Lessons #449 and 450

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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +

+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +

+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +

+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +

+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +

+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +

+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +

+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +

+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +

+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +

+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +

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Specific spiritual assignments in the church (1 Cor 12:27-31)

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.

We continue with this section of the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians that is concerned with specific spiritual assignments that God has made to certain individuals in the church of Christ. The message of this section we stated in our previous study is: Be aware of the specific spiritual assignments God made to individuals in the church but your focus in your spiritual life should not be on the gifts associated with them instead be focused on living out the spiritual life. We indicated that we would expound the message using four propositions derived from the passage. The first is: The spiritual assignments are made to those in the church of Christ that you are a member. The second is: The spiritual assignments are ranked according to their importance in the church of Christ. We considered the first spiritual assignment that is the most important for the functioning of the universal church of Christ described as “apostles.” We stated that there are facts if understood enable us to recognize how appropriate it is that the spiritual assignment described with the word “apostles” be ranked the top of the list of the spiritual assignments of God to individuals in the church of Christ. The last fact we stated in our last study is that the other spiritual assignments mentioned in the rest of 1 Corinthians 12:28 are also part of the spiritual assignments of the apostles. We promised to continue with this fact, so we proceed to expound on this fact.

We indicated that the other spiritual assignments mentioned in the rest of 1 Corinthians 12:28 are also part of the spiritual assignments of apostles. To expound on this fact, we should add that the apostles not only had the other spiritual assignments given in verse 28 as part of their function but also that they had all the other spiritual gifts necessary for the church of Christ to function. It is this fact that we want to substantiate.

We can assert that because of the role of the apostles in the founding of the church that they each had all the spiritual gifts Apostle Paul identified in this twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians and more. Because they were commissioned to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, they certainly had the gift of message of wisdom and gift of message of knowledge. They had the gift of faith. They had the gift of healing and miraculous powers. Their possession of these two later gifts is attested in Acts 2:43:

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

The evidence of these two gifts is reported several times in Acts. Peter healed the crippled man as reported in Acts 3:6–7:

⁶ Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” ⁷ Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong.

Peter’s display of the gift of miraculous powers is evident in the raising from the dead Dorcas, as we read in Acts 9:40–41:

⁴⁰ Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive.

Paul demonstrated that he had the gift of the miraculous powers and healing in the healing of the crippled man in Lystra, according to Acts 14:8–10:

⁸ In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. ⁹ He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed ¹⁰ and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

The gift of the miraculous powers of Apostle Paul was also evident in raising of the dead as recorded in Acts 20:9–10:

⁹ Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. ¹⁰ Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!”

These displays of miraculous powers of the apostles also imply that they had the gifts of mercy and helps since mercy is displayed in healings. The gift of help is also evident when one is healed.

The apostles had the gift of prophecy as evident in their writing of Scriptures. Apostle Paul demonstrated his gift of prophecy when he announced to the passengers in the ship taking him to Rome that although the ship would be wrecked but that there will be no loss of life as recorded in Acts 27:22–24:

²² But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. ²³ Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me ²⁴ and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’

Jude in his epistle refers to the gift of prophecy of the apostles in Jude 17:

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.

The apostles had the gift of speaking in different tongues. We know this because the apostles were among the disciples of Jesus Christ who spoke in tongues on the Day of Pentecost, as it is reported in Acts 2:4:

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Apostle Paul testified to his gift of speaking in tongues in 1 Corinthians 14:18:

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

The apostles had the gifts of teaching and exhortation or encouragement as these were necessary to fulfill the great commission of Matthew 28:18–20:

¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

The great commission is not the only way to recognize that the apostles must have had the gifts of teaching and of exhortation or encouragement. They demonstrated these gifts quite early in the history of the church following the Pentecost events since the church was taught by them, as stated in Acts 2:42:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

The apostles continued to exercise their gifts of teaching and exhortation in the early church, as testified in Acts 5:42:

Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

It is because the apostles had the gift of teaching that Apostle Paul could refer to the teachings that he and others passed on to believers, as we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:15:

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

The apostles, no doubt, had the gift of service since they served the church. It is for this reason that Apostle Paul could speak of serving believers in 2 Corinthians 13:4:

For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.

The apostles certainly had the gifts of leadership and of administration. It should be clear that “administration” and “leadership” are not the same although they may overlap in function. Administration is concerned with the act or process of managing affairs while leadership is concerned with the ability to direct and guide others. The apostles had both gifts as evident in the leadership they provided the church and also their initial administration of the affairs of the church until the church grew in number so that they were no longer involved in day-to-day administration since that would have distracted them from their primary function of teaching the word of God. It is for this reason that the apostles led the early church into the direction of appointing administrators or what it is often referred as the first deacons of the church, as stated in Acts 6:1–4:

¹In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. ² So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. ³ Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them ⁴ and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

It is because of the gift of leadership that Apostles Paul and Barnabas were able to appoint leaders for the churches they established, according to Acts 14:23:

Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

Leadership, no doubt, involves giving guidance but an important part of leadership is bringing to bear consequences on those who fail to follow the guidance of the leader. Therefore, it is not surprising that the apostles were involved in discipline of individuals in the early church as we have stated in our last study but for completeness of our study, we repeat what we said about that. Peter pronounced judgment on Ananias and Sapphira for being false to the church in their conduct with respect to giving. This judgment of punishment is mentioned in Acts 5:3–4, 7–9:

³ Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? ⁴ Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.”

⁷ About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. ⁸ Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” ⁹ Peter said to her, “How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

By the way, this punishment by Apostle Peter also implies that as an apostle he had the gift of distinguishing between spirits in order to perceive that Satan had filled the mind of Ananias to lie. This gift of distinguishing between spirits was also evident when Apostle Paul got rid of the slave girl of the demons that indwelt her. He was able to distinguish comments directed to him by people and that from evil spirits, as implied in Acts 16:17–18:

¹⁷ This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” ¹⁸ She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

That aside, it was because the apostle had the gift of distinguishing spirits that he perceived that what the slave girl announced was from evil spirit. At any rate, Apostle Paul also displayed his leadership gift in pronouncing judgment on the believer who had strayed in a sexual relationship that was not fitting for believers, as the apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:3–5:

³ Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. ⁴ When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, ⁵ hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

With these examples, we have substantiated our assertion that the apostles had all the spiritual gifts listed in the NT because of their role in the church. Anyway, we maintain that the spiritual assignments of apostles is the most important for the function of the church and so ranked the first in the passage of 1 Corinthians 12:28 we are considering. This brings us to the second.

The second spiritual assignment God made to some individuals in the church is described as prophets since we read in 1 Corinthians 12:28 second prophets. This phrase implies that the individual with the spiritual assignment described as “prophets” had the gift of prophecy.

The word “prophets” is translated from a Greek word (prophētēs) that refers to a person inspired to proclaim or reveal divine will or purpose. In other words, a proclaimer or expounder of divine matters or concerns that could not ordinarily be known except by special revelation. Such a person rebuke people or predicts events. The spiritual assignment of prophets is listed as second in importance to the church, so we need to understand what prophets do in order to appreciate the reason the spiritual assignment of prophets is second to the apostles. To help our understanding of what prophets do, we will briefly refer to their roles in the OT that we will also relate to the NT prophets, specifically prophets in the early church of Christ.

OT prophets had the important role of being intermediaries between God and people and vice-versa. Moses as a prophet fulfilled this role and so God promised Israel to send a prophet to them like Moses as we read in Deuteronomy 18:16–18:

¹⁶ For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” ¹⁷ The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

Since a prophet serves as an intermediary between God and people, God would send a prophet to convey His message to people as was the case when God communicated to David through Gad the choices he had from Him, because of his ill-advised census as we read in 2 Samuel 24:11–12:

¹¹ Before David got up the next morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: ¹² “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’”

Prophets would normally warn of pending disasters that are generally the results of divine judgment. Prophet Elisha demonstrated this function of warning people concerning a pending disaster when he warned the woman that had taken care of him to move to another country because of famine that was coming in Israel that will last seven years, as stated in 2 Kings 8:1:

Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, "Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years."

This kind of prediction was not limited to the OT times, but we also find it in the early church when Prophet Agabus warned about a coming famine in Acts 11:27-28:

²⁷ During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.)

Later the same prophet predicted of the personal suffering of Apostle Paul in the hands of his fellow Jews and how they will hand him over to Gentiles as narrated in Acts 21:10-11:

¹⁰ After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. ¹¹ Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'"

Agabus was not alone in prophetic declaration of what Apostle Paul would face. This truth was revealed to other prophets in other churches according to Acts 20:23:

I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.

The Holy Spirit warned Paul through those with gift of prophecy and so the apostle was warned by prophets. Another function of the OT prophets is consulting God for personal information that an individual needed. This practice is implied in 1 Samuel 9:9:

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, "Come, let us go to the seer," because the prophet of today used to be called a seer.)

We have examples of this kind of consultation in Scripture. Saul under the advice of his servant consulted Prophet Samuel about missing animals, according to 1 Samuel 9:5-6:

⁵ When they reached the district of Zuph, Saul said to the servant who was with him, "Come, let's go back, or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us." ⁶ But the servant replied, "Look, in this town there is a man of God; he is highly respected, and everything he says comes true. Let's go there now. Perhaps he will tell us what way to take."

King Jehoshaphat consulted Prophet Elisha when he faced a military situation, as indicated in his question in 2 Kings 3:11:

But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord through him?" An officer of the king of Israel answered, "Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah."

If you read the rest of the chapter, you will note that Prophet Elisha indeed gave the king the assurance of military defeat of his enemies. Now, we do not have any record in the NT of believers consulting prophets of the early church so we cannot make any firm assertion of this activity concerning the early church. However, the fact that Prophet Agabus made personal prediction about the Apostle Paul will imply that the prophets of the church could not have entirely ignored predictions of personal nature or that believers could have gone to them with personal inquiry about the future as in the OT. In fact, I have to confess that after I made this deduction, I continued to do research on subject related to the issue of prophecy and I came across a material that gives credence to my deduction, so I came back to my note to add it. The material comes from one of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers known as “The Shepherd of Hermas,” written somewhere between A.D. 95 and 115. In the section called “Mandate or Commandment 11” that was concerned with prophets we read the following:

As many, then, as are strong in the faith of the Lord, and are clothed with truth, have no connection with such spirits, but keep away from them; but as many as are of doubtful minds and frequently repent, betake themselves to soothsaying, even as the heathen, and bring greater sin upon themselves by their idolatry. For he who inquires of a false prophet in regard to any action is an idolater, and devoid of the truth, and foolish. For no spirit given by God requires to be asked; but such a spirit having the power of Divinity speaks all things of itself, for it proceeds from above from the power of the Divine Spirit. But the spirit which is asked and speaks according to the desires of men is earthly, light, and powerless, and it is altogether silent if it is not questioned." ¹

The fact the document speaks of consultation with false prophets implies that such practice of consulting with true prophets was probably practiced, that warranted an instruction against consulting false prophets.

Be that as it may, the spiritual assignment of prophets in the church of Christ is considered second to the apostle in its importance because they functioned as intermediaries between God and believers although not in the same way as the apostles. Nonetheless, the prophets of the church would receive information from God to pass on to the church. This is illustrated in the church in Antioch where God’s will, was revealed to believers. Although we do not have any specific prophet mentioned in connection with this revelation of God’s will, but it is clear that prophet(s) spoke about the commission of Paul and Barnabas by the Holy Spirit according to Acts 13:1-2:

1 In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

Prophets would also receive message from God that would serve to encourage believers. This we can deduce from what is stated about Judas and Silas in Acts 15:32:

Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.

Another role of the NT prophets that was beneficial during the church meetings is revealing the thought of an unbeliever that has come to the assembly of believers, as implied in what the Holy Spirit wrote through Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25:

²⁴ But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all, ²⁵ and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!"

This particular activity of prophecy has value in presentation of the gospel. For, if an unbeliever’s secret thoughts are revealed then that will cause him to accept the message of the gospel he hears. Hence, because of the functions of the prophets their spiritual assignment was ranked second in the listing in order of importance to the church of God’s spiritual assignments to believers.

There is a question that we need to address before we leave the spiritual assignment described with the word “prophets.” The question is whether individuals described as prophets had a permanent role as prophets or the gift of prophecy was given from time to time. It seems that because those called apostles had permanent assignment that the prophets the apostle described are permanent assignments. They are like the prophets of the OT and not like King David who occasionally manifested the gift of prophecy but did not occupy the office of a prophet. Prophet Agabus that was mentioned twice in the book of Acts, implied he had a permanent position as a prophet. Likewise, the prophets mentioned in the church in Antioch must have had permanent position for them to be described as prophets. Judas and Silas must have had permanent positions as prophets for them to have been described as such in the passage of Acts 15 we cited previously. Add to this observation, is that the next spiritual assignment mentioned that we will get to shortly is not a temporary office so to speak. Therefore, we believe that the spiritual assignment described as “prophets” was permanent and they functioned within a given local church as those mentioned in the church at Antioch.

The third spiritual assignment God made to some individuals in the church is described as teachers since we read in 1 Corinthians 12:28 third teachers. This third spiritual assignment implies those involved have the gift of teaching.

The word “teacher” is translated from a Greek word (didaskalos) that refers to one who provides instruction, that is, “teacher.” It was because a teacher provides instruction that the Jews of the time of the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus often described Him with the word “teacher,” as we read, for example, in Matthew 22:16:

They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.

The Lord Jesus also described Himself as teacher as we read in Matthew 26:18:

He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’”

Apostle Paul described himself as a teacher as we read, for example, in 1 Timothy 2:7:

And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.

Apostle Paul rightfully described himself as a teacher since he taught the Gentile churches the word of God. For example, he spent a year and half teaching believers in Corinth as Luke recorded in Acts 18:11:

So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

Certainly, there were others who were also teachers in the early church, specifically Gentile church in Antioch, as we may gather from the record of the passage we cited previously, that is, Acts 13:1:

In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.

There is no way of knowing whether all five men listed were all teachers or if the first three were prophets and the last two teachers, as some contend. Such interpretations are speculative since Saul is the Apostle Paul who had the gift of prophecy as well. This fact contradicts the interpretation that makes him only to be a teacher. Nonetheless, we are certain that two of them were teachers and possibly also prophets. Barnabas and Saul (Paul) were clearly teachers as we may gather from their function in the same church as we read in Acts 11:26:

and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

The presence of teachers in the church of Antioch speak to the importance of teachers to the church of Christ because they are those responsible for teaching believers God’s word. Anyhow, our point is simply that there were teachers in the early church other than the apostles of the Lord Jesus.

In any case, the third spiritual assignment concerns teachers. As we have stated, teachers are important in the church of Christ for spiritual growth of believers. This being the case, one wonders why they were listed third behind the prophets. The passage we are considering in 1 Corinthians 12:28 does not tell us but we may deduce the reason teachers were listed third among the spiritual assignments that describe individuals or offices because of an important function of the first three spiritual assignments. Those with the first three spiritual assignments have the important function of conveying God’s message to the church as we have already noted. It is this function that enables us to understand a reason the spiritual assignment of teachers is ranked third in the list. The reason we may deduce is that teachers are listed third because of how they receive the word of God that they are to communicate to the church. We noted that the apostles and prophets receive their messages directly from God through revelation. It is true that the apostles other than Apostle Paul received some of their messages from the Lord Jesus while He was on the planet but for the most part the messages needed for the church that they wrote down were given to them by revelation. So, the apostles and prophets are those who received their messages directly from God to pass on to the church but that is not the case with teachers. The Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul implied that the apostles and prophets received some doctrinal truths by revelation as we read, for example, in Ephesians 3:5:

which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.

Teachers get the message they pass on to believers from what is already written down by those with prophetic gifts, so to speak. We mean that teachers are supposed to help believers understand what is already written down in the Scripture. This truth can be traced to the function assigned to the priests of Israel whose primary responsibility was to teach Israel what God gave through Moses as implied in Leviticus 10:10–11:

¹⁰ You [i.e., priests] must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, ¹¹ and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.”

Since the priests were to teach what was already written down, that means that they would have to labor to expound what is written down. Expounding God’s word requires that teachers study the Scripture. This truth was demonstrated with Ezra, the priest, that was a teacher of those Israelites who returned from Babylonian exile. He studied the Law so he could expound it to the Israelites as we read in Ezra 7:10:

For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.

It is probably the case that the Holy Spirit brought to the mind of Apostle Paul the devotion of Ezra to the studying of the Law when he instructed Timothy to be diligent or to work hard as it pertains to the word of God so he would be in a position of correctly expounding the word of God as we read in 2 Timothy 2:15:

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

The command Do your best to present yourself to God is one that requires Timothy and so all pastors of local churches to make every effort or to work hard to ensure that they correctly teach or expound the word of God. This requires that those who teach God’s word invest time and effort digging into the Scripture to ensure they are correctly or accurately expounding the Scripture. Hence, although the spiritual assignment of teaching the word of God is listed third but it is one that requires a sustained effort in communicating the word of God. There is a sense that we can say that all the apostles and prophets had to ensure is that they are controlled by the Holy Spirit so that God would communicate His word to them. Even then, the apostles or prophets do not know when they would receive message from God so that they, in a sense, do not have to do anything to prepare to communicate God’s word. This cannot be true of teachers of God’s word. They are not only to ensure that they are controlled by the Holy Spirit, but they are to spend time and effort studying the Scripture to decipher the message that God has for His people in the Scripture. The teachers of God’s word can be sure that because of the gifting of the Holy Spirit, they would through hard work come to the meaning of a particular text or the message the Holy Spirit intended for the church to hear from a given passage. On a personal note, when I study, I continuously pray to the Lord to enable me to accurately expound His word. My prayer is often to say to the Lord that He gave His word to the men who wrote them down for us through the Holy Spirit, so I request for Him to give me through the same Holy Spirit understanding of what a given passage means or its correct application.

Be that as it may, there are few observations that we need to make regarding the spiritual assignment of teachers. First, the spiritual assignment of teachers is that which God uniquely gives to men in the church of Christ. It should be distinguished from the general teaching that is required of believers in relationship to each other. For example, believers are expected to teach others by way of encouragement through Scripture as they themselves have been taught. This is implied in the instruction of Colossians 3:16:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Thus, there is a sense that each believer could teach a fellow believer but that is not the teaching associated with the spiritual assignment of teaching. Moreover, it is not the same as the specialized teaching older women should carry out in relation to younger women as we read in Titus 2:3:

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.

The verbal phrase to teach what is good is the way that the translators of the NIV translated a rare Greek word (kalodidaskalos) that appears only once in Greek NT but not found outside the NT that means “teacher of what is good.” An example of what it means for older women to be teachers of what is good, is described as training of younger women to love their husbands and children as we read in Titus 2:4–5:

⁴ Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Anyway, the spiritual assignment of teachers is that which God uniquely gives to men in the church of Christ that should be distinguished from the general teaching that is required of believers in relationship to each other.

Second, the spiritual assignment of teachers is not the same as being pastors. A person may be a teacher as a part of the spiritual leadership of a local church and not be a pastor. We say that a teacher may be a part of the spiritual leadership of a local church because it appears that the spiritual leaders of the church in Antioch consisted of prophets and teachers as we may deduce from the passage we cited previously, that is, Acts 13:1:

In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.

The mentioning of prophets and teachers in this verse implies that they were part of the spiritual leadership of the church at Antioch. Hence, it is possible that a person may be a teacher as part of spiritual leadership of a local church and not be a pastor. Of course, there are those who contend that this is unlikely because of the way they interpret the joint mention of pastors and teachers in the list of the offices of the church the Holy Spirit gave through Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:11:

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,

There is the problem of how to interpret the phrase pastors and teachers whether it refers to one office holder or two. We have dealt with the problem of the interpretation of this phrase in our studies of Ephesians. If you are interested in learning the details of the interpretation of this phrase, I suggest you go the website of Berean Bible Church and listen to lessons numbers 123 and 124. Nonetheless, it is our interpretation that the phrase should be understood to mean that pastors belong to a larger group known as teachers. The implication is that a person cannot be a pastor without being a teacher but not every teacher is a pastor. That a pastor must be a teacher is clearly specified in the requirement of overseers of local church the Holy Spirit gave in 1 Timothy 3:2:

Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

Pastors, as shepherd of local churches, are similar in their function to that of the apostles in a limited sense that their function is confined to a local church and so they would have more than one spiritual gift for them to shepherd their various congregations. The point is that the spiritual assignment of teachers is not the same as being pastors.

Third, teaching as a spiritual assignment carries with it authority from the Lord. We previously stated that pastors are part of those who have the spiritual assignment as teachers. However, we know that pastors have authority given to them by the Lord. This fact is conveyed by the instruction of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul to Titus, who is a pastor at Crete, as we read in Titus 2:15:

These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

It is because spiritual assignment of teachers involve authority that we contend that the assignment is given only to some male believers. You see, the reason a woman was not supposed to teach a man in a spiritual sense is because of the issue of authority as the apostle states in 1 Timothy 2:12:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

Anyway, we should understand that the third spiritual assignment of teachers is important to the church at the present time, and it carries divine authority. We have to be careful to recognize that it is not an easy matter to be a teacher of God’s word. It is probably for this reason that the Holy Spirit warns believers against wanting to be teachers as we read in James 3:1:

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

09/09//22