Eph 4:11-13 NKJV And He Himself gave some to be…
In previous articles, we’ve talked about the offices of the Church but what about the Ministries we see in Ephesians? Does one list supersede the other? The short answer is of course not, God is a God of order not chaos. With that said, let’s take a look.
Eph 4:11-13 NKJV And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, (12) for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, (13) till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
All of these roles were mirrored in the Synagogue and I’ll briefly touch on them.
Deacons. The synagogue had the Nasi and the Parnasin. These were the president of the synagogue and the caretakers. Their duties lay in the realm of administration. Collecting alms, visiting the sick, taking communion to those who were unable, ect.
We must recognize that Elders and Bishop have essentially the same responsiblities but at different scopes. The Elders typically served a single congregation (or group of people) while a Bishop served multiple congregations and most of the time this was through Elders that they served.
The Shaliach were the “sent ones” are are reflected by the role of the apostles who were literally sent out and would fall into the offices of Elder or Bishop.
There was the maggid that we would recognize as an evangelist who fall into the offices of Elders or Bishop.
Finally, we have the Rabbi and senior Rabbi that we would recognize as Pastor and Teacher and we fall into the offices of Elders and Bishops.
As we can see, there is no disconnect in the order and structuring of the Church. God has a plan and that plan calls for order and structure where leaders serve the followers and the followers serve the world.
-Billy Miller
Ahavah Messianic Congregation of Little Rock