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The Gifts and Ministries of the Body of Christ

The Body of Christ cannot come to maturity, and serve as the fullness of the Head, until God’s people become serious about their individual ministries. It may be true that not as much as one percent of Christian people spend time asking, seeking, knocking, that the Holy Spirit might give them a supernatural gift of ministry.

How do we account for this lack of gifts and ministries in the Body of Christ? This lack exists because we do not understand what the one Body of Christ is, or what God’s plan is for the mature Body.

In our mind the Body of Christ is confused with the local assembly, which we refer to as a local body. “Local body” is misleading terminology and should not be used to describe a local assembly.

The Body of Christ is, along with the great Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Servant of the Lord, the Anointed Deliverer who is to come and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. I don’t believe Jesus, the Head, will return until at least a firstfruits of the Body, of the Church, has come to maturity. A physical head cannot do work apart from the rest of the physical body. Christ cannot serve the purposes of God apart from the rest of the His Body.

(4/13/2008) Today I spoke from the twelfth chapter of the Book of First Corinthians, concerning the gifts and ministries which must be operating in the Body of Christ if the believers are to grow to maturity in the Perfect Man, the Anointed One of God.

By the way, the gifts of the Spirit are not given to a local assembly. Elders are appointed in a local assembly. But the gifts of the Spirit are given to the Body of Christ for the purpose of building up the one Body.

The Holy Spirit assigns the gifts. Jesus Christ administrates the gifts. God the Father empowers the gifts so they operate effectively.

Perhaps the core of the present lack of gifts and ministries among the believers is that we still are maintaining the priest-people model of the Catholic church. We Protestants call our leaders “pastors,” or “ministers.” Because of this, the people give their spiritual responsibilities to their pastors. Without realizing it, we are regarding our pastor as our priest.

Since the pastor has only a small part of the wealth of supernatural abilities God wishes to exercise among the believers, very, very few believers come to maturity, as measured by the full stature of Christ.

In the eleventh chapter of the Book of Luke the disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray. Jesus taught them the traditional “Lord’s prayer.” Then He went on to exhort the disciples to beseech God persistently for more of the Holy Spirit so they could minister to the needy around them.

Ask, seek, knock, the Lord commanded. Keep on asking. If you do, you will receive that empowerment of the Spirit you need. Keep on seeking. Don’t give up. You will receive the desires of your heart in terms of ministry to others. Keep on knocking. Doors will be opened to you of which you have little knowledge in the present.

How long do we ask, seek, and knock? Until we get what we are asking for. Will it really happen? God said it would. Yes, we shall receive. But we must set aside any number of distractions in our culture if we are to look to the Lord for our request long enough to obtain a response.

In 1965, when I was teaching the fifth grade in the Walter Hays school in Palo Alto, I asked the Lord early one morning to enable me to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom wherever people breathe the air. Jesus had said, “Ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.” I believed that statement, and so I asked.

Extraordinary events have happened since that early morning prayer-walk. have preached the Gospel of the Kingdom to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, in books, the Internet, audio and video tapes, and radio and television programs. When I prayed that prayer in 1965, personal computers were not commonplace, nor was E-mail, nor was the Internet. These inventions have made possible the answer to that prayer. Also, I have been the full-time pastor of a Foursquare church, and have trained several people in the Kingdom of God who are well able to carry on my teachings.

If we hope to see the Body of Christ brought to maturity, and to hasten the appearing of the Lord Jesus, we have to persuade the people of God that their ministry is vital to the maturing of the Body.

Some people have found to their dismay that if they do not have sufficient potassium in their body they may become very ill, needing hospitalization. Yet no one knows about potassium until there is a problem. We know about our eyes, ears, hair, fingers, but we don’t know about potassium, most of us.

The same is true of the one Body of Christ. We may notice the pastors, teachers, and evangelists. But we know little or nothing about the members who have the “potassium” the Body of Christ needs to function. Not only do we not know about them, the believers whom the Lord would use as “potassium” have not sought the Lord fervently enough to receive the “potassium,” to know they have it, and to be sensitive to Christ so they know where and when to operate their ministry.

Thus the gifts and ministries of wisdom, knowledge, discernment, faith, apostles, prophets, helps, administration, and so forth are not serving. What are the believers doing to whom the Spirit would give such gifts and ministries? They are living the “normal” American life, going to church on Sunday, giving, perhaps serving their local assembly in some manner.

But the idea that their ministry is as important as that of their pastor is not known to them. They do not realize that if they pray long enough the Lord will hear them and give them a supernatural ability that will enable them to build the Body of Christ wherever the members of the Body happen to be, an ability their pastor simply does not have.

I am not suggesting we abandon the role of pastor or evangelist or teacher. This would not accomplish a thing. The priest-people mentality would find expression in some other pattern of Christian activity.

We can maintain the offices we are accustomed to. But we can make some small changes, like not giving the pastor a special parking place. Why should the pastor have a special parking place? It may be needed by some elderly believers.

Special clothing, surplices, cassocks, collars turned around, and so forth are destructive, if we wish to impress the believers that their ministry in the Body is as important as that of the pastor. This is what such ecclesiastical devices say: “I am holier than you. I am more important than you. God hears my prayers more than He does yours. You should work so you can support me, because I am your priest.” This is what we are saying when by our ecclesiastical trappings and customs we perpetuate the concept that the pastor somehow is closer to God than the rest of the believers.

It was true of the Jewish priesthood that they were holier than the people. But it is neither scriptural nor beneficial to carry the role of priest over to the Body of Christ. Very few believers will seek God for their ministry while they are regarding another believer as more important to God.

It is scriptural to honor the elders of a local assembly. Hopefully by their godly behavior the elders serve as models for the less experienced Christians. But the role of elders is to preserve order and dignity in the services. They are not supernaturally empowered to build up Christ in the believers, unless in addition to being an elder they have one or more of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit.

I would guess that it will be several years before God’s people are able to remove the priest-people concept from their thinking, and begin to seek God as though they actually are important in the coming to maturity of the Body of Christ. But until all the enablements of the Spirit of God are operating throughout the ranks of the disciples worldwide, there is no point in the Lord Jesus appearing. The Bible states that it is when the Lord builds up Zion that He shall appear in His Glory.


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