A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Dr. Thomas W. Gillespie began his tenure as President of Princeton Theological Seminary on September 1, 1983. This article was first published in the Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 1, 1984, pp. 1-8. It appears here by permission.
For a decade now I have served as a member of our Presbyterian delegation to the Consultation on Church Union. It has been a rich and rewarding experience. With it, however, has come a big surprise. 1 have discovered that the most divine issue among the participating churches is not our theology of Scripture and Tradition. Neither is it our understanding of Creeds and Confessions, nor our theology of the Sacraments. It is not even our diverse liturgical practices. The most divisive issue among us is the nature of the ministry in the church.
Traditionally, in ecumenical conversations and elsewhere, this theme has been approached at the formal level of offices, orders, and ordination. In Roman Catholicism, for example, the point of departure until recently has been the priesthood with its clerical and hierarchical orders. In our Reformed tradition, despite its lip- service to the priesthood of all believers, the starting line has been the ministerial orders formulated by Martin Bucer at Strasbourg, implemented by John Calvin at Geneva, and modified a century later by the Westminster Assembly at London. Thus when a Presbyterian speaks of “the ministry” of the church, the usual reference is to our threefold ecclesiastical order of pastors and elders and deacons.
Let me state categorically that the traditional approach is the wrong approach. The ordained offices of the church are not the proper point of departure for a theology of the ministry. In support of this denial, I submit to you three considerations.
First, beginning our theology of ministry with the offices of the church leads inevitably to an unhealthy clericalism. The “clergy” are defined as that group within the church which by ordination has “a part” (Greek: hleros) in the ministry. The rest of the church is defined as the “laity” (Greek: laos), meaning the unordained “people” who have no part in the ministry. The church is thus divided into two distinct classes of believers if not into two separated castes. There are the ministers and there are those to whom these ministers minister. Where this ministry is conceived in terms of priestly functions, the people of God live in a two-storey house. The clergy occupy the “upstairs” and the laity the “downstairs.” A non-priestly version of the ministry, like our own, results in a “split-level” living arrangement. Here the staircase may be shorter, but the “upstairs/downstairs” mentality remains. What is ironic about all this is the fact that a theology of ministry is transformed into a sociology of status. I would argue that any theology of ministry that turns upon the question of status is by definition false doctrine.
The second consideration follows from the first. If beginning our theology of ministry with the offices of the church is an invitation to clericalism, the acceptance of this invitation results in a part where only a few are asked to dance. Without question, the scope of the church’s ministry is severely limited to the work of ordained officers. No matter how strongly we may advocate a “trickle down” philosophy of “Christian service,” the impression is given that the ministry belongs to the ordained. One layman put it graphically, “My task in the church is to show up, sit up, pay up, and shutup.” His name, I fear, is Legion—for he is many. Such a consequence “short-stops” the work of the Spirit, “short-sheets” the work of ministry, and “short-changes” the laos of God who are called to this task.
The third consideration is the criterion by which the two previous ones are viewed negatively. Put simply, it is this. Beginning our theology of ministry with the ordained offices of the church is not where the Bible begins. Our traditional doctrines of ministry have certainly appealed to the scriptures of the New Testament. Whether Episcopal or Presbyterian or Congregational in commitment, all ecclesiastical orders claim biblical warrant. Calvin, for example assumed that the New Testament sets forth a discernible pattern of offices that is both unified and binding. In order to discern this unity amid the bewildering variety of the textual data, however, he was compelled to engage in exegetical procedures that are highly questionable to our present standards. Yet Calvin believed he had faithfully represented the binding order established by God. Others from different traditions have shared Calvin’s assumption but have drawn conflicting conclusions. How do we explain this? New Testament scholars today argue that the conclusions are conflicting because the assumption is false. There is no unified and binding order of ministerial office in the New Testament They point instead to the evidence of diversity in this area and to the traces of development within the period represented by the canonical documents. In other words, diversity and development are the key terms in any consideration of ministerial order and offices within the canon. If we seek unity and continuity in a theology of ministry, we must begin where the New Testament itself begins.
Where that is may be stated clearly. The New Testament begins with the empowering of all believers by the Holy Spirit from baptism for participation in that ministry which belongs to the triune God. It is perhaps a sign of the times that we find a growing ecumenical consensus on this perspective. The two Tubingen theologians, Hans Kiing and Jurgen Moltmann, may be cited as evidence. Kiing, the Roman Catholic, begins his discussion of ministry precisely at this point in his volume on The Church. Moltmann, the Reformed theologian, follows the same line in his monograph, The Church in the Power of the Spirit. The ministry of the church is grounded in the ministry of God who shares it with the whole church for the sake of the entire world.
Let me illustrate the point by some exegetical remarks on 1 Corinthians 12. Here, if anywhere, we have Paul’s fullest single treatment of ministry in the church. The crux of the matter is set forth in verses 4-11. I cite if from the Revised Standard Version (with a few Greek terms thrown in for free):
Now there are varieties of gifts (charismata), but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service (diakonia) but the same Lord; and there are varieties of workings (energ- emata), but it is the same God who inspires (energein) them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. All these are inspired (energein) by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
The material theme of this passage is established in verse 7 as “the manifestation of the Spirit.” The question is where in the world is the Spirit manifest. Paul’s answer is that the Spirit is manifest in the Spirit’s work. That is why the verb energein is used twice in seven verses. The R.S.V. translates it by the English word “inspire,” but that is too weak. What the Greek verb means literally is “to work,” that is, to effect by action. Ministry is here defined in terms of the activity of the Spirit in and through the church.
But not the Spirit alone. This activity is the work of the Spirit, the work of the Lord, and the work of God. This clear trinitarian formulation anchors ministry in the work of the triune God. There is no place for a “unitarianism” of the Spirit or of the Son or of the Father in the apostle’s understanding of ministry. For it is grounded in the action of the triune God.
How Paul characterizes this divine activity is depicted by the three Greek nouns that I gave you in the reading of this text. Consider them in the reverse order of their appearance. There are “varieties of workings” (energemata). Of course! Energein is manifested in its energemata, the work in its workings, the act in its activity. What the apostle is telling us here is that when the triune God ministers something actually happens. And it happens because God is at work in the world.
There are also “varieties of service” (diakonia). Here our description of God’s working in terms of “ministry” finds its expression. It meets a genuine human need. And it does so at the price of self- abasement. That is what the term diakonia meant in the first century. If it signified social status, it was a lowly status, the status of the servant who waits on tables. Any theology of ministry that connotes any other kind of status cannot claim to be Christian. Ministry that is not diaconic is by definition not ministry.
Finally, there are also “varieties of gifts” (charismata). The workings of God is not only energetic and diaconic. It also is charismatic. Much mischief in the church of late has been perpetrated under the banner of this term. And it has been encouraged by the way charisma has been translated. Our English term “gift” suggests that something is given, turned over, or entrusted by one person to another. That, however, is not the meaning of charisma. Students of Greek will recognize that the word is formed by adding a mu- alpha suffix to the term charts, the word for “grace.” Grammatically, mu-alpha suffixes are used to convey the idea of the actualization of something. Here it is used to signify the actualization of grace. That is what charisma is — an actualization of the power of grace. In this context it means that God’s unmerited, undeserved, unearned love is actualized in the ministry of the triune God. And if we are to use these three terms as adjectives, then they are properly ascribable to God. It is the triune God, according to Paul, who is energetic, diaconic, and charismatic in ministry to and through the whole church.
Yes, the whole church. The membership becomes the medium of God’s ministry. “To each is given manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (12:7). “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, who distributes to each one individually as he wills” (12:11). Through this distribution of the Spirit’s ministry, every member becomes a co-worker with God. Every member stands in the service of God as a servant to the others in the church. And every member needs the ministry of the others. For this distribution of ministry in the freedom of the Spirit clearly implies that the Spirit works everything through no one person or group. If the apostle’s vision of ministry can be reduced to a slogan, surely it is this: “To each for the sake of all.”
This raises, of course, a crucial question. Does such a theology of ministry eliminate the need for orders and offices of ministry? Not according to Paul. For he proceeds in this passage to ground his theology of ministry in his theology of the church. The text continues:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit (12:12-13).
Paul’s point is that the context of the ministry of God is the church as the Body of Christ. The basis of this metaphor is the reality of the human body, a reality constituted by the unity of its diverse members. Each member serves a different function in the body and thereby serves the body as a whole. The coordination of these diverse functions Paul attributes to the genius of the body’s Creator. “For God has arranged the organs of the body, each one of them, as he chose” (12:18).
The Greek verb translated here as “arranged” is tithemi, and is not accidental that it appears again in the summary statement of this chapter where the reality of the human body is applied analogically to the reality of the church:
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed (tithemi) in the church first apostles, second apostles, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.
In other words, as God has ordered the organs of the human body in the freedom of his creative activity so also he has ordered the ministry of the church in his redemptive activity.
The order envisioned here gives a certain priority to the work of apostles, prophets, and teachers. The use of ordinals (first…, second …. third …) make that clear. The other ministries are important but follow in no particular order of importance. Why this should be so is evident from the common task of apostles, prophets, and teachers. They all share in the ministry of the Word, of the Gospel that creates the church and continues to create it. No doubt the apostles, prophets, and teachers enjoyed a certain status in the primitive Christian communities, but the emphasis here as elsewhere falls upon their function (their “ministry”) rather than upon their person. Like the vital organs of the human body, they are the vital organs of the Body of Christ. But a vital organ has no status apart from its function. Its service to the body is what makes it vital.
Now this embryonic ministerial order of First Corinthians undergoes development in the New Testament period. Ephesians declares that “grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (4:7). Specifically, however, “his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (4:11 -12). Here the initial threefold order of apostles and prophets and teachers has been expanded to include evangelists and pastors. Those who are convinced of the deutero-Pauline authorship of Ephesians would go further. Noting that the author speaks honorifically of “the holy apostles and prophets” (3:5), they argue that by this time the apostles and prophets are actually a memory of the past. The functioning order is now that of the evangelists, pastors, and teachers. However you may judge that opinion, two points are indisputable. Here we have a development of ministerial orders, and here again the orders arise out of the grace given to the entire community of faith and serve “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”
A more dramatic change, at least in terminology, appears in the Pastoral Epistles. The author of the two Letters to Timothy and the one to Titus speaks no longer of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. He speaks rather of bishops, elders, and deacons. Moreover, these functions are now clearly offices that require filling when vacated. We are looking in through the Pastorals at the transitional period which New Testament scholars refer to as “early Catholicism.” For here the foundation is laid for that division of official labour in the church which became the classical model in the second and third centuries. Roman Catholicism built its orders of bishops, priests, and deacons upon this foundation. And it was this development which was reinterpreted in the sixteenth century by the Reformed Church in terms of pastors, elders, and deacons.
Through this distribution of the Spirit’s ministry, every member becomes a co-worker with God.
Such developments should neither surprise nor dismay us. For it is the nature of bodies to develop. Change is the order of life in the body. What matters is not the continuation of certain descriptive titles of offices, but the maintenance of those functions which are vital to the life of the body. Thus Moltmann writes of “special charges assigned by the community and directed toward it,” special charges that “are necessary and of essential importance.” Without order of precedence or value, he lists the following:
(i) The charge to proclaim the gospel; (ii) the charge to baptize and celebrate the Lord’s supper; (iii) the charge to lead the community’s assemblies; (iv) the charge to carry out charitable work.
In other words, “What are essential for the community are: kerygma, hoinonia. and diakonia. For these the congregation needs preachers, presbyters, and deacons” (The Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit, p. 307).
But if the ministerial orders of the church are variable, both historically and situationally, the theology of ministry which informs those orders remains constant. The ministry of the church, properly speaking, belongs to the triune God who distributes the work of the Spirit to each and every member of the Christian community. Where God orders certain functions of that ministry for the sake of the Body of Christ, the resultant “special charges” represent the ministry of the whole church and serve to make the whole church effective in ministry. But where this ordering of ministry results in a class or caste system, where it divides the community into “clergy” and “laity,” where it separates those who have “a part” in the ministry from those who have no part in it, there the theology of ministry authorized by the New Testament is forsaken.
What then is the significance of ordination within such a vision of the ministry? The answer to this question, I think, is twofold. On the one hand, it has great significance with regard to the promise of God. Let me explain.
The term “ordination” does not occur in the New Testament with any reference to our understanding of it as an ecclesiastical rite. What we do find in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pastoral Epistles are a few references to “the laying on of hands” in connection with the undertaking of certain tasks and the assuming of certain offices. Two of the relevant verses in the Pastorals do, however, provide us with a theological connection between this rite that we now call ordination and the theology of ministry set forth by Paul in I Corinthians. One is 1 Timothy 4:14:
Do not neglect the gift (charisma) you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance when the council of elders laid their hands upon you.
The other is 2 Timothy 1:6-7:
Hence I remind you to rekindle the gift of God (charisma) that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a Spirit of timidity but a Spirit of power and love and self-control.
Here the Spirit’s empowering for ministry is associated with the ancient Jewish practice of “the laying on of hands” as an act of authorization for ministry. The question, however, is whether the rite confers the charisma or rather confirms the evident work of the Spirit.
Calvin appears to be ambivalent on this point. On the one hand, he says:
It is clear that when the apostles admitted any man to the ministry, they used no other ceremony that the laying on of hands. I judge that this rite derived from the custom of the Hebrews, who, as it were, presented to God by the laying on of hands that which they wished to be blessed and consecrated … The apostles, accordingly, signified by the laying on of hands that they were offering to God him whom they were receiving into the ministry (Institutes, IV, III, 16).
On the other hand, he follows this by stating:
However, they used it also with those upon whom they conferred the visible graces of the Spirit (Ibid.).
What Calvin means by this “conferring” of “the visible graces of the Spirit” comes to expression in a very surprising passage late in the Institutes. There he designates ordination as an extraordinary sacrament. Yes, I said a sacrament. Here are his words:
The imposition of hands, which is used at the introduction of the true presbyters and ministers of the Church into their office, I have no objection to consider as a sacrament; for, in the first place, that ceremony is taken from the Scripture, and, in the next place, it is declared by Paul to be not unnecessary or useless, but a faithful symbol of spiritual grace. I have not enumerated it as the third among the sacraments, because it is not ordinary or common to all believers, but a special rite for a particular office (IV, XIX, 28).
Calvin’s definition of a sacrament should be remembered at this point: a divine promise of spiritual grace confirmed by a visible sign. Quite evidently he views “the laying on of hands” as the sign which confirms “the grace of the Holy Spirit” that God promises to those whom he calls to ministry.
To the extent that we permit Calvin to influence our understanding of the Reformed theological tradition, we recognize a very high view of ordination here. But what exalts this view is the conviction of Calvin that ordination is “a faithful symbol of spiritual grace” for the work of ministry. Its purpose is not to convey the ordained person a special status within the community of faith but to confirm to the ordained person a special promise of the Spirit’s power for the ministry to which he or she has been called.
The reason why even such a high view of ordination confers no special status upon the ordained is the simple fact that our only status as Christians has already been conferred on us in baptism. Jurgen Moltmann puts it this way:
Even ordination, which takes place once and for all and determines the whole of life, makes no difference here, for the “call” event of baptism is already once and for all and determines the whole of life. Ordination, with its conferring of a particular charge, cannot enter into competition with baptism and cannot outdo it (Ibid., p. 308).
Another way of saying it that is faithful to the Pauline language tradition is that our lives are justified by grace through faith. Therein lies both our identity and our status. “The Spirit bears witness to our spirits that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). Because our identity and status are given to us through our believing, we do not need to seek either through our ministering. In our ministry we are free to serve the other. For this ministry belongs to God who is at work in the world through lives that are open to the power and presence of the Spirit.