God has His own way that is better than the ways that the human mind would dream up. God will not compromise and do His works our way. God's Own Way Is The Scriptural Order That Is Now Restored To The Church.

It isn't a matter of being picky of laying down a law. It's a matter of walking in the Spirit. All who walk in the Spirit are led and given spiritual power to follow the patterns of Scripture. Those patterns, in themselves, are for the purpose of bringing us to perfection. Notice the following Scripture.

Ephesians 4:11-16 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love.

When God first filled me with His Spirit, the Scripture opened up to me. I was still subject to making errors as before, but things changed. I was a new person. I saw the orders of Scripture. I saw the power of God, the miracles, the amazing things in the Bible, and they became real to me. When I went to my pastor, he said that these things no longer apply. He said that this was all for something he called, "the apostolic age." I didn't find anything about an apostolic age in my Bible and I knew that God has ordained a church that is governed by God-set apostles.

This order found in Ephesians 4 and throughout the Bible has been restored. Though it may be imperfect and incomplete, God will see it through. The Church will be restored by God and the Church will be a spotless bride to Christ.

Only Christ can do any edifying. In understanding Ephesians 4:12-16, you must go back to the main verb, edoken, in verse 11. Christ gave the gifts. He gave the office of apostle. He gave the four ministries. Those gifts are not the persons but the Christ in those persons, as another passage says, "Christ in us, the hope of glory." The text cannot be read any other way than to understand that these gifts are performing all of this work as the gifts proceed from Christ. Grace means, literally, free gift. This is grace, and we know from Scripture that it is grace that does any work that is done. In fact, God could give no greater gift, so He gave us of Himself. He chooses to do it through apostles, ones sent. He chooses to not use those who send themselves or who are sent by men. It is plain from the Greek that it is not gifted people who do any of this work, but rather the Gift Himself does the work through the members. This is true whether it is the apostle who is totally equipping and completing the member or the member who is now also moving in the power and authority of the same gift. When any member comes into submission to the apostle, that person carries the same anointing and authority of the apostle just as long and to the extent that they are in submission. They are not submitting to a man but to Christ Himself. If you can discern the Body of Christ, you will see this. If you see this, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but your Father in Heaven has revealed it.

You can go many places on the internet, on Christian radio, or in the religious world where you will find people twisting this Scripture. They will twist "apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;" into "teacher/pastors", or "pastor/teacher", or "evangelists, pastors, teachers", or some other misquote. It is evil to twist the traveling elders and deacons, the apostles, into locally abiding pastors. Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about locally abiding pastors. There are locally abiding elders who pastor (care for the church as a shepherd does sheep) the members, and those men receive no money for what they do. They receive a double measure of honor. The Bible says what it says. The Scripture cannot be broken. Satan hates the Bible and he hates God's church and the orders of God's church. If you see someone doing this, run, do not walk, away.

There is only a remnant who can receive this order. The Church has been corrupted. There are many ego-driven pastors in the pastor system, and they have their money, power, and prestige coming to them. They have their investments in the orders and spirit of the present evil age and have not time for the age which is to come.

How about you? Can you see that this is true? There may be a Church meeting near you in the orders of Scripture. If not, perhaps you would be better off starting a small prayer group in your home rather than going to a disorderly Church. You can do this under the direction of the apostolic ministry. If you do, it is likely that elders will become evident in your group after a while. They will be humble men, not desiring to make money by it, but willing to give themselves in service.