The Saint's Individual Responsibility

PUNCTUATION in neither the present Greek nor the English texts is inspired. The earliest manuscripts of the New Testament which we possess have no punctuation. The punctuation of Eph 4:12, A.V., works havoc with God’s plan of operation in the Church, namely, that each saint is expected to be engaged in some form of Christian service as God may lead, for it puts the entire responsibility of proclaiming the Word upon the shoulders of the gifted men who are God’s gift to the Church, and requires nothing of the saints to whom they minister.

The men to whom God has given special gifts for ministering in the Word as given in verse eleven are, apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teaching pastors. The construction in the Greek does not allow us to speak of pastors and teachers as two individuals here. The two designations refer to a pastor who has also the gift of teaching. The two gifts go together in the divine economy, and it therefore follows that a God-called pastor is to exercise a didactic ministry. That is, his chief business will be to teach the Word of God. His is a ministry of explaining in simple terms what the Word of God means. The word "pastor" is from a Greek word which means "a shepherd." The illustration is evident. The pastor is to bear the same relationship to the people to whom he ministers, that a shepherd does to his flock of sheep.

Turning to verse twelve, we find that the word "perfecting" is not from the Greek word which refers to spiritual maturity, but from one that has the idea of equipping someone or something so that it might serve the purpose or do the work for which it was brought into being. The English word "ministry" has changed its meaning. Today when we speak of the ministry, we usually have in mind the regularly ordained clergymen of the church. The word has no such meaning here. The Greek word from which it is translated comes by transliteration into our language in the word "deacon," and translated, it means "one who serves." The full translation is as follows: "And he himself gave the apostles, and the prophets, and the evangelists, and the teaching pastors, for the equipping of the saints for ministering work, resulting in the building up of the Body of Christ."

From this translation we see that the pastor of a church, for instance, is a specialist. His work is to teach the Word to the saints, and to train them in the art of winning souls and of teaching and preaching the Word. Each church should be a miniature Bible Institute, a training station from which saints go out to spread the gospel. The pastor thus multiplies himself. He has a ministry to the unsaved, that of preaching the gospel to them, and of winning them to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus. But his chief work is to equip the saints to do that work. Since the pastor must specialize in the work of training the saints, it follows that he cannot spend his time and energy upon a thousand and one things in the work of the church which should be done by its members. It is a wise pastor that puts people to work and holds Himself to a life of prayer and the ministry of the Word.

Each of us is to engage in some form of Christian service as the Lord leads. It may be a ministry of prayer, or of tract distribution, or of personal work or of teaching the Word, or of song. Thus each saint has his own responsibility in the service of our Lord.