The Gift of the Pastor/Teacher - Ephesians 4:7-16

The Pastor/Teacher is one of the four gifted persons God gave in light of the victorious campaign Jesus accomplished on earth in fulfilling the will of the Father. This is the traditional war language in Ephesians 4.  When a conquering king would return from battle with the spoils of victory from the enemy, his subjects would receive gifts in honor of the victory. 

Paul quotes Psalm 68:19 which is a psalm of victory composed by David himself celebrating with the Jewish people the conquest and return of the Ark of the Covenant back to Mount Zion. Paul now uses this Psalm to speak of Jesus when He returned back to Heaven after a successful conquest of Satan, hell, sin, and death.  There is in his triumphant march are those who were once captives to Satan and sin but now are free due to His successful campaign.

That is all of the saved, the elect (Ephesians 1:3-11), those washed in the blood.  We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, but our freedom was not possible until Jesus returned to Heaven as the triumphant King.

Then a second aspect of this triumphant (4:8) is "And gave gifts to men."  As previously mentioned, this was common in every parade of victory.  But each previous scene was just pointing to this ultimate scene when God would "give gifts to men" on behalf of His Son.

We know these gifts are the spiritual gifts given to all believers, but for Paul's argument here, he notes specifically four gifts unlike anything else mentioned elsewhere in Scripture and different in style.

All other spiritual gifts are abilities, here the gift is a person.  God gives four persons to the church.  These four are apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors/teachers.  

I will deal with these four next week, but for the moment note...these gifts are persons, not just talents or abilities residing within a person enabling them to do God's work in God's way with God's power.  No, these four are actually the people themselves.  Unique.

An apostle is a gift from God to the church.

A prophet is a gift from God to the church.

An evangelist is a gift from God to the church.

A pastor/teacher is a gift from God to the church.

So when someone gives us a gift, our response should be to open our hands to receive it and our mouth to say, "thank you."

Blessings;

David