Mark

Cheryl,

Again i have never said i don’t believe in a gift named ‘teaching’ nor have i said there are two types of teaching gifts. Please stop with the assumptions that i am never saying. What i did say, is that the Pastor and teaching gifts are correlated in Eph, so it is wrong to only focus on a ‘teacher’ and not understand it in relation to Paul’s listing, which here in Eph he has incorporated it with a pastor. It now seems to me that you somewhat agree with what i said, where as previously you were trying to use teacher as stand alone by citing Eph 4:11. If you wish to do that then 1 Cor 12 is a far better text to discuss rather than Eph 4. To ignore the way Paul has correlated the two until someone picks you up on it is not very good.

I understand that there is no word ‘office’ listed in the greek. It is helpful however to use a term such as it to portray accurately the Nt teachings. For example there was an apostolic office, which not all apostles were given. Let me explain, the twelve had an apostolic ‘office’ as did Paul, which had certain authority in establishing the early churches, yet an ‘apostle’ were people who saw the teachings and works of Jesus. For example when the disciples replaced Judas, they chose someone who had been there from the beginning. So there is a distinction between an apostle( someone who was there from the beginning) and the apostolic ‘office’. So i have no problem talking about an office of ‘elder’ as it is helpful in translating the NT teaching accurately.

Again i never said that an elder is a pastor. What i did say is that they both are told to ‘shephard’ the church. A pastor in my opinion is an elder with the gift of teaching. Do you believe that a pastor is seperate in responsibility than an elder? DO you believe women can be elders?

you said about me “It is not faithful in my opinion to disregard the gift of teacher in Ephesians 4:11.”

Where have i ever disregarded the gift of teacher? Or is this another assumption of yours? I simply pointed out how Paul correlates the gift of teacher with gift of pastor in Eph 4, which you are now agreeing with.

again you said “But you deny that prophesying is teaching”

I have never said such a thing. Quite the opposite really. Again what i did say is that prophesying is not the same teaching as that of a teacher/pastor/elder or whatever else. Remeber how i said we are taught in various ways but they are not all the same. IT is you who is being unfaithful by saying that pastoring/teaching/prophesying are all the same. I have simply used the bible to show where you were wrong.

Now about 1 Cor 12! First of all i don’t believe it is a less ‘teacher’ than Eph 4. Second the reason why Paul numbers the gifts and instructs the corinthians to desire the higher gifts is because they are more beneficial to the church, where as the corinthians over-realised eschatology and emphasis on ‘tounges’ was misguided.

Now many scholars believe that that the apostolic and prophetic gifts ended at the completion of the canon. LIke i said previously this is something i have not done alot of study on. However the thrid gift ‘teaching’ most agree is still given by the Spirit. Some believe that evangelists and pastors fall under the banner of ‘teacher’ because of Eph 4 listing. From what i have read on this i would somewhat agree. What ever the case i do believe in the gifting of ‘teacher’ but do not believe it is the same as a prophet.

Finally to answer your final question. I dont know why Paul said Pastor and teacher rather than the other alternatives, im not Paul. What is clear though is that they are seperate gifts but should be understood as closely tied together. The two gifts are similar and both vitally important for the ministry of the church. We shouldn’t mash the two nor should we seperate them extensively.