Prayer:

Father, Our main task in life is to extol you as God of the universe, to seek your presence in our daily lives, and marvel at your creation. We stand amazed at your gifts that you have given us and are thoroughly content with your will for our lives. Everyday we expect to see you do something that will totally confront our ability to contain ourselves.

Key Word - "edifying"

The key word in this section is edifying. The word, to build up the house as we will see later, in the Greek is a wonderful treasure. Once again we marvel at how the Lord Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, packs so much wisdom in so tiny a portion of Scripture. These six verses contain for instance the sum total of Christian education, church government, ministry, missions, and a host of other topics…for our edification. Let’s see this marvel…

Eph 4:11

God’s word is truly amazing. The critical element of this verse are the first four words, And he gave some. It was not until we started this particular bible study, that the importance of these words were revealed.

In lesson #8 we spoke about Paul applying the conquering king analogy of psalm 68:18, to the crucified and risen Jesus. This analogy was used by the apostle Paul to describe the victory of Calvary and the empty grave. Since verse eleven immediately follows verses 8-10, the pronoun he must refer to our beloved Savior Jesus Christ.

The theological view that these first two ministries, i.e. apostles & prophets, no longer exist simply because we no longer see or hear of any similar ministry today is retarded thinking. There are evidences all over the world where the same criteria that we use to accept the title of apostle and prophet for St. Paul happen to others as well today.

Apostle means "one delegated with a message" in the original Greek language. A Pilipino brother I have met recently, received a healing, quit his lucrative job, and started preaching to the Roman Catholic masses on every street corner. He has started 11 churches and ministers to several hundred folks a week. He is extremely conservative and poised in his demeanor and speech. His heart burns for his brethren, and he is very protective of them. Miracles happen in his services. He does everything that the apostle Paul has done. How can we say then that any gift from the Lord Jesus Christ no longer exists?

Rom 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. KJV).

All five gifts which are in verse eleven are supposed to be for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. The work hasn’t ceased; the gifts given by our Lord Jesus Christ have not stopped either.

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. KJV

Prophet means "one who speaks forth or openly." In the case of the OT prophets their messages were very largely the proclamation of the divine purposes of salvation and glory to be accomplished in the future; the prophesying of the New Testament prophets was both a preaching of the divine wisdom of grace already accomplished, and the foretelling of the purposes of God in the future according to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament.

Very often, however, what is termed the "interpretation of tongues" in the modern day Pentecostal services is prophecy. Prayer by any definition is speaking to God. When we hear this gift it has sounded to me like it is not an interpretation of a "prayer" but a prophetic utterance! In my thirty two years of walking the Christian path, only two people, a bible institute president, and me, have ever interpreted a "tongues" message as it should be in our opinion.

An evangelist is an announcer of "good news". Our familiar definition actually comes from the Greek definition of "euanggelion" and not from the King James English text. It is interesting to note that the word "evangelist" in the KJV is also found only twice in the New Testament, and the plural evangelists is found once. It is absent from the Old Testament according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.

Pastor is only found in the Old Testament in the book of Jeremiah verse17:16. According to this Scripture we see very little of our modern definition of what a pastor is, although in this secluded text, whatever a pastor was during that time, Jeremiah didn’t want to stop being one. The plural form of the word "pastors" give us a little more information, yet it is surprisingly, predominantly, negative in the remaining seven verses according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.

Teacher has the same definition in the original language. Here Paul groups "pastors and teachers" together. All these gifts can be found in one man, though not always.

There are three tasks here in verse twelve. The five-fold ministry listed in verse eleven is designed to perfect or mend, or complete the body of Christ to do the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

Verse thirteen gives the ultimate destination for the entire chapter, which is to be in a unity or oneness of confirmed belief in the knowledge of who the Son of God is, and to the perfection or completeness that will only occur when we eventually see our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Paul uses the Greek word infants who cannot see or speak yet. The meaning of this word is a very young person; a suckling child. Paul also uses the metaphor of a surging sea in the original Greek for tossed to and fro, which we feel he has truly valid experience. The term carried could be translated as ferried like one would do when taking an infant anywhere.

Wind of doctrine has the same equivalent meaning in both Greek and English. We found the word sleight to be interesting though. In its original Greek translation kubeia (koo-bi'-ah); from kubos, means a "cube", i.e. dice for playing or gambling. The rest of this verse’s translation is trickery that waits to deceive by methods of walking over.

The word speaking in this verse is actually an idiom meaning not to conceal the truth of agape love. We are to grow older into Jesus who is our head.

The phrase fitly joined together means more than the image of a jig-saw puzzle. There is a nuance of tightness from the original word for fitly - a closely organized unit. The word compactly adds to this idiom’s meaning including the sense of being driven together as a body of believers. Every joint amply and efficiently fills the powerful and actively working engine of increase for the Body of Christ in love.