The Source Of The Gifts – Messiah

We have a tremendous unity; but in this unity there is a diversity of gifts, abilities and positions. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Messiah’s gift: There are a variety of gifts, but they all come from the same source – Messiah. It is our great and anointed Prophet, Priest and King who, out of His abundant, infinite wealth, gives gifts to His community. Our gifts come from His amazing His grace, His favor that we have not earned and do not deserve.

The Effort It Took To Bring Us The Gifts

Some gifts are given with greater ease than others. It wasn’t easy or convenient for Messiah to bring us His gifts. Therefore it says, “when He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.” The Rabbi from Tarsus quotes Psalm 68. In this song the Lord is described as being present with Israel after the Exodus from Egypt. He marched through the wilderness with us. He fought with us. He empowered us to have victory over our enemies. He brought us into the Land of Israel, settled us there, and made the land prosper. Then He returned to Heaven.

As the great Conqueror, He made many of His enemies captives and they followed His triumphal procession – like the Gibeonites who served at the Tabernacle! The wealth of the enemy became the Lord’s. He received gifts that He was then able to His Jewish people – gifts of land and people and animals and gold and silver and other precious things.

Paul reads this Psalm and applies it to Messiah. Messiah also is the Lord. He also came down from Heaven to be with us and do battle for us. He fought for us, by taking on a human body, living a sinless life, resisting every temptation, doing battle with the forces of darkness, and dying on the cross. Because of His sinless life, God raised Him from the dead. Through His incarnation, sinless life, death to atone for sin, and resurrection, He has utterly defeated His enemies!

He has taken captive those who were His former enemies – like Saul of Tarsus. Now He can take the wealth of those who were His former enemies, and give their wealth (themselves, their lives, along with all their talents, skills, abilities and wealth) to give to His people – the Church. Messiah’s former enemies are now His gifts to His Holy Community. How is that for redemption? How is that for cool?

(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the Earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) Messiah came from Heaven and descended to the Earth, and descended even to Sheol, and from there He rose. He ascended, out of Sheol, from the Earth, from the Mount of Olives; He ascended through the clouds, and rose above all the various levels of the heavens to the Highest Heavens.

Why? What motivated Messiah to leave the glories of Heaven, descend, and then ascend? Why make this great and painful trip? The answer is to fill – to fill what was empty because of sin and death; to redeem, to bring a shattered universe under His benevolent control; to fill the universe with His love; to fill the universe with His godly and benevolent leadership; to make those who were alienated from God, and those who were His enemies, those who had no hope, those who would die forever, God’s beloved and eternal sons and daughters; to fill the universe with redemption, salvation and blessing!

Messiah’s Five Gifts To His Community

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. Good leaders are God’s gifts to us, and they are very important. They keep the body functioning correctly. They keep the community growing. They keep the community within the truth. They know the Lord, and they know they truth, and teach it. They see error and correct it. They build us up with the truth and confront us when we are going astray. They aren’t afraid to bring needed correction.

They set examples for us of right priorities, right living and when need be, right suffering. Where there is persecution, generally it is the leaders who are attacked first.

A good leader inspires us, strengthens us, and encourages. A good leader helps us grow in our knowledge of God; a good leader helps us achieve stability in our faith; a good leader helps us to live the right way. Good leaders are God-ordained instruments to help us reach our potential as the sons and daughters of God.

You want to be submitted to good leaders. It is foolish and detrimental to you, and diminishes the rest of the community, if a Believer is not part of a community and submitted to good leaders.

Here are the five leadership gifts that Messiah has given to us:

Apostles: it means those who are sent, like an emissaries or an ambassador. This is someone who is specifically chosen by Messiah and sent by Him to us. When the New Testament uses the word apostle, it means the 12 originally chosen by Yeshua, with Judas later replaced by Matthias, along with the addition of Paul. The qualifications to be an apostle were that a man (never a woman) followed the Lord, knew the truth and was an eye-witness of the resurrected Messiah.

Since he was sent by the Son of God, an apostle carries great authority. His purpose was to testify to Yeshua’s reality, and His miracles and His teaches, and especially to His death, burial and resurrection. The apostles were able to integrate the teachings of the Tenach with the teachings of Yeshua. The apostles, or their direct assistants, wrote the New Testament. The apostles established the Church. The apostles raised up leaders to equip the Church. Tradition tells us that the apostles went out from Israel and brought the message of salvation to many other nations,

Are there apostles and super-apostles today who have the same level of authority as those in the First Century? No way! Someone today who does something similar to the apostles in the First Century, but doesn’t have the same authority, would be a missionary who goes to an area and pioneers a new church or group of churches and establishes leaders for those congregations.

Prophets: A prophet is someone who clearly hears from God, and then communicates the things he hears accurately to those the Lord wants those things communicated. Prophets have great spiritual understanding. They are close to the Lord. They may wield great spiritual authority. Are there New Covenant prophets today? While there may be, and we should be open to the possibility that there are (and there definitely will be prophets in the Last Days), I personally don’t know of any, and I don’t think I have ever met one. Most of the ones who I have heard of who claim to be prophets – I doubt are genuine prophets. We are specifically told that in the Last Days there will be many false prophets who will deceive many, so be very cautious when it comes to those who claim to be prophets.

Evangelists: This is someone who has a passion for and is good at evangelism. His gift is used to build up the community by declaring the truth about Messiah to those who are not yet believers, and bringing non-believers into the community. He may build up the community by teaching others how to do evangelism.

Pastors: This is a man who is equipped to lead the community. Synonyms are elders, bishops and overseers. I like what Charles Ryrie tells us: the elder is the principle official in a local church, was called by the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:28), recognized by other elders (1 Timothy 4:14), and qualified according to the standards found in 1 Timothy 3:1-7. His duties include ruling (1 Timothy 5:17 – including receiving payment for his efforts), pastoring or shepherding the flock (Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5:2); guarding the truth (Titus 1:9); and general oversight of the work, including finances (Acts 11:30). It is a position that is reserved for men. He needs to be able to lead, having proven his leadership by doing a good job a leading his own family. He is the husband of one wife. All elders need to know the Word of God, but some are better teachers than others. Some are less gifted as teachers and more gifted at being good leaders of people. Not all elders are dynamic teachers.

Teachers: This is someone who has an ability to know the Word of God, and be able to clearly explain it. He may give his teaching orally or he may write it down. Commentaries are the works of teachers who write their teaching down. If they are truly gifted teachers, their commentaries are a gift from the Lord to us. Do not dismiss or make fun of “commentaries.” A teacher is not necessarily a pastor.

The Purpose Of The Gifts

They are for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Messiah. First, leaders equip the community. The leaders’ work is not to do all the work by themselves, but to help each and every member of the community become able to do what they need to do, so that all of us are doing some of the work that needs to be done, so that each one is serving the Lord and the Community. Are you serving in some way, either outside the community, through evangelism, or inside the community through some kind of service? It’s my job to make sure that you are.

Second, the leaders that Messiah blesses us with help in the process of reaching maturity. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Messiah. Leaders must be mature men themselves. They must have age, wisdom and experience. They must have a mature understanding of the truth. They must have a good understanding of the Word of God. They must know the truths, the core doctrines of the Faith. They must be absolutely certain in their knowledge of Messiah. They must know exactly who He is (the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah, fully God, fully man, the Second Person of the Trinity, who came in the flesh, died and rose from the dead, and is alive now and seated at the right hand of God the Father). They help us become mature Christians and Messianic Jews who are firm in the Faith, so that we know and believe the truths of the faith, and especially who Messiah is.

And because we are being taught the same truths, and because we share the same Messiah, our common faith bring us unity. It unites us. It keeps us together. We might differ on minor points of doctrine (certain matters of eschatology, the mode of baptism for example), but on the major truths (the Trinity, the Inspiration and Inerrancy of the Bible, the Fall of Man, the Second Coming, Messiah’s Virgin Birth, His Resurrection, the reality of Heaven and Hell and angels and demons) we are be united. We are to strive for unity with other Believers whenever possible without jeopardizing the core doctrines of the Faith.

The Results Of The Gifts

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. It is the nature of a child to be immature. A child is immature in his knowledge, and as a result, he is unstable. He too easily goes from thing to thing. When I was an impressionable teenager, I would read a book on some philosophy or religion, and find myself being overly influenced by some of the ideas, and carried along in that new direction. Then I would read another book on some other philosophy or religion, and start going in that direction. I was immature. I was too impressionable. I was like a small sailing ship on the ocean, tossed here and there by winds and waves of various teachings.

Because they lack knowledge and wisdom, children are easily manipulated by crafty, tricky, liars and schemers. And there are all kinds of deceivers in the world, and who have infiltrated the Church – those who will manipulate you for their own ends.

When I was younger, I was financially scammed a few times. Here is a recent scam that may destroy the finances of millions: Option Adjustable Rate Mortgages. This is from the current Issue of Business Week. The title of the article is Nightmare Mortgages. “They promise the American Dream: A home of your own with ultra low rates and payments anyone can afford. Now, the trap has sprung. For cash strapped homeowners, it was a pitch they couldn’t refuse: Refinance your mortgage at a bargain rate and cut your payments in half. New home buyers, stretching to afford something in a super heated market, didn’t even need to produce documentation, much less a downpayment.

Those who took the bait are in for a nasty surprise. While many Americans have started to worry about falling home prices, borrowers who jumped into so called option ARM loans have another, more urgent problem: payments that are about to skyrocket. The option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) might be the riskiest and most complicated home loan product ever created. With its temptingly low minimum payments, the option ARM brought a whole new group of buyers into the housing market, extending the boom longer than it could have otherwise lasted, especially in the hottest markets. Suddenly, almost anyone could afford a home or so they thought. The option ARM’s low payments are only temporary. And the less a borrower chooses to pay now, the more is tacked onto the balance.

The bill is coming due. Many of the option ARMs taken out in 2004 and 2005 are resetting at much higher payment schedules often to the astonishment of people who thought the low installments were fixed for at least five years. And because home prices have leveled off, borrowers can’t count on rising equity to bail them out. What’s more, steep penalties prevent them from refinancing. The most diligent home buyers asked enough questions to know that option ARMs can be fraught with risk. But others, caught up in real estate mania, ignored or failed to appreciate the risk… they’ll soon be confronted with the choice of coughing up higher payments or coughing up their home. The option ARM is ‘like the neutron bomb,’ says George McCarthy, a housing economist at New York’s Ford Foundation. ‘It’s going to kill all the people but leave the houses standing.’”

Bad as being taken by a crafty scheme to separate you from your money, that is much better than being tricked into false destructive teaching, that separates you from the truth, and maybe even separates you from God! If the truth sets you free and saves you, then serious religious error keeps you enslaved to sin, Satan and death and helps condemn you! But we are not to be immature, unstable, easily manipulated, confused about the truth, taken in by the schemes of corrupt men – even if they are religious. We are to listen to good leaders. We are to know the truth, and be firm in the truth.

But speaking the truth in love: Leaders speak the truth to us. We learn the truth from them, and then we speak the truth to each other – even if it hurts. We love someone enough to tell them the truth, motivated by love, desiring to help the person we are talking to.

As we learn the truth, and speak the truth, we will grow in the right way. We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Messiah. We look to our Supreme Leader, Messiah Yeshua, who is the Perfect Man – as our role model for everything. We imitate Him – especially His values, His character and His priorities. Messiah is our head. We are His body. He is on top. We are below. He is in charge. He has the right ideas. His ways are the right ways. We look to Him for direction.

If each individual in Messiah’s community is really attached to Messiah, and is growing and becoming more like Messiah, and is submitted to good leadership, and is serving in a local community, then each one will function as he should, and the whole community will grow the way it should, and function the way it should: From whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

The community, headed by Messiah, gifted with godly leaders, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, with members of the community fulfilling the tasks the Lord sets for them, will be full of love and truth and good character, helping each other, reaching the lost, and accomplishing what together the Lord would have us do. May Shema Yisrael be such a community! May all the churches and congregations of God throughout the world be such communities!

Amayn? Amayn!