Having established the foundation and 7 key pillars of our unity, the
Holy Spirit moves Paul to write about how we come to experience and grow
in those things as local communities of believers. Essential to this
growth is the role of people Christ gives as gifts to the churches for
that purpose: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
However there is some debate about the first two groups of people and
their role in the church today. We follow the train of thought through
the letter to the Ephesians as well as the general usage of these terms
and those roles in New Testament times to discover that the ministry of
apostles and prophets is as essential today as ever, but possibly not in
the form that some groups teach.
