I wrote the following story as a part of an ongoing discussion in my Doctor of Ministry program at George Fox University as to whether the letters to the Ephesians was an ad hoc letter, i.e., written to take care of local problems, or a universal letter, i.e., suggestive of a timeless model for the church to follow. The conversation centered around verse 11 of Ephesians 4 (a five-fold ministry or a four-fold ministry) with some suggestion of a tool to help folks in the church discover what giftings they have.
It was a muggy afternoon in Ephesus as Paul approached the Hall of Tyrannus for his four or so hour time with the church at Ephesus. He was rather tried this specific day because he had been up for many previous nights working with a legion of scribes preparing a “new tool” for the church at Ephesus, not to mention his tent making job every morning and evening.
As he entered the hall that day he was a bit anxious. He had created a tool and had it reproduced by the scribes on many pieces of papyri that he was going to walk through with the church at Ephesus that afternoon to help them discover which of the four gifts he had been talking about that they might possess.
He knew in his heart that he would one day bear his "soul" and write a universal letter to ever church that he was going to plant and to the churches unto the ages. This seemed like such a strange thought to him because he had not yet set down and made a five year plan. Up to this point he had helped Barney in Antioch of Syria and had team planted a few churches in the Galatian area. He was stressed about such a thought because he believed that he was going to be alive when Jesus returned. The idea that a universal book was his life’s destiny so that the church of the ages could function with this model was strange indeed.
Of course today he was interested in helping the church at Ephesus to understand which of these four gifts they had been given. As a pre cursor to his universal idea he had written a sentence listing the giftings and then provided a definition for each from which he had written some questions. His sentence construction help his listeners and readers to understand that there were only four giftings in this structure. However, he wondered if others would take his idea and alter his definitions so that when their churches took the fantastic Spirit-led tool and filled it out they might end up thinking they were gifted in ways that they were not gifted, not to mention that some readers might be confused about the number of gifts.
Alas, these thoughts had to be placed on hold. The time had arrived for this charismatic congregation to use this newly devised reductionistic tool to help them understand what the Spirit was doing. It seem more muggy than usual as Paul began to pass out the papyri trying not to drop his sweat on the document and blur the ink just incase in some future time one of these documents might surface to help the church of whatever century continue this noble task of using tools.
Posted by drwinn at April 11, 2004 09:25 AM