Whose Responsible for Making Disciples? - Pastor's or EVERYONE?

In most churches today the pastor does the ministry work, in which the idea of ministry work is not the biblical pattern of “make disciples.” Instead, it is “managing services and programs.” This post intends to show that the three prepositional phrases in Ephesians 4:12 point to Christ giving gifted people to prepare His body—the saints, for the work of the ministry.[1]

B. F. Wescott, serving as the bishop of Durham in 1906, wrote regarding Ephesians 4:12, “However foreign the idea of the spiritual ministry of all ‘the saints’ is to our mode of thinking, it was the life of the apostolic church.”[2] Harold Hoehner notes that the textual debate of Ephesians 4:12 is related to the ambiguity of the function of the three prepositional phrases: πρός … εἰς … εἰς.[3] All scholarship affirms this. However, the number of interpretations seems to vary across the board. Frank Thielman believes there to be two main views of the prepositional interpretations with several spin-offs from each view;[4] this appears to be supported by both Hoehner and Lincoln.

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Thielman summarizes the first view: “On this view, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers not only bring the saints to full maturity, but they also do the work of ministry.”[5] Andrew T. Lincoln supports this view, as do Schnackenburg, Gordon, O’Neill, and Page.[6] Lincoln notes that there is “no grammatical or linguistic grounds for making a specific link between the first and second phrases.”[7] This view maintains that the three prepositional phrases describe the purpose of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Frank Thielman explains the prepositions:

“for (πρός, pros) the “equipping” of the saints

for (εἰς, eis) [the] work of ministry

for (εἰς) [the] edification of the body of Christ.”[8]

This view argues that this interpretation fits the style of the writer of Ephesians; Lincoln notes the three similar phrases in Ephesians 1:3; 1:20, 21; 2:7.[9] Thielman further records that supporters of this view refer “for the work of ministry” to “the ministry of the word” found in other passages, that contextually have an official nature.[10] Lincoln acknowledges that the overall context of Ephesians 4:12 in verse 7 and also seen in verse 16 is that all believers are active; he still then says that the primary context within the context is the minister’s work, not the saints.[11]

The second view held by Thielman, Hoehner, and Bruce is summed up well by F. F. Bruce, “The three prepositional phrases are not coordinate with another as might be suggested by the RSV rendering (‘for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ’); the second and third phrases are dependent on the first, as is indicated by their introduction by a different proposition from the first.”[12] Hoehner agrees, giving more detail, “This view proposes that the first preposition (πρός) gives the purpose to the main verb ἔδωκεν (v. 11), the second preposition (εἰς) depends on the first proposition, and the third preposition (εἰς) depends on the second preposition.[13] Each prepositional phrase then builds upon the last. Thielman says that those of Ephesians 4:11 are to “Equip all believers to do the work of ministry for the edification of Christ’s body.”[14]

Modern scholarship favors the second view for several reasons. While it is true that the author of Ephesians stylistically strings together prepositional phrases, the difference is in the verbal noun καταρτισμὸνis, which a prepositional phrase can easily modify to give its action.[15] The lack of syntactical parallelism, as Page notes, is not simply a matter of shifting from πρός to εἰς but may be a variation in style.[16] The context of Ephesians 4:7-16 further supports the work of all saints, not just a select group, making this view the simplest of the interpretations.[17]

Depending on one’s interpretation of the prepositions, the term καταρτισμὸν takes on a different meaning. Those in the first view prefer to render it as “completing” or “perfecting,” whereas those who interpret the passage the second way interpret the word as “equipping.”[18] This wide range of interpretation is due to its infrequent usage before New Testament times; Ephesians 4:12 is the only time this noun appears in the New Testament.[19] Harold Hoehner says,

Before NT times, the term καταρτισμός was rare though used by Apollonius Citiensis forty-seven times within a work on the medical practice of setting a limb or bone or the restoration of a shoulder. In NT times it is used of furnishing a room or preparation of a garment. It is found only in this verse in the NT. However, the verb καταρτίζω is found frequently and means “to adjust, put in order, restore, mend,” as the reconciling of political fractions, as well as “to furnish, equip” or “to be instructed, trained.”[20]

            Regarding this noun, καταρτισμὸν, Frank Thielman affirms its medical usage and further notes, “It also appears in nonliterary texts from roughly the time of Ephesians, where it refers to ‘outfitting’ a guest room with furniture, the ‘equipment’ that goes along with a couple of beds, and the ‘preparation’ of woof and warp necessary for weaving a garment.”[21] Within the given context, the second and third prepositional phrases build upon the first, and the wide range of the noun, καταρτισμὸν, it seems best and most straightforward to agree with Thielman, Bock, and Hoehner that the purpose of the gifted men in Ephesians 4:11 is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

            With this understanding, the work of the ministry then proceeds in the following verses 13-15: building up the body of Christ, unity of the faith, knowledge of the Son of God, maturity in character, not easily deceived, growth in conformity to the will of Jesus Christ. All the saints then play a role in building up the body of Christ: building up those who are already a part of the body and adding to the body through gospel witness. Gospel witness very much so falls into the ministry of the saints as Acts 8:4 affirms it as part of the activity of all, “Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.” Thus, the saints partake in this great task to build the body of Christ in width and depth through discipling those to Christ and those in Christ.

[1] Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 549.

[2] B. F. Wescott, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, (London: Macmillan, 1906), 63.

[3] Hoehner, Ephesians, 547.

[4] Frank Thielman, Ephesians, ECNT, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 277.

[5] Thielman, Ephesians, 278.

[6] Thielman, Ephesians, 278.

[7] Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Vol. 42, WBC, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 253.

[8] Thielman, Ephesians, 277.

[9] Lincoln, Ephesians, 253.

[10] Thielman, Ephesians, 278.

[11] Lincoln, Ephesians, 253.

[12] F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1984), 349.

[13] Hoehner, Ephesians, 548

[14] Thielman, Ephesians, 279.

[15] Thielman, Ephesians, 278.

[16] S. H. T. Page, “Whose Ministry? A Re-Appraisal of Ephesians 4:12,” Novum Testamentum 47, no. 1 (2005): 30.

[17] Hoehner, Ephesians, 549.

[18] Thielman, Ephesians, 279.

[19] Thielman, Ephesians, 279.

[20] Hoehner, Ephesians, 549.

[21] Thielman, Ephesians, 279.