Lesson 49 Part I: Equipping The Saints
- Oct 4, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: May 28
As I said in the last two lessons: I want you to begin to see yourself as part of an missional movement equipping, empowering, collaborating and networking with like minded believers co-laboring to fulfill the Great Commission. The book of Acts covers approximately the first 30 years of Jesus ekklesia using the keys of the kingdom, setting captives free through prayer and proclamation. Then forming communities practicing the four essentials of the faith.
Let me share them with you again because this is the mission Christ has given us to fulfill. Number one is teaching the pure doctrine of the word, which includes discipleship and equipping believers to do the work of the ministry. Number two is the practice of water baptism which is a public demonstration and a sign or witness that you are a member of the body of Christ. Number three is the partaking of the body and blood of Christ on a regular basis among the community of the faithful; which is essentially fellowship and prayer. Number four is having some type of leadership structure, which is about accountability and formation of Christlike qualities.
Leadership has two purposes. Number one it’s necessary for the fulfilling of mission and number two it’s necessary for dealing with conflict resolution. Leadership is about supporting and undergirding the members of the body so that they can fulfill the mission of the ekklesia. Our primary mission is the Great Commission as detailed in Lesson 43 which is making disciples. Making disciples means more than just leading people to a conversion of faith in Christ. It includes teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded and equipping them to function as the body of Christ. To effectively fulfill this task we need to utilize all of the tools that have been provided through the ascension of Christ.
The book of Acts opens up with the resurrected Christ talking to his disciples. Acts 1:8-11 Jesus tells them: "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
It’s Paul who tells us the rest of the story. In Ephesians chapter 4, as he unveils one of the results of Christ's ascension into the heavenly realm as our great high priest.
Paul opens this chapter telling us that there is only one faith, one Lord, one Spirit, one Father and one body. He then talks of Christ's descent as God in human flesh where He took the keys of the kingdom declaring his victory over death and the grave through his resurrection. Paul then tells us that when Christ ascended into the heavenlies, he also dispersed his abilities to his body on earth. Just as Jesus took 5 loaves and multiplied that to feed 5,000 people, when he ascended, he dispersed his abilities into five gifts (Eph. 4:11 APEST), so that his ministry could be multiplied through his body.
In Lesson 46: The Lord’s Supper Jesus laid the foundation for leading his ekklesia on the bedrock of his broken body and poured out blood, showing us leadership is about supporting and serving others. The early church survived and thrived because it wasn’t built on the faulty foundation of man worship. Authority was dispersed rather than concentrated in one man. It was an missional movement born in the soil of the cruciform life of denying self. It was a participatory pattern based on fellowship, mutual honor and living out the cruciform life through the cooperative hearts of servants.
If you study the type of organization Jesus and the apostles established it was to be like a body with power distributed throughout the organization. Every part of the body has a role to play in the success and maturity of the whole. Jesus is the head and through His Spirit He directs every member of His flexible, interdependent body to by faith use their gifts to work together.
Jesus Christ was the only fully gifted human and when he ascended he chose to create an interdependent, multifaceted, corporate body as the only entity that could contain his gifts. No individual was ever meant to show the fullness of Christ to the world. We are meant to do that through redeemed communities.
It’s Paul who lays out the clearest pattern for building the community of the faithful through his apostolic ministry and it’s in the book of Ephesians that he lays out a framework for accomplishing the mission.
We are all equal in Christ being placed on one foundation, yet we are not all equally gifted. In Ephesians 4: 11 Paul lists what we call the ascension gifts of Christ . He says, "Christ gave some to serve as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and some as teachers." He distributed himself as five differing gifts, so His body would be equipped to carry on his work, in the earth building, growing and expanding His ministry.
The Ephesians 4 text has a sense of system functionality just as our natural body.
I am going to be using the acronym APEST to help clarify the functionality of each gift. Apostles are like our feet providing both stability and expansion. Prophets are like our eyes that see, our ears that hear and our mouths that declare the heart of God. Evangelists are like our arms reaching out to the lost. Shepherds are like our legs that give us strength of character, wisdom and faith formed through the word of God to keep us on mission during our journey. Teachers are like our hands that are used both for being tender and protective. Each of these gifts need to be active and present in the life of the body. If they are not then we not only diminish our understanding of the faith, but we introduce significant dysfunction into the body of Christ affecting its proper functioning.
These five gifts could be compared to tools because they are used to build, prepare and make ready the body for functionality.
It’s my opinion that the five gifts of Christ given to various persons in the body of Christ are leadership gifts. I say this because of two reasons. Number one the text says that some not all have been given these gifts and number two the text specifically says these gifts have been given for the purpose of equipping the saints which is the entire body.
In Ephesians 4:11 we see five leadership gifts which Christ has distributed to his body.
Paul taught that each member of his body has differing gifts, giving some the ability to speak and lead, while others are given the ability to serve and manage. All of the Ephesians 4 :11 gifts are speaking and leading gifts, possessing a different aspect of Christ ministry. In the last Lesson 48: Part II Order In The Church, I showed you that being an elder in the local ekklesia is a public leadership position that will interact with people. It’s a requirement for leadership to teach which is speaking publicly. It’s why I believe all elders or leaders will have one or a combination of the Ephesians 4:11 gifts.
It’s these leadership gifts that Christ has given to support, undergird and propel his body so that the mission is fulfilled.
Each gift is given to demonstrate an aspect of the ministry of Christ, through preaching the crucified and risen Christ with their distinct focus. What you see happen in the book of Acts, is a shift, from a focus on the centralization of James and Peter in Jerusalem: to Paul who developed a decentralized missional team of church planters. It’s through Paul's ministry that we began to see a reproducible model of formation develop.
In Acts 13, Barnabas and Paul were 'set apart as a missional team', then 'sent out'. As they went forth praying and proclaiming the gospel using the keys of the kingdom to set captives free: they then made disciples forming communities of believers in the cities they visited. The missional team was building a net of organizational relationships, but before they could move on to do it again: they appointed a leadership team to oversee, guide, encourage, instruct and equip the outpost they had established.
Barnabas and Paul were not elders, but they were team leaders operating in the Ephesians 4:11 leadership gifts of Christ.
I am going to introduce a term that is not in the Bible. It’s the term extra local ministry and it’s a term I want to use to define ministry which is not confined to the local expression of the ekklesia.
Let’s look at this text in Acts 13:2-3. It says a group of prophets and teachers were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. Paul and Barnabas were set apart from the local ekklesia in Antioch to the work of extra-local ministry.
Carlton Kenny in his book, 'His Rule In His Church’ says that anyone operating in the Ephesians 4:11 gifts of Christ that have experience and maturity, qualifies them to operate extra-locally and should be respected in that role.
Paul in Ephesians 4 :11 never gives any character qualification for these fives gifts, but he clearly gives character qualifications for elders which is the leadership team of the local ekklesia. I think it’s easy to assume that any Ephesians 4:11 gift which functions in a public ministry: would be held to the same character qualifications set forth in I Timothy chapter 3. If you are not familiar with those qualifications I would recommend listening to Lesson 48: Part II Order In The Church.
Jesus was an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd and a teacher when he walked this earth. He fulfilled everyone of these ministries and set the pattern for us to follow.
After his departure, he has now distributed his ability to different people so that the church can be equipped to do the same work that He did while on this earth. The Greek word used for equipping found in Ephesians 4:12 is katartismos and it means 'preparation'. So the word means to mend, repair, make whole or perfect. It’s the idea of a doctor setting bones to heal correctly or fishermen mending their nets so that they work correctly. The basic idea is that of putting a thing into the original condition in which it ought to be. The English word equip means to furnish for service or action preparing fully, so those who have been equipped might serve the purpose for which they were created.
The people who possess these gifts are called to help the rest of the body to become competent in their particular gifting.
This does not mean everyone will be an evangelist, but they will be competent to evangelize through being equipped by this ministry gift. According to F.F. Bruce "the gifts enumerated in Ephesians 4:11 do not monopolize the church's ministry, their function rather is to help and direct the Church that all the members may perform their several ministries for the good of the whole.
What is the result of these gifts operating in the ekklesia. The first result will be each individual member of the body of Christ finding their place of ministry. Ephesians 4:13 says another result will be the body walking in unity because we are established on the foundation of Christ and we will see Jesus for who He is. Vs 14 says, another result will be stability and not being tossed around by deceptive doctrines. Vs 15 says, we will mature in our faith and grow up in Christ. Vs 16 then says the final result will be the different parts of the body working together, which will bring growth and expansion.
In the next lesson Part II Equipping The Saints we examine each on of these gifts in a detailed way so that we can understand their function and purpose. If you enjoyed this lesson, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel, Foundation Publications, so I can reach more people and you will be notified when I post more videos. Please share this information with your friends on any social media platforms that you may use.
Next Lesson: Lesson 50 - Body Ministry
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