The Five-Fold Gifting From Christ
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers Ephesians 4:11 (NIV)
The gifts Christ gives to the church are people. ‘So Christ himself gave the apostles …’ (4:11). The term apostolos is used three different ways in the New Testament. First, it could mean simply a messenger, a sent one, from a local church (Philippians 2:25). Secondly, it was used of the twelve, who were given a special and distinctive position (1 Corinthians 15:5; Revelation 21:14). Thirdly, we read of other apostles, not only of Paul and Barnabus (Acts 14:14), but James (Galatians 1:19), Silas (1 Thessalonians 2:6) and Junias and Andronicus (Romans 16:7). From 1 Corinthians 9:1,2 it seems a necessary qualification of an apostle was to have seen the risen Christ and to have been sent out by Him. The proof of an apostle in 2 Corinthians 12:12 are ‘signs, wonders and miracles.’ We know from Acts 1:21,22 that the apostles gave definitive witness to the facts of the ministry of Jesus and of His resurrection.
Closely associated with apostles in the work of building the church from its foundations, and therefore basic as gifts to the church, were the prophets. In the Old Testament a prophet ‘stood in the council of the Lord,’ heard and even ‘saw’ His word, and who in consequence ‘spoke from the mouth of the Lord’ and spoke His word faithfully (Jeremiah 23:16-32). Paul puts prophets next after apostles (as in 1 Corinthians 12:28) and he brackets apostles and prophets as the church’s foundation and the recipients of God’s revelation (2:20; 3:6).
After apostles and prophets, Paul mentions ‘evangelists.’ The noun only occurs three times in the New Testament – here, in Acts 21:8 of Philip and in 2 Timothy 4:5 of Timothy – although the verb ‘to evangelise’ describing the spreading of the gospel occurs frequently. Because all Christians are under obligation to share the gospel when they have the opportunity, the gift of an ‘evangelist’ must be someone who is particularly effective in their witness. Possibly evangelists are not included with the ministries God has set ‘in the church’ in 1 Corinthians 12:28 because they exercise their ministry outside the church. The church is the community of those who have heard the preaching of the gospel and responded to it by faith and so don’t need to be evangelised further. The gospel is preached to unbelievers to bring them to faith and so be incorporated into the believing community.
Next are the ‘pastors and teachers’ (linked by the same article in Greek) meaning either one person with two ministry functions or describing two people, the first a pastor and second, a teacher. It is possible that ‘pastors and teachers’ describes ministries within the local church while apostles, prophets and evangelists belong to the universal church. Apostles and evangelists had a special task in planting the church in every place and prophets for bringing a particular word from God to a situation. Pastors and teachers were gifted to be responsible for the day to day building up of the church. The pastor (literally: shepherd) fed the flock and protected it from danger. Jesus is the chief shepherd (Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25; 5:4) under whom others are called to ‘tend the flock ‘(1 Peter 5:2; cf. John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28). Although every pastor must be a teacher, gifted in the ministry of God’s Word to people, not every teacher is also gifted as a pastor.
Jesus Christ was in Himself the ultimate apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. He has divided His own ministry into five and given out these five ministry gifts to His body. In honouring these gift-ministries, we continue to honour Christ
And he appointed some with grace to be apostles, and some with grace to be prophets, and some with grace to be evangelists, and some with grace to be pastors, and some with grace to be teachers
Ephesians 4:11 (The Passion Translation)