The Responsibility of five-fold ministry ...

The responsibility of the five-fold ministry will never end until all Christians come in to the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son and become mature, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ!  

The lack of maturity in the body of Christ is one of the biggest issues the Church should be facing today.

 In a world where technology, fast food, and entertainment are easy to acquire, studying the Word of God and developing wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and a biblical worldview along with Christian character is typically not the highest thing on most people’s priority list.

 Evangelists focus on salvation. Pastors and teachers impart principles and truth. Prophets speak to a present situation and the future. Apostles are called to build, impart vision, discern God’s will, and train up future apostles.

 None of the five-fold ministries can make an individual Christian become mature. They can teach and train all of the principles, but that doesn’t mean the individual will achieve maturity.

 The five-fold can speak about faith, but not make a person have faith and come into the unity of the faith. The individual Christian is responsible to be filled with faith.

Like the old saying goes, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”!

 Teachers can impart knowledge, but they cannot make a person knowledgeable or wise or understanding.

 First comes maturity - then unity. Without both, the Church will never measure up to the full and complete standard of Christ. The responsibility is on the individual.  

The five-fold ministry work will never be done until each individual Christian fulfills their part of God’s plan.

 “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.”  (Ephesians 4:11 – 13)

The five-fold ministers work is to impart all that Christ has given them, but the individual Christian’s work is to receive and implement the training to be equipped to serve the purposes of Christ on earth.

 My prayer is that every Christian would sincerely seek to become the mature faith-filled child of God that He has ordained for them to be so when they stand before God he will say to them, “Well done good and faithful servant!” 

Building together with him and you,

John P. Kelly