Becoming Established by Ministry Gifts
(week 21/09)
Olubi Johnson
The five-fold ministry gifts or anointings are:
1. Apostle
2. Prophet
3. Teacher
4. Pastor
5. Evangelist
The purpose of these anointings is to take sinners from the world, get them born-again into the church and develop them from spiritual babies, to little children, to young men and then to Fathers (1 Pet. 2.1; 1 Jn. 2.13-14) established in the revelation knowledge (2 Cor. 4.6) of measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
In this regard, these ministry anointings work together like a sequential factory production line:
The evangelistic anointing takes the ‘raw’ material: the sinner from the world and gets him born-again by the preaching and teaching of the ‘what’ of the elementary truths of the gospel (the new birth, baptism in water and in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, healing, deliverance, material and financial prosperity (Heb. 6.1-2)) and then passes him to the pastoral anointing;
The pastoral anointing feeds and nurtures the baby saint, with the ‘why’ of these elementary truths of the gospel and so causes him to start growing into a spiritual little child and then passes him on to the teaching anointing; The teaching anointing feeds the little child saint with the ‘how’ of these elementary truths of the gospel and so causes him to start growing into spiritual young manhood and then passes him to the prophetic anointing;
The prophetic anointing feeds the saint with the ‘what, why, when and how in principle‘ the advanced prophetic purposes of God for the saint to start to grow into the perfection of Christ and so causes him to start growing into spiritual fatherhood and then passes him on to the apostolic anointing;
The apostolic anointing feeds the saint with the ‘what, why, when and how in detail‘ of the advanced purposes of God to cause him to start becoming established in revelation of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Observe that the difference between the prophetic and apostolic anointings is the detail in the wisdom of God that the apostolic anointing gives: it is this extra detail that causes the saint to become to start becoming established in revelation of the advanced purposes of God: the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Romans 1:11 KJVR For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; So these five-fold anointings working together sequentially in this way cause the saints to grow from spiritual baby hood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:
Ephesians 4:11-16 ESV And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, (12) to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, (13) until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
It is for this reason these ministry anointings are listed in ascending order of operation as: evangelists: workings of miracles and gifts of healings; pastors: governments, diversities of tongues and interpretations of tongues; teachers; prophets and then finally apostles as shown in:
1 Corinthians 12:28 ESV (28) And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
So, to become established in the revelation knowledge of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we need to be spiritually fed and nurtured by these 5-fold ministry anointings sequentially as we grow spiritually.
In our article next week we will see how one man can have and grow into more than one anointing.
