Christ’s Five-Fold Gifts Equip All of Us for Ministry
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up Ephesians 4:11,12 (NIV)
‘So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up’ (4:11,12). The NIV reduces the three outcomes of Christ’s five-fold ministry gifts to two: ‘to equip his people for works of service’ and ‘so that the body of Christ may be built up.’ Paul’s wording is ‘to (Greek: pro) equip the saints for (Greek: eis) the work of ministry, for (Greek: eis) building up the body of Christ. The NIV at least avoids the problem of the Authorised Version which makes Christ’s five-fold ministry solely responsible for ‘the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ’ (4:12). Understood like this, the five-fold ministry does all the work while those Christians who are not included in this group of five watch on from the sidelines. The NIV correctly notes that the five-fold ministry ‘equip his people’ so they can do ‘works of service.’
The word used here for ‘equip’ is not found elsewhere in the New Testament but the corresponding verb is used of repairing something (Matthew 4:21), of God bringing the universe in the beginning into its intended shape and order (Hebrews 11:3) and of restoring to spiritual health a person who has fallen (Galatians 6:1). In context in 4:12, the equipping of God’s people is not an end in itself; fitting them for the work of the ministry is. Every Christian has a ministry role, a task and function within the body of Christ.
What is done for God’s people and by God’s people, is ‘so that the body of Christ may be built up’ (4:12). The church is increased and built up, and its members edified, as each member uses his or her particular gifts as Christ, the lord of the Church, ordains. In 2:21 Paul used the same word translated here ‘built up’ in the context of us as God’s temple being ‘joined together.’ This is not a confusion of metaphors. Paul will go on to speak of the growth and unity of the church and finds the metaphor of the body the best picture.
It is the exalted Christ who bestows gifts on His church. Those gifts are people uniquely ‘graced’ to fulfil essential roles within the church. The purpose of these five-fold ministry gifts is to equip God’s people so they can engage in ministry and so build up Christ’s body.
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. And their calling is to nurture and prepare all the holy believers to do their own works of ministry, and as they do this they will enlarge and build up the body of Christ Ephesians 4:11 (The Passion Translation)