Church Governance (17)

When reading Ephesians 4, it is really important to follow Paul’s line of thought right through. The chapter begins with a challenge to be humble and gentle and to love one another. Pauls follows this with teaching about unity. The message of Ephesians 4:3-6): is that there is one God, one Father, one Lord, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one body, and one of nearly everything else.

Most readers assume that Paul goes on to a different topic in Eph 4:7 and starts a new teaching about governance and leadership. This is not correct. His teaching about gifts is a natural consequence of his teaching about unity. Because there is one God, one Lord, and one of everything else, you would expect that there would be one leader, but that is the one exception. There is one church with numerous leaders. A church needs more than one leader, because one person does not have all the gifts that are needed to represent Jesus.

The ascension transformed the leadership of the church. Paul had already described the ascension in Ephesians 2. When Jesus ascended, he sent the Holy Spirit to earth, but this is not the gift that Paul is speaking of to the Ephesians. An important consequence of his ascension was that he opened up the way for most people to step into a leadership role. If he had remained on earth, he would have been the one leader of the church. Everything would have been directed to him. By going away and not appointing a successor, he made it possible for many people to become leaders.

He did not look for the most Christ like of his disciples on earth and leave him to control the church, because he knew that none of his disciples was up to the task. Jesus was a perfect prophet, a perfect apostle, a perfect evangelist and a perfect pastor-teacher. No other human could fulfil all those roles, so Jesus chose to have a group of elders to care for each local church. One would be a prophet. Another would be an evangelist. A couple might be pastor-teachers. One or two might have potential to be sent out as an apostle. None of these people could fully represent Jesus, but together they could. Jesus knew that no human would be capable of being his successor, so he gave people with different giftings to care for the church together. It took a team of elders with balanced giftings to care for a body of people in the way that Jesus had cared for his disciples.

When Jesus ascended, he took with him all who would believe in him and set them free from captivity (Eph 4:8). Those who rose with him are seated with him at the right hand of the Father’s authority. All Christians ascended with Jesus, so Paul is writing about all Christians, not just a select few, who gain governance roles. They are not under any earthly human authority. Jesus did not leave one person or a special group of people to control and manage the church. He released from captivity people with a huge diversity of personalities and gifting, but bound together by love.