AN INCISIVE LOOK AT THE FIVE-FOLD EKKLESIA MINISTRY

Ephesians 4:11

And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.

The Christian ministry

I. From this passage we learn, that the institution of the Christian ministry—the appointment of pastors and teachers—is from God, is of Divine authority. The object which the Christian ministry is designed to effect is the conviction and conversion of sinners, and the edification and consolation of saints; but these are effects which no human, and, indeed, no created, power is able to produce. The office of the Christian ministry—that is, the institution of a separate order of men to attend, more peculiarly, to the religious instruction of others—is admirably adapted in its own nature as a means to effect the object intended, and its adaptation is evident even to the eye of human wisdom; but it was not devised by human wisdom, and it must not be judged of, or regarded, solely from its extrinsic fitness.
II. Since, then, the text informs us, in the first place, that the appointment of pastors and teachers is a Divine institution, intended to be instrumental in accomplishing certain objects, and of course deriving all its efficacy from the blessing of Him who appointed it, we shall now consider what objects it was designed to effect. For what purpose did God give pastors and teachers? It was “for the perfecting of the saints, for the edification of the Body of Christ.” The “perfecting of the saints” may here mean the completion of their number. It may also mean, making them perfect in holiness. We are further informed by the apostle, that God “gave pastors and teachers for the edifying of the Body of Christ.” “The Body of Christ” is an expression often used in Scripture to denote the Church of Christ. And the great object of this figurative mode of speaking is to represent the absolute dependence of believers upon their great living Head at all times for nourishment and strength, and, indeed, for existence or vitality, as well as the close and intimate connection that subsists between the Head and all the members—that is, between Christ and His people—and between the members with each other. The word “edify” properly means to build; and it is taken from another figurative idea, sometimes given us in Scripture, of the Church of Christ, or of true Christians in their connection with and dependence upon Christ, namely, that of a building or temple, of which Christ is the foundation, and in which all His people are represented as stones. And in this work of edification or sanctification, pastors and teachers whom God has appointed are master builders, whose great duty and privilege it is to be employed as instruments in edifying the Body of Christ—in building up the saints in their most holy faith—in carrying on the great work of which our Saviour laid the foundation while He lived upon the earth—in not only bringing men to the knowledge and belief of the truth, but also in leading them to walk in the paths of holiness—to walk in harmony and in love—and to contribute to one another’s spiritual progress.
III. We would now consider the statement which the text contains of the more comprehensive and ultimate objects for which the Christian ministry was instituted, and which the labours of pastors and teachers are intended to serve, namely, that Christians may grow up in “all things unto Him who is the Head—that they may all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man—unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” And here we would notice the description the apostle gives of the direct objects and effects of the labours of pastors and teachers, namely, that Christians “speak the truth in love.” “Speaking the truth” is contrasted with being tossed to and fro like children, or carried about with every wind of doctrine; and as the appointment of pastors and teachers, with their regular and faithful ministrations, are intended by God to preserve the Church, or Body of Christ, from the latter of these, so they are also fitted to produce and secure the former. “To speak the truth” means here to hold and to maintain sound and correct views of Christian doctrine—of the great principles of the oracles of God. And this is an acquisition of great importance, lying at the very foundation of all true religion, which is built upon right views of the Divine character, and of the Divine plans and purposes with regard to the human race. But, besides this, it is also necessary that men “speak the truth in love”—that is, that their assertion and maintenance of the truth, even against its opposers, should never lead them into any violation of the great law of Christian charity and love. Not that either ministers or private Christians are bound to speak or to think more favourably of opposers of the truth than the fair and impartial examination of their conduct may seem to warrant and to require. But when our opinion is really and sincerely fair and impartial, it is no objection to it that it is unfavourable; for that must just depend upon the grounds and merits of the case. Our opinions upon all points should be exactly conformable to truth—to the intrinsic merits of the subject; but the expression of these opinions, and the conduct which they may lead us to adopt, should be at all times regulated by love. The great terminating object of the Christian ministry—and indeed of all God’s dealings with His people—is stated by the apostle in the eighteenth verse—“that we may all come in”—or rather into—“the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—unto a perfect man—unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” This describes the state of the Church in its collective capacity—when the objects of the Christian ministry, and indeed of all other means of grace, shall have been accomplished. At present, there is nothing like complete unity of faith and knowledge. There is reason, however, to think that times are in reserve for the Church, even upon earth, when these evils shall be greatly lessened, if not altogether removed—when the Church shall indeed resemble a great and a holy Society, founded upon one rock, and that rock Christ:—devoted to the one great purpose of manifesting the glory and making known the manifold wisdom of God. But whatever degree of harmony and purity the Church of Christ shall attain upon earth, when God shall pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and introduce the glory of the latter days, certain it is that there will be a time when all His people shall come into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, when there shall be nothing whatever to hurt or to offend, when His people shall be all righteous—freed from everything that may pervert either the judgment or the conduct—made perfect in holiness, and altogether restored to the lost image of their great Creator and their living Head. (W. Cunningham, D. D.)


Ministers in the Church appointed by Christ
I. A remarkable instance of our exalted Lord’s liberty to His Church in bestowing divers gifts upon her.
1. The gifts.
2. The Giver.
3. The act of donation.
4. The time to which it relates.
II. The end or design of this gift.
1. In respect of the saints, these who are in Christ already, the ministry is to perfect them, πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν. The word signifies the restoring and setting dislocated members again in their proper place. It signifies also, the perfecting and establishing them in the restored state. So the Corinthians, who by their factions and divisions were rent asunder, and as a disjointed body, are exhorted to be κατηρτισμένοι, perfectly joined together, as a joint well knit (1Co_1:10). The saints being, by reason of remaining corruption, so ready to turn aside both from Christ the Head, and from their brethren fellow members. God gave ministers to be spiritual surgeons to set them right again, and to fix them in nearer union to Christ by faith, and to their brethren in love.
2. In regard of themselves, for the work of the ministry. It is for work that they are appointed. This work, for the kind of it, is διακονία, a ministry or service, the first excluding idleness, the second excluding a lordly dominion.
3. In respect of the Body of Christ; it is to edify, viz., the mystical Body of Christ. (T. Boston, D. D.)

Service the purpose of the Church
The text is clouded by a wrong punctuation. If a single comma be dropped, so as to make the text read, “He gave some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of ministering,” it will clearly express what some expositors believe is its meaning, and be in harmony with what is taught elsewhere in the New Testament as to the duty which is owed by the Church to the world. “The saints” have a ministry if “the Body of Christ” is to be “edified.” The Church is not to be as a lake without any outlet—a mere glass in which the sky is reflected—but a reservoir that yields what it receives for the health of mankind. Every member has something to do. Every Christian is to be a channel of blessing to others, “even as the Son of Man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
I. In the development of this theme let us consider, first, the disparity in circumstance and condition between ourselves and the vast multitude of our fellow men; the contrast between our and their moral experience. If there be anything approaching the truth in our oft-repeated confessions, we have entered, through Christ, upon an ample inheritance of privilege and honour and power. Our sins are forgiven; a new life has been given us; we live in God’s fellowship. “All things are yours,” says the apostle, “whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.” And what deed ever conveyed riches like these? “Why am I, honest and industrious, harassed and tormented, while dishonesty thrives, and has the world, cap in hand, at its feet? Where is the evidence of the love, or the wisdom, you preach? Where even is justice? It is a bad world; and the best thought about life is, that it will soon come to an end.”
II. This brings us, second, to the principle which is expressed in the text, and on which alone these inequalities can be justified. Every variety implies in some sense superiority or inferiority. But who would wish for a mere uniformity, which would be the destruction of all that is interesting, of all that is beautiful, of all emulation, of all excellence? Who cannot see that to receive from one another and to impart to each other what we mutually lack, is a far better thing than to be born to an exact equality of advantages? Variety is essential to the proper development of society; and whilst God alone can explain why the obvious advantage is with one man, or with one class instead of another, still He takes from it all that is invidious by associating with privilege the responsibility of service. Turn, for illustration of this, to the account of the calling of Abraham. He was chosen out of the ranks of his countrymen, and out of the world of his day, for special enlightenment; to hear a Divine voice that was unheard by all others, and to realize a communion more elevated and purer than theirs. And why? Did it denote that he monopolized the Divine favour? that those who were left in the dark had no part in the thoughts and the purposes of Jehovah? On the contrary, he was elected for their sakes; in him, who was thus favoured and quickened, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. And this is always the end which God has in view in the appointment of any to superior possession and privilege. Their endowment is to bring good to the many. Every great movement in social or political life may be traced to some individual, or to some company of men, who have been privileged to originate the high enterprise. The diffusion of truth is not by the equal instruction of all men at the same moment, but by circles and schools who have found out the truth, and through whom it spreads out until it becomes the possession of all. The preference is shown to the few in the interest of the many. And it is the same in respect of the Church. Those in its fellowship are to serve; for it exists not for itself, but for man, for humanity at large; because man is comprehended in the great love of the Father and in the scope of the redemption which Christ came to accomplish. (Chas. De Witt Boardman, D. D.)


The Divine choice of ministers
For if no prince will send a mechanic from his loom or his shears in an honourable embassage to some other foreign prince, shall we think that the Lord will send forth stupid and unprepared instruments about so great a work as the perfecting of the saints and perpetual dishonour of that wicked king Jeroboam, who made no other use of any religion but as a secondary bye thing, to be the supplement of policy, that “he made of the lowest of the people” those who were really such as the apostles were falsely esteemed to be, the “scum and offscouring of men,” to be the priests unto the Lord. (Bishop Reynolds.)

Pastors needed
In the church of San Zeno, at Verona, I saw the statue of that saint in a sitting posture, and the artist has given him knees so short that he has no lap whatever; so that he could not have been a nursing father. I fear there are many others who labour under a similar disability: they cannot bring their minds to enter heartily into the pastoral care. (C. H. Spurgeon.)


Charles Kingsley as a pastor
On one occasion Kingsley was visiting a sick man suffering from fever. “The atmosphere of the ground floor bedroom was horrible, but before the rector said a word he ran upstairs, and, to the great astonishment of the people of the cottage, bored with a large auger he had brought with him several holes above the bed’s head for ventilation. And when diphtheria, then a new disease in England, made its appearance at Eversley, he might have been seen running in and out of the cottages with great bottles of gargle under his arm, and teaching the people to gargle their throats as a preventive.” (Life of Charles Kingsley.)


A good pastor
Father Taylor said of a certain member of his flock who kept continually falling back into drunken ways, “He is an expensive machine; I have to keep mending him all the time; but I will never give him up.” (C. A. Barrel, D. D.)


Careless pastors
St. Francis, reflecting on a story he heard of a mountaineer in the Alps who had risked his life to save a sheep, says, “O God, if such was the earnestness of this shepherd in seeking for a mean animal, which had probably been frozen on the glacier, how is it that I am so indifferent in seeking my sheep?” (W. Baxendale.)

Ephesians 4:7-16

The Church Edified and Edifying Itself.

I. There are various outward appliances all meant for the edifying of the body of Christ. These may be regarded as comprehending generally all the spiritual instrumentalities and gifts brought to bear upon the Church and its members from without and from above. For the Apostle is not here laying down the platform of Church government, or determining formally and authoritatively what offices had been or were to be owned and sanctioned in the Church. He is not thinking of that, but of something else. He merely names the ministries then in exercise. He names them simply to bring out their variety of function in connection with their unity of aim. They are all of them, as then subsisting, among the gifts which when He ascended up on high, leading captivity captive, Christ received from the Father, that He might give them unto men. They are widely different from one another in respect of their inherent nature and their official use; but all their differences tend to one result: the drawing of the whole together, the edifying of the body of Christ.
II. In this process of edification the body of Christ is not passive. It has inward vitality, internal vital impulses and movements. And these also are various, yet tend in one direction and to one issue: the edifying of the body of Christ. Oneness and faith and knowledge as regards the Son of God is the great terminus ad quem, the meeting point for all the members of the body. There is ripeness or maturity of manhood among Christians in proportion as there is oneness of faith and knowledge about the Son of God. To that we are all to come at last; to that we are all coming now. But our coming implies the fulfilling of two conditions. (1) There must be an end of all childishness or infantile imbecility; (2) there must be wrought in us an active energetic principle, bent on doing the true thing and doing it lovingly.
R. S. Candlish, Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 94.
References: Eph_4:8.—Archbishop Benson, Sundays in Wellington College, p. 243; S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p. 5; J. Kennedy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 9.


Ephesians 4:11

Eph_4:8, Eph_4:11
A Glorious Ascension.
To ascend on high must have meant for Christ a large increase of His quickening influence, more power to act beneficially on human minds and hearts, to purify and energise, to inspire and elevate, as hitherto He had not been able. That was His supreme ambition, the height for which He sighed; and was it not even thus that He went up gloriously at last from the cross and the grave, mounting from thence to be a greater saving and subliming force than He had ever been before, to beget repentance and remission of sins beyond what He had ever done?
I. He led captivity captive; in plain language, He captured the prisoners, making happy captives of those who were the victims of a miserable captivity, emancipating them from the bondage in which they were held by bringing them into subjection to something better and worthier. They were captured by the vision of a spiritual redemption—a spiritual redemption, not for Jews only, but for peoples of all nations, for men everywhere. In leaving them alone to mourn and wonder, Christ drew forth from them the ripe fruit of what they had blindly and little by little imbibed from Him. Then at length He rescued them from prison to be the bondsmen of a grander Lord; then at length He raised their ideal.
II. "He gave gifts unto men." The men who had been redeemed from their former sensuous dreams to discern and follow the glory of the spiritual began to blossom all over, became thereby more Divinely endowed. Christ enriched them with a heritage of gifts simply by detaching them from the meaner object on which their eyes were fixed and binding them fast to a higher ideal. Gifts that are not ours do often lie hid and slumbering in us, waiting only for the application of the needed stimulus—healing or cleansing—to display themselves; and blessed is he who with some disturbing, quickening touch helps to elicit them.
III. Christ left behind Him men qualified and ready to labour in different capacities. Here was the issue and fruit of Him, a number of living souls, whom He had been slowly training, on whom at last He had succeeded in impressing Himself, a number of living souls, at last in fellowship with His mind, understanding and sympathising with His aims, touched by His Spirit. Let us not doubt that that is always the Divinest work: to get at a man and be the means of ministering in some way to his healthier growth or finer inspiration, of helping him in some way to juster thought or loftier feeling.
S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Upper Norwood, p. 1.


Ephesians 4:8-16

The Origin of the Christian Clergy.
No doubt from the first the Christian society which we now call a Church existed in Christ’s faithful followers, even from the beginning, and wheresoever, in any time or country, two or three were gathered together by the communion of love or faith, they also would be a Christian Church, and even for years after our Lord’s departure such a society existed without the separate order of clergy.
I. Yet there was a sense in which the Christian ministry was the gift of our Divine Master. Not in His earthly life, not as a part of the original manifestation of Christianity, but as a result of the complex influences which were showered down to the earth after its Founder had left, as part of the vast machinery of Christian civilisation, created by the Spirit of Christ for filling up the void of His absence, came the various gifts of Christianity, and among these was the great vocation, the sacred profession, of the Christian ministry. And various grades of the Christian clergy had sprung up in Christian society in the same way, by the same Divine cause, the same natural necessity as the various grades of government and law and science—a necessity only more urgent and more universal, and therefore more Divine, so far as the religious wants of mankind were of a more general, a more simple, and therefore a more Divine kind than their social and intellectual wants.
II. The two great functions of the Christian ministry are those of pastor and teacher. The object of their existence was, as the Apostle told them, that they might take their part in the complex but glorious work in which all Christians were called to share: the edifying or building up of the whole body of Christ. The Church, as thus put before them, was not to be an unreasoning infant, or a stunted dwarf, or an old crone, tossed to and fro with every blast, but it was to be a solid, well-built, manly, full-grown man. It was not to be a dead, dry system, but a well-compacted living organisation, in which every part should be knit together, every muscle should move in accordance with its natural bent, where there should be the active hand, and the feeling heart, and the ready foot, and the resolute backbone.
A. P. Stanley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 17.
References: Eph_4:9.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 365; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 4th series, p. 221.


Ephesians 4:11-13

The Christian Ministry.
I. The Christian ministry is simply this: a teaching, a helping, of men’s personal feeling and life. The man who seeks to change his ministry from a teaching and helping into a priesthood, an official prerogative, whether as a sacrificer or an absolver, is false to the fundamental idea of Christianity and its ministry. Every necessity of sacrifice is provided in the one sacrifice of Christ, "offered once for all"; every necessity of revelation is provided in the inspired and authoritative Scriptures. All that is now necessary is that men should be taught about Jesus Christ and induced to accept Him as their Redeemer from sin. And this is the sole function of the Christian ministry; we simply preach Christ crucified.
II. Another great idea is unity in diversity, the harmony of diversified functions in the ministry of the Church. Elsewhere St. Paul insists upon the harmony of diversified gifts in the same function. All Apostles, all evangelists, all pastors, all teachers, are not alike. They are as diversified as the members of the body, and with relentless and resistless logic the Apostle presses his argument: the well-being of the body demands diversity in its members, diversity in its gifts. Thus God’s truth, like the phenomena of nature, is seen in many lights and on many sides. The great fundamental facts are unchangeable, but a thousand minds and hearts tell us their impressions of them; the very varieties of apprehension confirm them. It is a magnificent harmony of truth in which a thousand impressions and voices blend. Instead of being dissatisfied, let us rejoice in the diversified gifts and ministry of the Church.
H. Allon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 177.
References: Eph_4:11-13.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 292; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. vi., p. 216. Eph_4:11-16.—W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 316.

Ephesians 4:7-13

(7) But unto everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. (8) Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (9) (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? (10) He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) (11) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; (12) For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: (13) Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:

Every verse here is a sermon, and full of the most blessed heads of discourse. Oh ! that God the Holy Ghost, the Almighty Preacher of it, may again preach the whole life-giving contents to my soul, and engraft them there. If the Reader hath My Poor Man’s Commentary by him on the Psalms, he will find some few observations on the some Scripture, from whence the first of the verses here is taken. Psa_68:18. In addition, let me beg him to remark, how blessedly, Christ’s triumph in our nature is celebrated, and the blessed effects which followed. In the original Scripture, it is said, that he received gifts. Yes! Christ had not then accomplished redemption-work. But here the Apostle celebrates the thing done. Now it is said, he gave them, Jesus had now returned to glory, and, therefore, all his ascension-gifts were sent down, And let not the Reader for a moment overlook, that the whole is spoken of Jesus in our nature. For his ascension implied, his descension. Christ is the same identical Person, who from everlasting, stood up the Covenant-head of his body the Church, when his delights were with the sons of men. Pro_8:22-23 etc. Hence descension, therefore, preceded his ascension, and both proved his identity. But I refer the Reader, on this point, to the Poor Man’s Commentary. Joh_3:13.

One part, connected with this subject, I must not suffer to escape, until that I have first called the Reader’s attention to it. I mean the very blessed, and most interesting record here given of Christ’s ascension in our nature, that he might fill all things. The Holy Ghost had before recorded in the sixty-eighth Psalm, that what Christ received when he led captivity captive, he received in the man, that is, in his human nature, as the man, the God-man Christ Jesus.

Now it is the sweetest and most interesting of all subjects, the contemplation of the Son of God in our nature, Jesus still wears our nature in heaven. When he ascended, he ascended in our nature. And all he received, he received in our nature, on purpose that he might convey his mercies, gifts, and graces, to a nature like his own. Hence, this was one reason, among others, wherefore he took into union with his divine nature the human nature, that the communications might be natural. Add to these, in the Son of God assuming our nature, it qualified him for the office of a Mediator, and High Priest. Not to inform him what we are, for by his Godhead he knew this. But by a fellow feeling, that he might enter into all our concerns, and give him a pity that is natural, and which might sympathize with the nature he relieved. How sweet is it thus to view Jesus, in all his offices, and characters, and relations!

I do not think it necessary to offer any observations on the diversity of appointments in the Church, neither of the various qualifications with which the several departments are distinguished. These are all sufficiently obvious to need nothing explanatory. But I venture to make one remark from the whole, which it were to be wished was more seriously regarded. I mean, that in all the appointments, whether Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, or Teachers, all had their appointment and their qualification from the Lord. What would have been thought, in the days of the Apostles, and in the forming of the Church, if men uncalled by the Lord, and unordained by the Holy Ghost, had rushed into the ministry? Who would have dared to have taken upon him either of those offices, so soon after the descent of God the Holy Ghost, without hearing somewhat like the voice, saying, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them! Act_13:2. Could it ever have entered into the minds of the Apostles of Christ, that the days would come in the Church of Christ, when men, ignorant of the very Being of God the Holy Ghost, would declare themselves moved with the Holy Ghost, to take upon them the sacred office for the sake of filthy lucre?

Readers do not fail to take with you the great and important design, for which the Lord the Spirit hath established a standing ministry in his Church. It is for the perfecting of the saints, for establishing the whole mystical body of Christ, in Christ, their glorious head. Nothing, under the Lord’s teaching, can more contribute to this, than the ministry of the word and ordinances. And when the Lord causeth his people to assemble together, and He comes himself in the midst of them, everything is made blessed and refreshing. I might appeal to every well organized Church Of the Lord Jesus upon earth in confirmation. There is, no leaness of soul, no spiritual want, nothing but life and prosperity where Christ visits his Churches. The body is, indeed, edified, when the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush, dwells in the assembly of his saints. That good will flows from his heart into the hearts, of his people, and the fragrancy and savor of Christ’s name, is as ointment poured forth! Deu_33:16; Son_1:3.

he: Eph_4:8, Eph_2:20, Eph_3:5; Rom_10:14-15; 1Co_12:28; Jud_1:17; Rev_18:20, Rev_21:14

evangelists: Act_21:8; 2Ti_4:5

pastors: 2Ch_15:3; Jer_3:15; Mat_28:20; Act_13:1; Rom_12:7; 1Co_12:29; Heb_5:12; 1Pe_5:1-3