The ministry of the New Testament serving ones (ministers) is to announce Christ and to dispense and minister Christ with His riches to people to produce the local churches for the building up of the universal Body of Christ as the expression of the Triune God.
Recently, after several trainings the Lord has truly graced us in every way, and He truly has spoken to us, clearly revealing to us the new way that He wants us to take. I treasure this opportunity to have fellowship with you before I depart. I offer you the above verses as a farewell gift. I hope you will digest these verses in accordance with the spirit of the training, allowing this word to mingle with you in a marvelous way.
These verses mainly show us the ministers and the ministry of the New Testament. Ministers refers to persons, whereas ministry refers to the work. These two aspects are revealed in the New Testament, especially in the Epistles of the apostle Paul, for our attention. The first aspect is that God in His grace, through His redemption, and by His Spirit has raised up a group of people who love Him, who are willing to forsake everything for Him, and who set apart their time to serve Him. In the New Testament they are called ministers. A minister is one who serves. We who are called by the Lord are those who serve the Lord. Apparently, we serve men; actually, we serve the Lord. With what do we serve men? We serve today’s thirsty ones with Christ, with the gospel, with truth, with grace, and with the life supply. Therefore, we are the Lord’s serving ones. Such ones are ministers.
The other aspect is the ministry. The ministry is the one work we all are doing and the one commission we all bear together. In other words, ministers refers to us, the persons, while ministry refers to the commission we bear, the work we do.
What is the work of the ministry? This work is to announce to people the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8), and to enlighten all that they may see the mystery which has been hidden in God, who created all things (v. 9), in order that they may understand, accept, and together receive grace, resulting in the producing of the church. On the positive side, God uses the church for our perfecting. On the negative side, through the church God will make known His multifarious wisdom to the heavens, Satan, and all the fallen angels under Satan’s command (v. 10).
Ephesians 3:8 through 10 clearly shows us that we who are called by God, who bear God’s commission, and who do the work of Christ, on the one hand, have to supply people with the unsearchable riches of Christ, and on the other hand, we have to enlighten all that they may see the mystery, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things. The end, the final goal, is that through the preaching of the truth people will be raised up to produce the church so that the church may be expressed in every place, that people may receive grace and be perfected, making known the multifarious wisdom of God to Satan and the fallen angels.
To do the work of the ministry requires the grace of God. We cannot do this work by ourselves. This work is different from any common work because it is dealing not with any kind of philosophy or doctrine but with the mystery hidden in God. The work of the ministry is to announce to people the unsearchable riches of Christ and to enlighten them that they may see the hidden mystery of God, and to produce the church for perfecting people to make known the multifarious wisdom of God. We cannot do this work by our natural ability or by acquired learning. Rather, we need the grace of God.
Regarding this grace, we may suppose that only the apostle Paul was able to receive it and that since we are smaller than Paul, we are not qualified. However, in Ephesians 3:8 Paul told us that he was less than the least of all saints. This indicates that since Paul was able to receive such grace, every one of us who is saved can also receive the same grace. When we have this grace, we can go forth with Christ and be full of light to make known the mystery of God. Our going to every nation is to announce the riches of Christ to people and to reveal to them the mystery of God that the churches may be produced in every nation and in every place. This is what the grace of God enables us to do. I believe that in the coming days the grace of God will be with us more abundantly, causing us to do the same work that Paul did.