Saturday, October 17, 2015

Equipping and building the church toward unity and maturity

Ephesians 4:11-13 ESV 
And [Christ] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

APEST servant-leaders

  • apostles (church-planters, missionaries, initiative-starters)
  • prophets (God-speakers, Spirit-revealers)
  • evangelists (Gospel-sharers, freedom-proclaimers)
  • shepherds (herd-tenders, soul-carers)
  • teachers (truth-explainers, trainers)
This sentence is a bit of a run-on, which makes it tough to diagram, but I think that the two functions are equipping and building with goals of unity and maturity.

Christ gave APEST servant-leaders to the church for the functions of (1) equipping (καταρτισμὸν, perfecting) the saints for the work (ἔργον) of service (διακονίας) and (2) building-up (οἰκοδομὴν, constructing a dwelling-place [for God]) the Body of Christ (the Church).

Our goals are (1) unity (ἑνότητα, harmony, oneness, and cohesiveness even with our inherent diversity [not uniformity]) in the faith and knowledge of Christ and (2) maturity (τέλειον, full-grown, complete, end-goal), that is, measuring-up to the complete stature of Christ and also filled completely with Christ.

Heavenly Father, this is pretty heady.  As we ordain new elders for our church tomorrow, please inspire us and bring us to an understanding of this truth, and may we continue to fully commit ourselves to this eternally-valuable work.  Holy Spirit, please show us our giftings, and grow us in growing others.  Lord Jesus, we love you, and this is all for you.  I pray in the name of Jesus.

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