Getting up to date?

Arrived last night at an old friend's house in Crewe. Janice Clarke who, together with her late husband Mel, was one of the key people at Bristo in the first part of our time there. Great to see her settled here in the South and now one of the leadership team in a local Pentecostal church. 

Interestingly, we arrived during a church meeting where a retired pastor was talking on Ephesians 4.11: it was good to sit and listen. And it got me thinking.

So often, when people talk of the 'fivefold ministry' in this one verse, they assume something contemporaneous - that all should be present and active at the same chronological period or time. But it doesn't say that. What about thinking of it diachronically - manifest across the centuries and in different 'layers' of time? The Eastern Orthodox would certainly assume such a reading. For the trouble of the non- conformist traditions is that we often lose a realistic sense of history as well as tradition.  

And there's another problem. I mean - have you ever met someone you could genuinely identify as an apostle? Certainly, I've met people who think of themselves in this way, but that's quite another matter. And the term, like the others in this passage, is so notoriously difficult to define. Aren't all Christians called to see themselves as 'sent out ones', caught up in the cascading  Mission of the God of Holy Love?

I much prefer the approach shared by Paul Ede in an e-mail this morning. Using a vocabulary of 'pioneer - innovator - developer - sustainer'. We have to be cautious in using Biblical language in a way that suggests we know precisely what we are talking about when we patently do not! Let's humbly acknowledge the truths of history and see ourselves and others in an affirming yet humbler role, using language appropriate to our culture and context.