The Elijah Mandate  

People of God, we really got to get right concerning this subject. There has been alot of confusion about this especially if apostles and prohets are for today. We see the evangelist, pastor, and teacher in the church but sad to say we don't see many apostles and prophets in the church. According to Ephesians 2:20 the apostles and the prophets are foundation laying ministries. The church is supposed to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Anything other than that is a false order, incomplete, and limited in what can be produced for the kingdom of God. It is clearly shown in the word of God that all five gifts belong in the community of believers we call the church. There is no support in the word of God that states that apostle and prophets are not for today and that those gifts were to cease over a lenth of time.

Ephesians 4:11 "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evagelists; and some, pastors and teachers;"

Now we know that all of these ministry gifts were present in the early church. God never said that this was to change so what gives us the right to change the divine order of God and say that it's not for today because of our present day ignorance towards the obvious in the word of God? Now we are going to find out what makes up these ministry gifts.

APOSTLE: Come from the greek word "apostolos" meaning a delegate, one sent with full power of attorney to act in place of another. Now the sender remains behind to back up the one sent. When you are given power of attorney, you not only act for the person but you also have the right to act as that person also. The apostle not only does things on the behalf of God but he or she does things as God. This does not make them God. The apostle is the totally ministry of God. How else can the church be led like its supposed to. Since the apostle is a foundation ministry as stated earlier and backed by scripture, we can now better understand the role of an apostle. The apostle is one who can establish new churches ( not bishops) bringing correction to error by establishing proper order and structure ( as seen in the first epistle to the corithian church), and act as an oversight ministry ( seen in 1 Cor.4:15,  2Cor:11:28). An apostle is an overseer of churches as stated so well in 2 Corinthians 11: 28. Apostles have a reveletory anointing along with the prophet according to Ephesians 3:5. Apostles are also the visionaries of the church as Paul referred to himself as "a wise master builder" in 1 Corinthians 3:10.

Signs and wonders followed the ministry of the apostle as well as stated so many time in the word of God.So the apostle should be the dominate anointing in the church not the pastor because the pastor does not have the grace to do that which an apostle does. If God has called you to start a church or oversee other churches you are an apostle, WALK IN IT. Stop calling yourself one thing when you are performing the function of another. An apostle can do things as God because they are the highest ranking authority in the church. Jesus is the head of the church but that headship has to be demonstrated through someone. It does not make the person God but remember the meaning of the power of attorney. The apostle has the total ministry of God and has all of the ministry gifts of God.

PROPHET: In the greek the word is "prophetes" meaning a foreteller or an inspired speaker. A prophet is one who speaks the mind and counsel of God. They may speak this to individuals, churches, businesses, or nations. A prophet was also called a seer especially in the old testament and that function of the prophetic ministry still has not changed. This shows that the prophet has immediate intercourse with God. The prophet or seer was sought out to counsel and guidance. Whatever God does He does not do it in the earth unless He reveal it to the prophet ( Amos 3:7). A prophet is to always point the people back to God by speaking the mind and counsel of God. A prophet is able to rebuke and speak judgement as so many times we see all throught the word of God. A prophet also has a watchman anointing. This anointing is demonstrated in intercessory prayer alot and a person watches in the spiritual realm to see any coming dangers ahead. They stay in the presence of God in continual fellowship with Him as also the apostle because these are foundation ministries. A prophet is a spiritual guide. The prophet speaks on the behalf of God as the apostle speaks as God.

EVANGELIST: This word in the greek is "euangelistes" meaning a preacher of the gospel. The job of the evangelist is to preach (proclaim) the gospel to unbelievers. The ministry of the evangelist is directly to the lost and a real evangelist does not deviate from that, PERIOD. An evangelist is not someone who goes from church to church preaching like most religious minded leaders teach, especially baptist people. This is a totally incorrect definition of what an evangelist does. Those that teach that need to get their doctrine straight. An evangelist is a proclaimer (preacher) of the gospel to the unsaved. That's where the anointing of an evangelist is effective. If you never minister to the lost but you're up in the church all the time then don't call yourself an evangelist. You're not worthy to hold the title of evangelist if you're not doing the work of an evangelist. Lets look at the ministry of Philip who the bible calls an evangelist. Those who call yourselves evangelists, I'm going to give you the foundation of your ministry right here according to the word of God. Philip demonstrated a strong demesion of evangelistic anointing.

Every evangelist should pattern themselves after the ministry of Philip. His ministry was at a time of great persecution of the church and he went down to the city of Samaria ( where the lost were ) and preached (proclaimed) the gospel to them ( Acts 8:5). Philip (the evangelist) moved in miracles (verse6), cast out devils and healed the sick (verse7), had supernatural encounters with angels (verse26), heard clearly from the Lord and had revelation knowledge (verse29), had supernatural encounters with different realms of the spirit of God and one of those encounters caused Him to be supernaturally translated to another place (verse26,40), Philip even did one on one evangelism (verse26-38), he also baptised those that believed (verse36-38). You see now? The ministry of the evagelist is strictly towards the lost. It's hard to win the lost when you're up in the church house every sunday. Go out there where the lost are and start evangelizing. How are you going to be an evangelist and not win any souls? I'm still confused about that one. An evangelist is anointed to win the lost. Well what if some don't believe? If you were operating in the authority and power that God has called you to like Philip did then that wouldn't be a problem as seen in the word of God.

PASTOR: In the greek this is "poiment" meaning one who tends herds or flocks, translated pastor. I'm going to have fun talking about this because this function has been severely mistaught in the body of Christ. A pastor is someone who tends to the spiritual needs of the people. This involves teaching them and alot of one on one time as well. How can you help someone grow if you don't spend time with them. I'm getting ready to redefine the role of the pastor. Now we also see the words elder and bishop also. These two name are talking about the same function of pastor. We see the word pastor mentioned only once in the new testament. But we see that the word elder/bishop sums up the function of the word pastor. A shepard tends sheep. The word tend means to manage, operate, and to be directed to or towards. Management involves oversight and personal accountabiliy for making sure that the people of God are being fed what they need.

Pastors are responsible for the spiritual well being of the people. There is nothing in scripture that supports that the pastor/elder/bishop ( same thing) is responsible in any way for leader the whole church body as a whole. The scripture does not support a pastor being over a church. In the bible it was always apostles leading the church. The pastor does not have the grace to lead a whole community of believer and set it in order. A pastor is not a visionary. Shepards are among their sheep. The so called senior pastor, as we call it (which is unbiblical), can't reach everyone. It's not the job of the set man of the house to reach the people. If you study how the apostles led, you see that they were the ones who pastored the leaders (elders, pastors bishops) so the leaders can pastor the people. God never meant for the pastorial anointing to be the dominant anointing in the church. Any church structured like that is out of the order of God because they are not lined up with God's divine order.

Well what about bishops? It's been said that a bishop is the highest ranking office in the church ( which is a complete lie ) and that there are no more apostles today because the bishops replaced the apostles. If you belive that then you are believing a lie. If you look up the word bishop it means overseer or superintendant. A superintendant is someone who is a supervisor, someone in charge of the maintenance of a building or someone who's in charge for a particular department or instittution. We see that a bishop has a higher function in pastorialship but still does not deviate from his job of being a pastor. All a bishop is is a cheif elder. Not an apostle even though an apostle flows in all the functions of ministry but in a higher ranking of authority. According to  1 Timothy 3, bishop can be desired. There is no ministry gift of bishop. A superintendant is someone who also have supervisors under them. A bishop holds this same position when it somes to the elders/pastors. That all a bishop is. A bishop is not someone who oversees churches. We saw earlier that this is an apostolic function. Apostles are overseers over the church and bishop/elders/pastors are overseers in the church. There is a big difference people of God. Lets learn the truth and walk in it.

TEACTHER: In the greek it's translated "didaskalos" meaning instructer or one who provides instruction, implying authority over student or followers. This is not same as preaching as some who are ignorant concerning this ministry may state. The word instruct means to educate, inform, to order or direct. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that the scripture are given for instruction. A teacher is an instructer of the word of God. A teacher teaches how to live the word of God, apply the principles in the word of God, understand the word of God, and reveal hidden things in the word of God. They are bold when they teach and walk in full assurance that they are correct in their doctrine because they labored in pray and study of the word of God DAILY so that they can effectively minister the word of God.

God's Apostolic Manservant

Prophet Lonnie Blair