then 1 Cor. 4:9).  Then there is Luke who didn’t just travel with Paul but more notably, wrote the single largest contribution to our New Testament.  If we take Luke’s writings page for page, they comprise more than either Paul or John individually wrote.  If the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles, how can we not include the books of Luke as part of our foundation?

Paul was very clearly held in great regard by others who were themselves apostles.  He sent and called for them and they were happy to submit to his wishes.  However, this only worked by their willingness to do so, they could all operate according to their own consciences before God as is seen in the instance of 1 Cor. 16:12 - “As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will when he shall have convenient time.”

On concluding this very brief overview of apostles, it should be said that, it is clear that the early apostles (whether just the original twelve or all those aforementioned) had a very special commission from God.  For example, in Mat.16:19 we read of Peter receiving the keys of the kingdom; a subsequent reading of the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts shows us that Peter was used of God as His ‘key’ man to unlock the door for many to enter the kingdom.  In Gal. 2:7&8 we are told that Peter had a special calling to bring the Gospel to the Jews and Paul likewise to the Gentiles.  In Rev. 21:14 we see that the names of the ‘twelve apostles of the Lamb’ are written in the foundation walls of the New Jerusalem.  Also, we must remember that the above-mentioned apostles were authors of Holy Scripture, which is now complete.

PROPHETS [GK. PROPHETES] - means foreteller, inspired speaker and poet. Also, ‘forth-teller’ - i.e. ‘a teller-forth of the word of God’.

It is worth first noting that a prophet is not just someone who predicts the future. The word ‘PROPHETES’ implies being close to God and enabled by Him to ‘speak by inspiration’.  Prophecy is the spontaneous word from the Holy Spirit being expressed through human lips.  To be occasionally moved of God in a prophetic gift is not the same as being a prophet.  This principle is better explained below under the section on ‘teachers’ - we may all teach in a general sense but this is not the same as being a teacher.  There are only a few references to prophets in the New Testament.  Those named specifically are Agabus, Judas (not Iscariot) and Silas.  These are all mentioned in the book of Acts.  I leave you to conduct your own research: Acts 11:27, 13:1, 15:32 and 21:10.

EVANGELISTS [GK. EUANGELISTES] - means a preacher of the Gospel.

Now we are down to just one named example of an evangelist, it is Philip of course - Acts 21:8.  We have a wonderful account of Philip in action in Acts 8:26-40.  Essentially, the evangelist’s ministry is to those who are not yet Christ’s.  In verse 35, we see that Philip ‘started from the place’ where the Ethiopian was reading.  This is the gift of evangelism, to meet with the unconverted and take them from wherever they are, be it atheism or religion, and lead them to Jesus the Saviour.  Also note that Timothy was told to do the work of an evangelist, though it did not say he was an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5).

TEACHERS [GK. DIDASKALOS] - means instructor, also translated once as ‘masters’ (James 3:1) and once as ‘doctors’ (Luke 2:46).

In Acts 13:1 we read “there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers;” we are then given a list of five people that were such.  We cannot easily separate out who were the prophets and who were the teachers in this instance, that is except for Saul (Paul), who is clearly noted as a teacher (1 Tim. 2:7, 2 Tim 1:11).  We must bear in mind that he was also an apostle and therefore we cannot definitively use him as a pure pattern of a teacher.  This is, however, a good example of how ministries are often combined.

Teaching is a ministry that carries with it a great weight of responsibility and accountability “My brethren, be not many masters (do not all try to become teachers), knowing that we shall receive greater condemnation (or judgement)” (James 3:1).  Notice here that James uses “we”, therefore we can conclude that he also was a teacher.  The writer to the Hebrews says, “for when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles (the basics) of the oracles (the word) of God” (Heb. 5:12).  It would be a contradiction of James if this were a literal encouragement to all to aspire to the specific office of teacher.  It is more likely that it refers to the every-day teaching ability that every Christian needs in order to exhort one another; in fact, this was a statement of exasperation!

From this word [DIDASKALOS] is derived the English, ‘didactic’, which means - ‘to teach authoritatively’.  This word appears in its verb form DIDASKŌ in 1 Tim. 2:12 - “...  I suffer not (do not permit) a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man ...”  Compare this with Paul’s statement that the older women should “... teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands ...” (Titus 2:4).  Here a different Greek word is used – [SOPHRONIZO], which implies practical instruction, more by example as opposed to ‘expositional teaching’.

We must also make the distinction between teaching in a general sense and the specific calling of being a teacher.  We read in Col. 3:16 “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another; in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”  Here, ‘teaching one another’ does not imply that we are all teachers, any more than it implies we all have wonderful singing voices!

So we see that there are at least three different ways that people can teach:

1. Authoritative, ‘expositional’ teaching.

2. Teaching/showing by example.

3. Every-day admonishing/encouraging one another.

The latter two are the privilege and responsibility of all Christians.  The first is exclusively the work of those to whom God has given the gift of teaching.

Missionaries?

Now I would like to offer some food for thought by mentioning the term ‘missionary’.  This has become a commonly accepted title, particularly in the last few centuries, but it is not a biblical word (even if the idea may be).  Whenever we use non-biblical words we only succeed in fogging an issue.  If a person has a clear calling from God in an apostolic role then it is simpler to use ‘approved’ Bible terminology – he is an apostle.  If a man has been given the calling to evangelise – he is an evangelist.  If the biblical definitions fit the role, then we should not be afraid to use such.  I am not trying to be picky in mentioning this; this is a very important principle that applies to all Christian terminology.  For example, if we wanted to examine the role of a ‘missionary’ and find biblical examples and indeed encouragements, we would not be able to do so.  If someone, on the other hand, wishes to know how an apostle should behave, or believes that God has called him to be an evangelist, then, we can turn to the Word of God and receive clear instruction.  This does not mean that everyone we call a missionary necessarily falls into the category of apostle or evangelist etc.  There are many other valuable supportive roles.  Various people accompanied and assisted Paul in his apostolic work.  These other supportive roles in the Church are mentioned in the second half of 1 Cor. 12:28, in particular, “helps” is often overlooked.

Some further thoughts on the Universal Church ministries

Two notable hallmarks of the ministries in the ‘Church Universal’ are: 1) the geographic extent of their work goes beyond the confines of one local assembly, and 2) the effect of their ministry/teaching often continues even after they have departed this earth. In other words, it spans time as well as location.

Finances

Another point which needs to be mentioned here is that those whose ministries inevitably mean that they must travel regularly and cannot be entirely rooted and settled in one given locality, are worthy of the necessary financial support.  This is for obvious reasons; as such a person cannot be employed in the normal fashion (see 1 Cor. 9:4-18 and Phil. 4:14-18).  It is the duty of individual Christians and the local church elders to sensitively seek God’s guidance as to contributing to the needs of His servants.  However, we also read that the apostle Paul renounced this support if ever it was liable to hinder the gospel: Acts 18:3, 21:34, 1 Thes 2:5-9.

Note: We should bear in mind that some teachers and evangelists might not need to travel so much in the modern world in order to fulfil their ministry.  For example, an evangelist may live in a city so populous that it may rarely be necessary for him to travel very far in order to continually preach the Gospel to new ears.  In an age where writing is such an accessible medium some who have the gift of teaching may use this God-approved method to disseminate their messages far and wide and may substitute a lot of travelling with time spent writing.  Provided that we remain within the clearly shown principles of Scripture there is surely some degree of flexibility in the way a gift is expressed in different people.  It is up to the Lord’s people to be sensitive and perceptive in recognising those who are genuinely about their Father’s business and in need their support.

A final word on the subject of money: In mat. 6:24 Jesus made a sharp distinction between two groups of people – those who serve God and those who serve mammon (the love of money).   Attitude to money is one quite simple way of telling apart the false from the genuine in the realm of apostles, prophets, teachers and others.  This whole topic needs to be explored, as a separate study, but I would just like to mention two points on the spiritual man’s attitude to receiving financial/practical support.  These are lessons so well expressed in the life of faith and faithfulness lived by a man named George Muller. 

 Firstly, we should not advertise our needs to any man, but rather make our requests known only unto God.  

 Secondly, a man of faith should know that “God’s work, done in God’s way, never lacks God’s support.” - (George Muller).

Jesus fulfils every office...

I would like to end this whole section with one final consideration for us to meditate upon.  All of the above ‘offices’ of Eph. 4:11 belong first and foremost to the Lord Jesus, along with His many other titles.  Below is just one reference for each:

 APOSTLE Heb.3:1

 PROPHET Mark 6:4

 EVANGELIST Luke 7:22…... He ‘preached’ [EUNGGELIZO] - evangelised.

 PASTOR Heb.13:20...… Translated as shepherd.

 TEACHER John 3:2

Next, we will examine the Authority in the local churches ...

To continue this study, go to: 'The New Testament Church Pattern - Part 3'

This page created by Peter Brenner on Wednesday, November 1, 2023

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