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God's Wonderful Gifts - Part 8 - The Ministry Gifts

by Jerry Ousley
5/05/2022 / Devotionals

The Ministry Gifts

Ephesians 4:11-16 – “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

We now come to what I call the “Ministry Gifts.” These are the gifts of individuals who serve in the Body of Christ. In essence each of us as believers, has a place and an office gift. No one was every called into the ministry of pew sitting. We all have a job to do. What is more and is also very exciting to me, is that each of us was born with the raw giftings (or interests) that God wants to use in our unique and individual ministry (service office).

These ministry gifts are listed in the quoted passage as, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (some interpret that the pastor and teacher are the same but I am not so certain of that. I know some pastors who are not teachers and I know some teachers who are not pastors). 1 Corinthians 12:28 also lists helps and governments. Folks, these categories include every born-again believer in the body of Christ.

Some believe that the offices of apostle and prophet are no longer in existence but just as with the other gifts, I can find no where in the Bible that tells us that any of these have expired. More specifically, the two in question are the offices of apostle and prophet. On the other side of the coin there are some who claim to be apostles and prophets who are truly not.

Let’s look a moment at each of these ministry or office gifts. The original Greek word used for apostle is “apostolous” which literally means “FROM+PUT and Commissioners.” So, they are from and put in order by God and commissioned for such service. We need look no further than the apostles in the New Testament which included the original disciples of Jesus minus Judas, plus Paul. What they did was to establish congregations in different cities. They didn’t establish the church of Paul and the church of Peter in the same city but they established one church in each city and they all ministered to them. So, an apostle is one directly called by God and appointed who establishes churches and then appoints leaders to continue the service there.

A prophet is a forth-teller who speaks the word of God either exhorting, correcting or telling of the future. In the Greek it is “prophEtas”, which literally means “before-AVERers”, or those who tell before, and tell positively.

We are pretty clear on the other offices. An evangelist is one who proclaims the Good News or Gospel to those who need salvation. A Pastor is a leader of a congregation (and originally of the entire church in a given city where smaller groups met and were overseen by an elder. Originally, they had no buildings in which to meet except for individual homes. So, there were several congregations but all one church). The pastor is just like a shepherd who takes care of the flock to which he is appointed. The teacher is one who exhorts and breaks down the word of God in a manner as to instruct those being taught. Helps are those who help all the other office ministries in various duties as needed. No congregation would succeed without those who are gifted in helps. And governments are those who are especially gifted in leading others in the right direction.

As you have probably already figured out, many of these offices may overlap, as a pastor may also be especially gifted in helps or governments for example. No one is excluded but every Christian is used by God in one or more of these ministry gifts. And the spiritual gifts are used overlapping with the ministry gifts. When it is all practiced and allowed to be used by God as He wills then the Church as a whole works in harmony and order. It is only when we have people who want to manufacture God’s will that gets us into trouble and out of sync.

God’s gifts are indeed wonderful. When we allow God to naturally use us as He wills and as He sees fit, without jealousy or covetousness then we can accomplish great things collectively as His Body, with each doing his/her job in sync with everyone else. If we could really understand this and do this, can you even imagine how successful and powerful the Church that belongs to God can really be?

. . . Praise the Lord . . .

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of "Soul Challenge", "Soul Journey", "Ordeal", "The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional" and his first novel "The Shoe Tree." Newer books include "Finality" and "Dividing God's Church." Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge

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