Everyone agrees Christians are supposed to serve. The question this episode asks is different: did we accidentally turn the pastor into a trainer instead of a minister, and is that even biblical? Who should actually be ministering?

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Joshua Lewis, Michael Miller, and Michael Rowntree examine T. David Gordon's 1994 ETS paper (link below) that Ephesians 4:11-12 has been misread for decades. Gordon doesn't question whether ordinary Christians should serve. He questions whether the ordained minister was ever supposed to be a trainer at all, or whether that reading caught on because it fit American egalitarian, populist instincts more than it fit the text.

We're exploring Gordon's grammar, his word study, and his provocation about American church culture, and testing all three against Scripture ourselves. Does his argument hold up, or does he overreach? And if his proposition holds, what does that mean for churches built on the idea that pastors only equip the saints?

GORDON'S PAPER:
https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/files_JETS-PDFs_37_37-1_JETS_37-1_069-078_Gordon.pdf