Item added to cart.

Building up believers and the New Testament church

God's Call to Ministry

Functioning Together

At Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. This is what we need to see--that the Lord gave gifts to men. Here we see the two gifts that the Lord has given to His church in order that she might be built up and move together. The functioning of more than one gift together must be under the authority of the head, Christ, and moving under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

The religious world has gone to the "one pastor system" because men are not in touch with God and thus cannot function together. God has never changed His plan, which is plurality of ministry as it was at Antioch. The church needs the ministry of both the prophet and the teacher for proper feeding, and that it might stay in the purpose of God. In almost every religious group, the ministry of the prophet has been done away with and the teacher has been placed in the Sunday school program.

This has been done because Christ no longer is head, and because the Holy Spirit has not been given His proper place in the church. Instead, men have been chosen by the members of a congregation to be pastors. In all these individual cases, men have taken control and then asked God to bless their plans and methods. But they have tried to use the right terms, and say that they have been led by the Spirit. In reality, this is not true, because if men were moving in God's purpose under the direction of the Spirit, we would see God's purpose revealed in the testimony He wants, and the church would be the light and salt she has been called to be. We don't see this taking place with the course the religious system is taking. The church will never be light and salt until man gives control back to the Head and until the power of the Holy Spirit is in the life of each member. It would take severe persecution to purge the religious system, to throw people back on God for their lives, and to bring the ordering of the church back under Christ who is her head.