As 2024 comes to an end, and we reflect on our growth process throughout the year, we must recognize how connected our growth in Christ is to His gifts to the Church. The gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers were given to the Church for the growth of the Church, and our growth process never ends. Even as the year comes to an end, we cannot ignore or stop our growth, we cannot become so occupied and distracted that we no longer take care in the things of God.

            As we were taught this week, as we each become a part of the Body of Christ, there is a mandate upon our lives to grow in the things of Christ. There is a necessity to grow in the things of God. These five gifts to the Church also called the Five Fold Ministry of the Church are sadly neglected and omitted from so many houses of the Lord. This is why there are so many misguided and ill-informed members of the Body. There is no one to teach and instruct in the truth and mystery of Jesus Christ. There is no one to teach them and they become prey to all manner of false doctrines even within the Body of Christ.

            This is a grave problem in the Body of Christ. The absence of these gifts to the Church, does not mean that these gifts are not present within each house of God. It is simply that they are not understood and accepted if the pastor struggles with the functioning of these offices, thereby denying the Body the full gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ.

            Very often only the office of the pastor is utilized and amplified. Research shows that there are more pastors than all the other offices, so much so that it is easier to appoint or ordain an assistant pastor when in fact that person may very well be an apostle or an evangelist. So we have pastors, assistant pastors, and associate pastors, but no prophet, no teacher (who is often classified as a pastor), no evangelist, and no apostle. This is one of the main reasons that the church functions in error and the Body are not learned. The members of the Body do not understand who or whose they are and why and what is their purpose.

            Jesus gave these five gifts to the Church because the pastor is not supposed to be burdened with all the functions of the five offices. When each of these gifts is in place, they each share the assignment of edifying and building up the Body. This is division of labor in its purest form as Christ visualized it. We fall short in the Body when we are denied the functioning of these offices.

WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF THESE GIFTS?

1. 1. The Apostle: Establishes new churches, lays the foundation, and provides leadership with authority.
   2. The Prophet: Shares revelatory insights from God, interprets God’s will, and provides guidance to the church.
   3. The Evangelist: Reaches the lost, shares the Gospel message with those who haven’t heard it, and initiates new believers into the faith of Jesus Christ.
   4. The Pastor: Cares for the spiritual needs of the congregation, providing nurture and protection, and leading the church community.
   5. The Teacher: Explains and interprets scripture, equipping believers with biblical knowledge, and developing spiritual maturity.

In as much as these gifts are laid out singularly, it does not mean that each gift is distributed singularly. When we look at the life of Paul, he was more than just an apostle who established churches everywhere he went. Acts 13:1 tells us that at the church of Antioch, there were certain “prophets and teachers, as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul (who was later renamed Paul). So Paul was one of those prophets and teachers in that early church. In that chapter, we can observe the apostle Paul as an evangelist (vs 7), a prophet (vs7-12), a teacher (vs 15-41), and many other places in the New Testament, as well as Peter. If someone discovers that they have more than one of these gifts, they must therefore pray to the one who gives the gifts, Jesus Christ, for clarity and understanding of how and when to function in each so that there is no confusion in their delivery, for God is not the author of confusion. Neither should you be afraid and neglect a gift in preference for another.

            These gifts being present and operative in the body of Christ not only develops and grows the Body, but as part of that growth, identifies and nurtures those gifts in the Body for the longevity of the Body. It is and must be an ongoing process so that the Church will continue to grow in the things of God and the mysteries of Jesus Christ. For as one generation of gifts steps away, another generation of gifts must be already trained and built up in their office for an easy transition.

            The gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher are given to the Church by Jesus Christ the Head of the Church and it is our responsibility to ensure that we receive them, grow in them, and use them to build the church and grow until we all come into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

BLESSINGS!