Q & A The Teaching Ministry of the Church

Q & A The teaching ministry of the church
Ephesians 4:1-16

Ignorance is never a good thing. Not knowing leads to error in thought. Error in thought leads to error in action. Error in action leads to results that are off target.

Illustration: Beth and Alex’s response to the question “what is the Gospel and how has it affected your life?” The response: “I don’t know what the Gospel is.”

This begs the question: Can one be saved without knowing what the Gospel is? How did the idea of “being saved” become separated from the Gospel?

Without recapping the history of Christianity in North America, the preaching of the cross was replaced with the preaching of salvation for heaven as an escape from hell with Jesus being the means to that end. In other words heaven is preached as the deity and hell is preached as the enemy and Jesus is the tool by which presence to the deity is gained.

That is harsh and, perhaps a bit oversimplified, but the point becomes clear. Even with the best of intentions and the purest motives, a slight departure from the narrow path of truth, no matter how slight, ends up miles off course just a generation into the diversion.

Teaching should obliterate ignorance and replace it with knowledge of the truth, thus leading to right thinking, thus leading to right acting and rightly ending on target, life. “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few (Matthew 7:13-14).”

Ephesians 4:1-16
Paul here outlines to the Ephesians the goal of Unity in the church. However, inside of that Unity, God has graciously freed us from our bondage to the enemy and taken us to himself through the work of the cross and given a diversity of gifts to his people for the purpose of growing up into the image of Christ as the restoration of the image of God in us that was marred at the fall.

4:1-6 Paul exhorts the church to Unity
4:7-11 God has graciously given the unified church various gifts
4:12-16 God has given these gifts that the church may grow up into Christ (the image of God restored from the Fall)

1. Gifts are given to build unity in the mission so that the church grows into Christ who is the ground of what it means to be in unity (to grow into Christ is to come into the Kingdom that is here and is continuing to come until the fullness of the Kingdom comes at the completion of the Great Commission). v. 1-11

2. Pastor / Teacher functions to Equip Gifted Saints to do the ministry v. 11, 12a
A. Pastor – shepherd
Teacher – instructor
1. These two are predicate nominatives and both modified by the
“and”
2. This means that the functions of Pastor / Teacher are one and the
same by the same person
- In other words the pastor should be a teacher
- This function of teaching is the substantive difference
between the deacon and the elder
B. A pastor must be a teacher
C. The teaching ministry of the church must equip the church
1. Equip – in Greek there is the purpose clause and an article (for
the...)
- The ESV combines these two into the word “to” to denote
purpose
D. Equipping is for doing the work of ministry
1. There is no room in the church for people doing nothing
2. There is no such thing as learning that leads to doing nothing

3. The church doing the ministry results in the building of the church v. 12b-16
A. Building up the body of Christ v. 12b
1. Preaching the Gospel
2. Encouraging each other
3. Exhorting/motivating each other
4. Church Discipline for unrepentant sin
5. Discipleship in Community
6. Global Engagement
7. Community Development
8. Corporate Worship
B. Unity in Imitating Jesus v. 13
1. Unity
2. Knowledge of Jesus the Son of God
3. Growing into maturity whose standard is Jesus

C. Being Doctrinally Stable (v. 14
1. No longer doctrinal children
2. No longer unclear on truth and waffling about it
3. Not deceived by the cunning of men who “teach”
a. Hagee, Osteen,

D. Joining truth and love v. 15
1. We are to combine truth and love inside the community

E. Collaborating within and without v. 16
1. Collaboration is the functioning of every member
2. Collaboration begins within community
3. Community reveals giftedness
4. Giftedness leads to more ministry
5. Ministry leads to spiritual maturation and the preaching of the
Gospel
6. Maturing Christians preaching the Gospel leads to the advance of
the Great Commission