“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-12 ESV).
The primary function of these various offices is to equip the people of God to do the work in ministry in order to (purpose clause) build up the body of Christ or so that (result clause) the body of Christ may be built up (cf. NIV; I prefer the result clause). In both cases, the focus of the text is to build up the body of Christ through equipping the people of God in ministry. And God gives different gifts to different individuals to do the task of equipping others.
There is only one definite article before “pastors and teachers.” So, the functions of pastors and teachers are closely associated. In this context, it seems that pastors and teachers are placed in the same category in terms of equipping the people of God in ministry. God gives different gifts to the church to edify the church “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” (Eph. 4:13, ESV). One of these gifts that is given to the church is “teaching pastors.” As Paul said to a young pastor, Timothy, to devote himself “to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” until he came (1 Tim. 4:13).[1]
The primary function of teaching pastors is to equip the body of Christ so that she may be built up. The ultimate goal of pastoral function is to glorify the Giver who bestows such a gift upon pastors. In other words, the fundamental reasons why pastors exist in the first place are two: 1) They exist for the service of others horizontally; 2) They are called to glorify the Caller vertically. They are here not for themselves. They are in the church not to be supported, but to support others; not to be served, but to serve others; not to be fed, but to feed others; and not to be ministered to, but to minister to others.
In The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), Christopher J. H. Wright writes:
Believe it or not, God did not invent the church to support the clergy. Rather, God gave pastors and teachers to the church in order to equip the saints. People don’t go to church on Sundays to support their pastors in their ministry. The pastor goes to church on Sunday to support the people in their ministry. And their ministry, the ministry that really counts as mission, is outside the walls of the church, in the world, being salt and light in the marketplace. (p. 272)
Pastoral ministry ought to be understood in light of their ministry. The phrase “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” can only be fulfilled in their ministry. [1] “The purpose of all spiritual gifts is the edifying of the whole body, and never the selfish enjoyment a person may have in exercising gift: Whoever leads the worship of God’s people, therefore, must not function according to his personal preferences but by what he knows will benefit all the members of the body.” Derek Prime and Alistair Begg, On Being a Pastor: Understanding Our Calling and Work (Chicago: Moody, 2004), p. 226.
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