Growing Together (Ephesians 4:7-16)

It is important when thinking about biblical truth to remember that it usually involves other people in addition to ourselves. Paul here is explaining the unity of the church, a unity that will not be realised fully until Jesus returns. So it is not something that will occur in our lifetime unless we happen to be part of the final generation. He wants his readers to bear that future reality in mind. Yet we have to ask what we should do as the church before its final state appears. Because, after all, we live in a world of spiritual problems. So here are five details to consider and bear in mind.

1. The divine provision of grace

Paul continues his explanation of the unity of the church and what the bases are for it. He reminds his readers that every Christian can and should contribute to this unity because each has received grace through Christ’s gift. The apostle knows that there are different types of believers, but we should remember that each has received grace from Christ, whoever they are. Grace has different meanings depending on what a writer means by it. The meaning of grace here seems to be connected to the gifts that Paul mentions.

2. The prophecy fulfilled about Jesus

In order to appreciate any situation as believers, we should remind ourselves where Jesus is and what he is doing. Paul does this here when he applies some verses of Psalm 68 to the ascension of Jesus. Initially, the verses describe the campaign of Israel from Sinai to Zion, and the psalm may have been written to celebrate the arrival of the ark of the covenant at Mount Zion. A greater fulfilment of the psalm occurred in the journey of Jesus to heaven. The ascension was the reward of a battle that Jesus fought (he defeated the powers of darkness and made them his captives) and now he shows his complete victory by giving gifts to his people.

Paul then says that the aim of Jesus since his ascension is to ‘fill all things’. This description in the context indicates at least two things. First, the completed filling has not happened yet and, second, the completed filling will have something to do with the final unity of God’s people. So Jesus is engaged in a process that will bring about a definite result. After all. If everything is filled with the same thing, there must be unity; and if everything is filled with good things, then it will be a wonderful unity.

This leads to an obvious question – how will Jesus do this? The answer may surprise us because it involves people connected to his church.

3. The people with roles

What are the gifts that he has given? Paul says that they are people and he identifies them for his readers. There are four gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers. We might think that there are five, but you will observe that the definite article is only used four times and does not appear before ‘teachers’. So shepherds and teachers describe one role.

When we think of the roles mentioned here, we have to understand them in their original meaning and not how they are used today. An apostle is easy to identify – he was a person chosen by Jesus to serve at the commencement of the church and who could speak authoritatively on his behalf.

Prophets were individuals who spoke under divine inspiration, although their words had to be assessed (as in the case of Agabus who informed Paul that he would be arrested, and therefore should not go to Jerusalem. Paul believed he would be arrested, but he did not agree that he should not go to Jerusalem).

Evangelists today are preachers who take the gospel to the unconverted, but it is not clear that is what is meant by the term in the New Testament. Two people are described by this word – Philip (Acts 21:8) and Timothy (2 Tim. 4:5). Those references don’t say much about the particular activity, except that we can deduce from them that both individuals were companions of the apostles. Normally, Philip is described as Philip the deacon because of his role in Acts 6, but he is not called that in the Bible. It is possible to say that he fulfilled a role similar to that of Stephen except that he went to different places helping people to understand the gospel.

Given that they were placed in an order of prominence or importance in this list, we can conclude that an evangelist came between a prophet and a pastor. It is interesting that we see an apostle, a prophet and an evangelist together in Acts 21:7ff. The prophet interpreted his prophecy, the apostle said that the prophet misunderstood his prophecy, and the evangelist did not say anything unless he was one of the group who urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem..

The Westminster Confession states that the roles of apostles, prophets and evangelists have ceased. John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress regarded Evangelist as a pastor. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on 2 Timothy 4:5 regards evangelists as deputies of the apostles: ‘They were not settled pastors, but for some time resided in, and presided over, the churches that the apostles had planted, till they were settled under a standing ministry.’ It is generally assumed that the reason we do not need those gifts today is because we have the complete Bible.

The fourth role, that of shepherds and teachers, is a reference to those we call pastors and ministers, and divides their role into caring and instruction, with a lot of the caring being provided through their instruction they give about the Bible. One commentator observes that ‘Ambition, or mere restless mental activity, has often led men to assume the teacher’s place, but to be a pastor one must have a pastor’s heart’ (Arthur Pridham). We can see that they are a provision of Jesus, part of the gift that he has given. He has given them so that unity will be the outcome.

4. The roles pastors and people have

What activities does a pastor engage in? Paul mentions three, and they are interconnected. First, they equip the saints for the work of ministry – they do this by explaining what the Bible says they should be doing. We should note that ‘the work of ministry’ refers to what non-pastors do and not what the pastors do. This refers to various aspects of Christian living.

Second, in doing this, they cause the body of Christ, the church, to develop or grow. Obviously this is a description of progressive sanctification, that believers increase in their service of God. One of the implications of Paul’s words is that the service of believers must be based on the Bible.

Third, they bear in mind that one day perfection will come. When that day comes, believers will no longer be like children affected by false teaching and false teachers in a stormy spiritual environment, caused to a great extent by the devil’s deceits, which can baffle and disturb them. Instead they will have perfect unity, described as mature manhood, experiencing perfectly the power and peace and other blessings that come from Jesus. In his prayer in John 17, Jesus state that the meaning of eternal was to know the Father and the Son. Here, Paul says that unity will occur when all God’s people have such knowledge of the Son of God. Keeping the picture of a body, the ultimate man is Jesus and his perfected people – he is the head and they are the body.

An amazing feature of this activity is that it is occurring in thousands of places throughout the world today. We have no idea how many shepherds there are and we have no idea about the overall number of sheep. Yet the process is taking place despite all the problems. One day, the unity will arrive.

5. The responsibility in the present

So far we have see that Christ provides grace, that he provides teachers, that his people make progress, and that one day his church will be perfect. No doubt, there are many contemporary implications and requirements for believers. Paul mentions that the appropriate response in every situation must be to speak the truth in love. It is impossible for growth to occur if this twofold activity does not continually happen.

The apostle asks his readers to imagine what the church of Christ would look like if every believer did this. He uses the example of a healthy body growing and functioning as it should. One day the complete church in glory will be like that. Yet we know it is not like that today. It only takes a little flaw to prevent a body doing what it normally does, and the church of Jesus has many flaws, with a lot of them caused within the church. Having said that, it is always far better than any other kind of body.

We help the church grow by speaking the truth in love. After all, there are many suitable matters to speak about, and we should speak about them in a manner of which the head approves. There are God’s many promises, there are many exhortations if encouragement that we can give. And we can do so knowing that he who began a good work will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ.