{"id":23555,"date":"2014-01-08T17:23:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T17:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/?p=23555"},"modified":"2025-10-14T15:55:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T14:55:31","slug":"what-is-the-fivefold-ministry-how-do-apostles-prophets-evangelists-pastors-and-teachers-function","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2014\/01\/what-is-the-fivefold-ministry-how-do-apostles-prophets-evangelists-pastors-and-teachers-function\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the fivefold ministry? How do apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers function?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Terry Virgo has spent decades planting churches and releasing ministries to support and strengthen the body so all can carry out the works of ministry. This fantastic video is his wisdom distilled into a single session. Here are a few highlights to draw you in to watch the rest:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shepherd is a key biblical picture. Relational. Belonging\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cThe shepherds, overseers, elders, bishops, pastors are all interchangeable words for those responsible to care for the flock.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cJeremiah tells us God will give us shepherds after his heart who will teach us. Must really have both. No good to just love books or people.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cThe needs to be a team of pastors and teachers who feed and care for the flock.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cPeople get saved on a fragment of truth.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cYou health isn\u2019t the way you get born it\u2019s the health of the family you join. People come with worldly values. These need to be replaced\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cPastors and teachers shape lives and help others shape lives. Rearrange thinking\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cTeachers explain the gospel, evangelists announce it. Billy Graham said when he invited people to come he felt the power of God on him.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cThere are Lots of different kinds of evangelists. Some are very good at helping people learn to share the gospel one to one.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cNot every evangelist is a platform man. We need the diverse ministries. The evangelist reaps but also inspires us to reap\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cThe NT is not very clear what the prophet is. OT prophet speaks for God. Eg Aaron & Moses. Joel now says the Spirit is on all.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cThere are three categories: 1. all may prophesy eg Acts 19, 1 Cor 14 Demonstrates we are the dwelling place of God. The mark of the NT church.\u00a0\u00a02. Those who tend to prophesy regularly. 3. prophets. Eg Agabus.<\/li>\n
Prophecy is foundational. There are only a few actual prophets. Must be weighed. Authority in NT lies with the others who are to test the words.<\/li>\n
\u201cThe prophet brings the immediacy of the Word to today. Lives with a passion. A burden. Not expositional. A plumb-line.\u201d<\/li>\n
\u201cOnce A W Tozer died he could now be called a prophet! Since his death people refer to Lloyd-Jones as all five of these words!\u201d<\/li>\n
There are four different categories of apostles: Jesus, the Twelve, Paul, others. Never just the 12.<\/li>\n
\u201cSome say that now we have epistles we don\u2019t need apostles\u201d their task wasn\u2019t to simply write Scripture. Most didn\u2019t write any!\u201d<\/li>\n
Apostles play a foundational role: a wise master builder. The architect. Define who we are. Need to do this for the local church (1 Cor 3)<\/li>\n
1 Cor 3:10 speaks of Paul laying a specific foundation in a specific group of people. We still need that today.<\/li>\n
All men and women are meant to do all the works of ministry outlined in Eph 4. Not just a select few doing the work.<\/li>\n
Too often it\u2019s about personal relationship with God, personal evangelism, etc. But God wants the corporate. The ministries must get right in<\/li>\n
It\u2019s time to stop arguing about whether apostles exist today and get on with it. Here is the biblical pattern let\u2019s live by it!\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/iframe>\n<p>Download the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/jubileechurchlondon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/131123session2.mp3\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">mp3<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Terry Virgo has spent decades planting churches and releasing ministries to support and strengthen the body so all can carry out the works of ministry. This fantastic video is his wisdom distilled into a single session. Here are a few highlights to draw you in to watch the rest: \u201cThe shepherd is a key biblical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[526,578,528,475,543,562,527,598],"class_list":["post-23555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terry-virgo","tag-apostles","tag-billy-graham","tag-charismatic","tag-church-2","tag-leadership","tag-prophecy","tag-prophets","tag-terry-virgo"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>What is the fivefold ministry? 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My qualifications and training reflect this integrated background: \u2192 British MB BS medical degree (equivalent to an MD in the USA) \u2192 Postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed) \u2192 Theological training courses run by Newfrontiers","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/adrianwarnock"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/author\/awarnock\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}