The Equipping Ministry, Student Workbook, SW15

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T H E E Q U I P P I N G M I N I S T R Y

fulfillment of the teaching clause of the Great Commission (i.e., teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,” Matt. 28.19). Two other distinctives include the need to envision the teaching ministry as equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, and the protection of disciples from the threat of heresy, schism, dead orthodoxy, and spiritual immaturity. Jesus’ teaching involved the multitudes and the disciples in distinctive ways as he used both the language of imagery and direct discourse. The apostles followed his clear and compelling teaching of the Kingdom of God with their own commentary on the meaning of the Christ event for the Messianic community, the Church. By all accounts, the teaching ministry played a critical role in credentialing and empowering early Christian leaders and their congregations, defending the apostolic faith, and offering an apology for the Christian hope. Certain difficulties are present in our time with the teaching ministry, including the tendency to teach and follow modern trends of truth rather than the historic Christian faith, being overly dependent upon highly analytical and technical approaches to biblical truth, placing undue focus on methods and gimmicks rather than the heart of the Christian message, and substituting academic performance for dependence on the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We must recover the ministry of teaching (i.e., the ministry of equipping the saints for the work of the ministry) in our urban churches in order to build the Kingdom in our most vulnerable and neglected urban communities. The call to the teaching ministry is synonymous with a call to equip the saints for the work of the ministry (cf. Eph. 4.12). Like preaching, the ministry of the teacher is a divine calling, not a matter of study and scholarship alone, but of spiritual gifting and enablement from Christ. The teacher must learn to feed and lead others to discover the truth through dialogue and study, and above all else, must learn to rely upon the anointing and enablement of the Holy Spirit as they lead others to apply the truth. The “principle of character” in the teaching ministry suggests that who a teacher is in his or her character will sooner or later impact what they as a teacher say and do. A teacher must be a model as well as instruct in the

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