5-fold Ministry in Ecclesia - Conclusion

Conclusion

It is fitting as we draw this analysis to a close, to return to the section on talent versus gift.  I believe every human ever born has talents that contribute much to our own life personally, to the lives of our families and to the wider community both nationally and internationally.  I also believe that every human ever born bears the imprint of God, however obvious or hidden it may be.  I also believe that every human ever born carries eternity in their heart – because God set it there.  Let’s consider this for a moment.

That beautiful poem A Time For Everything Under the Sun comes from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3.  At the end of the poem, the writer says, “What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?  I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.  He has made everything appropriate in its time.  He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.”

Eternity is set in the heart of man by God; but it is obscured to some extent so we don’t discover more than we should.  Apostle Paul described it as seeing in a mirror dimly and as knowing in part (1 Corinthians 13:12).  In that same passage, Paul adds the eternal dimension: then we shall see face to face; then we shall know fully just as we have been fully known.  The natural world has imposed limits, some of which protect us from seeing and knowing too much.  When we have access to the eternal dimension, we see and know ‘fully’.

Apostle Paul describes this seeing and knowing as “in the Spirit”.  I believe the Spirit of God not only transforms our lives, he gives us access to the eternal dimension, but it can only happen because, as of being born again by the Spirit, we receive the Spirit of God and the things of the Spirit of God are activated in our lives – fruit of the Spirit, gifts of the Spirit, knowing and seeing in the Spirit and so on.  We now have both a natural existence and a Spiritual existence – that is, the kingdom of God activated in our lives.  The kingdom of God is not simply a dimension of existence following physical death; Jesus made it clear that it actually begins in this life.  Think about this finger-joint illustration.

Since the coming of Jesus, we live in the zone where time is merging into eternity; where the kingdom of God is coming yet it is here in part; where we can have the mind of Christ; where God chooses to allow us to see and know in His realm – “in the Spirit”; where natural talent and Spiritual gift operate together.

Five-fold ministry in ecclesia is not a matter of changing style from a one-man-band type of operation to some form of multiple eldership; it is the heart and soul of ecclesia since it is a full-on expression of the heart and will of God that eternity – “in the Spirit”; the kingdom of God on earth – begins in this life and is completed and perfected at the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus.  Reigning with Christ for ever, judging angels and judging men (all part of our destiny according to scripture), I believe, require that we learn how ecclesia is intended by God to function in order that the kingdom of God be visible and touchable and approachable.  Since the scriptures reveal that five-fold ministry in ecclesia is how we arrive at the maturity and unity necessary for that, anything less defrauds our Father and delays the return of Jesus.

What this five-fold ministry in ecclesia does for us, I believe, is give us an open door to being and doing all that the Father’s heart desires – for Himself and His entire family and household:

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.” (John 4:23)

“And speaking the truth in love we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is Christ.  From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

NEW SERIES COMING SOON.