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To TopAccording to the Pattern
A Manual for Church Planting by
Edwin Stube
CONTENTS
11. New Testament Order We know that the Lord wants to build His Church according to His plan. The Lord's plan is very different from man's way. Men usually begin with bricks, wood, cement, and other building materials. But the Lord is not pleased to dwell in temples built with men's hands. As a matter of fact, church buildings are not properly called God's house. Church buildings are sheep folds where the sheep come to be fed. They are also acts of worship and offerings of beauty to the Lord. But when we leave after services, He does not want to be left behind in the church building, He wants to go with us.
Our bodies are supposed to be God's temple. He wants us to build His Church out of living stones, which means us. In Ephesians 2:20-21, Paul explains that God's house is built “on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God by the Spirit.”
Jesus is the cornerstone of this structure. Everything has to be measured and adjusted to Him. The other foundation stones are apostles and prophets. These stones have to be of the same quality and measurement with Jesus. Apostles and prophets have to be like Jesus, with wisdom like Jesus, love like Jesus, and power like Jesus. They can be bold to say with Paul, “Follow my example as I follow the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
Since apostles and prophets are the foundation stones of the church, it is obvious that we must have apostles and prophets. 1 Corinthians 12:28 says, “God has set in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers.”
1. Apostles. An apostle is one who is sent out. Jesus was sent by God. He said, “I do not come to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. I do not speak with My own words, but the words of Him who sent Me” (John 12:49).
An apostle is sent by God to begin a new work. The apostle Paul went from place to place, led by the Spirit, evangelizing and establishing congregations in places where there were formerly no Christians. An apostle must be able to manifest all the gifts of the Spirit — prophesy, heal the sick, cast out demons, proclaim the Gospel — because in a new place there are no others to do these things. The apostle does the works of Jesus and reveals Jesus' power. The apostle does not speak with his own words, but with the words that are given by the Holy Spirit. This means he must minister with prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits, and the like. He preaches the Gospel and demonstrates its power.
The word of the Lord is powerful. If the apostle speaks the word of God, that word will perform miracles. The sick will be healed; the demon-possessed will be delivered; people will be converted and born again.
The responsibility of the apostle is to bring people to repentance, then as quickly as possible to baptism in water and baptism in the Holy Spirit. Then these new converts are gathered into fellowships where they begin to learn to walk in the Spirit and minister to one another in the Spirit. We don't need to think immediately of church buildings. We never hear that St. Paul built a building. He just gathered people to have fellowship in homes, to exhort one another, and minister to one another.
Perhaps at first he stood up and taught them, but, as soon as possible, he got them all to take part in ministering to each other according to the principles given in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33. The apostle's aim must always be to work himself out of a job by building Christian communities which can stand on their own.
When we build fellowships on this basis, we see people grow rapidly toward spiritual maturity. Soon these people begin to go out and form other similar fellowships, and the Body of Christ prospers and grows everywhere. Furthermore, the apostle only has to stay a few months to teach and establish the congregation. Then he is free to leave them and begin again in another place.
After a while, the apostle can visit these congregations again to exhort them further. At that time, he appoints elders in each congregation with prayer and fasting. Then he commits the congregation to the Lord under the leadership of those local elders. He will continue to strengthen and encourage them by occasional visits and exhortation or by letters of encouragement and instruction. But the apostle does not govern or control that congregation again except through exhortation and prayer. He believes that God is able to lead them and their elders. Acts 14:21-23
The congregations founded by Paul were able to stand and prosper because they were built on the right foundation, that is, the Word of the Lord and the guidance of His Spirit.
The call to be an apostle comes directly from the Lord, but should be confirmed by at least one or two other witnesses. When Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, the Lord told him his vocation. This was confirmed by Ananias, whom the Lord sent to minister to him.
The Lord calls, and then He instructs and trains His ministers in the way that He chooses. Paul was already highly educated in theology, yet the Spirit felt it necessary to lead him out into the desert for three years to teach him directly. After this, he continued his preparation in association with prophets and teachers in the congregation in Antioch.
Finally he was sent out from the congregation in Antioch with prayer and fasting. Members of the Body of Christ, including apostles, may not stand alone. For this reason, Paul always maintained his relationship with the congregation in Antioch which had sent him out. After each journey, he came back and reported and was sent out again with prayer.
2. Prophets. In the lists of ministries in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11, Paul always lists “first apostles, second prophets.” The apostle is a pioneer who goes in and begins a new work. Prophets are also needed from the beginning as a foundation.
Why prophets? Because prophets deliver God's Word directly. In 1 Corinthians 14:2, we read that prophecy speaks to men “for edification, exhortation, and comfort.” New converts always encounter stiff temptations at first. They very much need edification and exhortation directly from the Lord. We can always hear advice from men, but how much better to hear directly from the Lord, for the Lord's Word “discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.” When we minister to people, especially new babes in Christ, let us not set forth our own ability, delivering a lecture from Adam to the Second Coming. The Lord knows exactly what they need for their spiritual growth. Let Him speak.
The Lord knows what is in men's hearts. The Lord's Word in the mouth of the prophet “pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit” (Hebrews 4:12). The soul of the new convert has been bound by false religion, the regulations and customs of men, and often by evil spirits. His soul and spirit have to be set free from these things so they can develop freely. The Holy Spirit in the prophet's mouth speaks the powerful word which can set men free and make them new. The Lord's words in the prophet's mouth have power to build up and make alive, and to strengthen the new convert in all his trials and difficulties. We know the world was created by the Word of God. By speaking a word Jesus can heal, drive out demons, and bring salvation.
In Ezekiel 37, we read that the word of God in the mouth of His prophet Ezekiel could gather together and bring back to life bones which had been scattered and dry. If we feel that our churches are lacking in vitality, perhaps we need prophets to speak the Lord's words.
When apostles have begun a work, the Lord needs prophets to build it up. On his first journey Paul traveled with Barnabas, another apostle. On the second journey he took Silas, a prophet, who could deliver God's words in the young congregations to strengthen and build them up.
Prophets have a ministry of delivering the word of God. This includes not only prophecy, but also words of knowledge, words of wisdom, and other manifestations of the Spirit. All people can prophesy, but the prophet continually acts as God's mouth.
There are prophets who travel around and visit churches, like Silas and Agabus. There are also prophets in the local congregation, as we read in Acts 13:1?3. When a new congregation is formed, the people are not yet accustomed to delivering prophecy and other gifts of the Spirit. But when all have been baptized in the Holy Spirit and begin to walk in the Spirit, the Lord can appoint people in the local congregation to act as prophets.
I am convinced that churches which proceed according to the ways of men are not qualified for the Lord's work in these last days. We know that the Gospel has to go out into all the world to every race and nation before the Lord will come. How many thousand people are there, some very near us, who have never yet heard the Gospel. We feel like the church in Philadelphia (Revelation 4) which, according to the Lord, has “a little power.” Why “a little?” We need power like we read in Acts, which can “turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Have we already seen a few miracles and a few hundred people converted and are happy about it? Or do we long to see the greater works our Lord has promised us?
For this, we need the same foundation the early Church had. We need a Church founded on the apostles and prophets.
3. Teachers. Paul said, “. . . third teachers” (1 Corinthians 12:28). As soon as the apostles and prophets have laid a foundation, the teachers begin to build upon it.
Christian teachers do not use the same methods as ordinary school teachers. Jesus is our model teacher. Jesus chose and called twelve men, and they began to travel with Him. He did not build a school building or hold classes. The disciples watched His ministry as He healed the sick, chased the money-changers out of the temple, taught the crowds, gave the Pharisees a hard time, and stilled the storms.
As pointed out before, all Jesus' teaching was done in the context of fellowship. Indeed, fellowship with his disciples is the basis of Jesus' method of teaching. Ordinary teachers come in when there is a class, receive respect from the pupils, give lectures, and after class they go home. Jesus humbled Himself to eat and sleep with His disciples, traveled everywhere with them, became their Friend and Companion. They did not take notes about the meaning of love. They experienced Jesus' love for them minute by minute. Jesus' teaching was always done informally by discussion or question and answer method. His teaching was always practical and adjusted to the level of His disciples' development.
This same method was carried on by the first apostles; for it was Jesus' twelve Apostles that became the elders in the first congregation in Jerusalem, and then were scattered everywhere to begin other congregations. Paul trained Timothy, Titus, Luke, and the others with the same method as Jesus had used, that is, by traveling together as one fellowship.
In every New Testament congregation there must teachers, not to give lectures, but to teach, as Jesus did, in fellowship. The teacher really has to live a sanctified life, because he is teaching by example.When there are new converts, let the teacher gather them together and form a fellowship or cell group, in which they can minister to each other, heal the sick, prophesy, and operate the other gifts of the Spirit. When they have experienced the work of the Spirit in the fellowship, disciples and teachers can go out together to minister to others. They will learn together as they minister. There will need to be a balance between going out and doing the ministry, on the one hand, and learning together through Bible study and discussion, on the other.
4. Miracles. From time to time, all people can be used by God to perform miracles. When the land needs rain, we can pray for rain. When there is a destructive storm, we can stop it with a word of command. All natural disasters can be stopped with a word of command by believers. We need people with faith to perform miracles in the Lord's Name. Miracles are signs of God's power and dominion. As such they are very powerful evangelistic tools as well as weapons of warfare for the establishment of the Kingdom.
5. Healing. There are people in the congregation whom the Lord wants to use in a ministry of healing. All believers can heal people, but there are those with a special ministry. Let us pray for the Lord to set people in all these ministries, instead of giving all the responsibility to an ordained minister. Healing can be experienced through the Sacraments of the Church — Baptism, Communion, Confession, or Unction. It can be administered in formal healing services, by calling the elders to the sick room to anoint with oil, or by the prayer of faith on the part of one with a special ministry of healing. Healing is not only for the body. We must give more attention to the inner healing of the soul. The object of all spiritual healing is wholeness of body, mind, and spirit.
6. Helps. The word diakon in Greek means servant or helper, and the usual word for ministry is diakonia. Jesus said, “Who is greater, he who sits at table or he who serves? Is it not he who is ministered to? But I am among you as one who serves (diakon)” (Luke 22:27). Jesus placed himself lower than His disciples and became their servant.That was Jesus' attitude to His whole ministry, and this should be the attitude of all spiritual ministry. Some people say a young person should not pray for an older person. Others think only ordained clergy can minister, or that it would be presumptuous for a layman to pray for a clergyman. Why? Ministry does not mean that he who ministers is higher than the one ministered to, but rather lower. Women can pray for men and minister to them, but may not rule them.
Let us learn to humble ourselves to minister to others in the Spirit, realizing that we ourselves have too little skill in speaking or exhorting. The criterion for ministry is Jesus' words, “I do not speak with My own words, nor do My own works. I just deliver what My heavenly Father gives me to say and do” (John 14:10). If we realize this, we will not want to use our own words, but God's words. A person who prophesies or exercises any of the gifts of the Spirit is not exalting himself. Is it not rather one that wants to minister with his own words and do his own thing for God or for people who is proud?
Therefore, the proper attitude for every child of God is that of diakonia — serving.
But in the congregation there are those with a special ministry of helping (diakonia). These are people who habitually give practical help, humbling themselves to perform simple and lowly functions that others do not want to do or do not have time for. Deacons give special attention to the physical needs of individuals and of the congregation as a whole.
Every congregation needs deacons to take care of its physical needs and make its love practical.
7. Governments. Government in the New Testament congregation is normally in the hands of elders (presbyteroi). When Paul had formed a new congregation, he appointed elders to govern that congregation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Acts 14:21-23). In the New Testament, a congregation was never governed by a single minister or priest, but by several elders.
In 1 Timothy 3, we find the qualifications for elders. They must be men of good character, holy life, able to govern their own households well.
The job of the elder is to govern, teach in the congregation, and keep the sheep from going astray. Paul exhorted the elders from the church in Ephesus to “Be on your guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you the overseers (episkopoi), to feed the Church of God which He bought with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). From this, we learn that elders shepherd and feed the flock or congregation.
The elders themselves need not do much of the actual ministry, but rather set in order and lead those who are in the other ministries. Elders or pastors do not lead meetings in New Testament type worship, with the exception of the celebration of the sacraments. Leading a service is the work of the Holy Spirit. If a congregation has teachers, healers, prophets, and other ministries, all the elders have to do is oversee and keep everything running smoothly. If problems arise, the elders can step in to settle them. When sheep fall or wander astray, the elder or shepherd goes out and brings them back.
Ordained clergy, whether called ministers or priests, have the primary function of exercising the sacramental ministry of the Church. As the rest of the members begin to perform their respective functions, they free the ordained clergymen to perform the priestly function to which they are called.
The Lord wants us to work together in His Church. There should not be one man who is exalted. Each one has his function, and all work together under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
The most suitable place for the training or preparation of these ministries is in a local congregation in which the Holy Spirit moves freely, the gifts of the Spirit are in operation, and people learn to walk continually under the guidance of the Spirit. The whole congregation needs to be ordered according to the New Testament pattern with all the ministries (apostles, prophets, and teachers) working together, so that the trainees can see a good example of New Testament order in operation.
When a person has been trained in such a fellowship, he can then receive further training by traveling with an experienced minister in one of the foundational ministries. This was the way Paul trained Timothy, Titus, Luke, and others.
With this method of training, the word of God is written, not in notebooks, but in the heart and in experience. The Lord's ministers need to know the Bible and have a thorough grounding in theology. But ultimately they are going to minister with the word of God which is in their hearts, not that which is in their books.
It is not easy to bring a church into this divine order. The traditions of almost all churches are against it. Each denomination has its own organizational order which is more or less at odds with this divine order. Many churches teach that the New Testament order was only for the apostolic church, even though the time limit is clearly given in Ephesians 4:13, “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.”
From the context, it is obvious that the working together of these ministry gifts is essential for equipping God's people for ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, and for the growth of the fruit of the Spirit. Through these ministries, the Body grows in numbers as people see the love and joy and the manifestations of Christ in the fellowship. The ministries supplement each other, building up each other's faith and understanding. “The whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16).
Some months after our community began to live and worship together, we scheduled a time of prayer and fasting, expecting the Lord to set us into His order. He appointed three elders to have oversight in the fellowship. He also set some people into the other ministries, such as prophets and teachers. At other times, other members of our fellowship have been called to some of these ministries, usually through laying on of the hands of the elders with a prophetic word (1 Timothy 14). These calls may come through gifts of the Spirit, but there must also be a witness of the Spirit in the heart of the person called, and also on the part of the whole community.
After we are called, there is still a time of training and preparation in which the trainee begins to function more and more in the capacity in which he has been called.
As we have formed new congregations in the villages, we have aimed, from the beginning, at developing local leadership. All are encouraged to take part and minister to each other. In time, the Lord gives each a talent to develop. After some months, with prayer and fasting, we appoint local elders and begin to release the leadership more and more into their hands. As the Lord raises up apostles, prophets, and evangelists in each congregation, they can go out to start new works in other places, and the Body grows and develops.
Let us pray that the Lord will call people everywhere to become His apostles, prophets, and teachers. And let us also pray for congregations and fellowships where people can be prepared for this kind of ministry.
As these ministries become reestablished in the church, Christians will have to learn to submit themselves to each other and work together well. Let us not go on our own, but realize that we are members of one Body. If we go out to minister, we can be prayed for and sent out by the others. When we come back we can report on the work of God that we have experienced.
Only as these ministries work together can the Church grow to maturity or perfection. We form a fellowship in which all the members help and supplement one another. God never intended for His people to go on to perfection as individuals, but only as members of a community.
The ministries supplement each other, building up each other's faith and understanding. God's plan for the unity of the Church is not that of committees and councils of churches. That is the way of men and the way of compromise. God wants us to build up one another spiritually, supplement each other, and complete each other's understanding. As all the people know Christ better, they become one in Him. Together they become the Body of Christ, one new man, showing forth His glory.
The way of perfection is not an easy one, but always passes through the Cross. Christ Himself, “though He was God's Son, He learned to be obedient by means of His sufferings. When He was made perfect, He became the Source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:8, 9).
We, like Christ, will be made perfect through obedience and through much suffering. We will learn ever deeper meanings of the Cross, burning out all remnants of sin and selfishness, perfecting our dedication and Christ-like character, denying ourselves, making our lives a sacrifice for others, as Christ's life was a sacrifice for us.
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