The ministry of a pastor is only mentioned one time in the New Testament—in Ephesians 4:11 where it is listed with the other equipping ministries given to the church. There is no definition or description given to this ministry in the New Testament, yet this one ministry has virtually dominated church leadership since the third century. True New Covenant ministry is a team ministry as we see in this verse, and we need to receive all of the ministries to be a fully equipped church.
Even though almost all Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Charismatic churches are led by someone with the title of pastor, few of these are pastors according to the biblical sense. This is not to imply that they are not true ministries, but most are teachers, evangelists, prophets, or maybe even apostles. However, since pastor is the title most Christians relate to, they take this title when leading a church. This has worked somewhat, but in the times to come, we will need to become more biblical with church leadership.
To describe the ministry of a New Covenant prophet will require some examination of the team that the New Covenant ministry is intended to be. We cannot truly understand any of these equipping ministries, including the prophet, without understanding the interrelationship with the team. This is actually true of all the New Testament ministries—we cannot truly understand them except in the light of the whole team of ministries given to the church.
Many have modeled New Covenant prophets after the Old Covenant model, which is a mistake. The prophetic gifts may be the same under the Old and New Covenants, and the type of revelation may be similar, but the application is not the same. In Old Covenant times, the prophet often stood alone to challenge the nation’s departure from the Lord or even challenge its kings. However, in the New Covenant, the prophet is a member of a team that works for the building up of the body of Christ. We have examples of New Covenant prophets being used in remarkable ways in Scripture, but there are no examples of one bringing correction as this is done through the apostles and elders.
We see in Ephesians 4:11 that the main purpose of all of the equipping ministries in the church is to equip the believers, the saints, who are to do the work of the ministry. So equipping is a main function of the prophetic ministry, and this equipping has to do with helping all of God’s people to know His voice and even to be able to prophesy. In I Corinthians 14:31, we are told that “you can all prophesy.” Any believer can be used to prophesy at any time, and almost all will be used in this way at least once.
Enoch was the first to have walked with God after the Fall, and it was said of him that he prophesied (see Jude 14). A good case can be made from church history that everyone who walks with God will prophesy. I have even known some who do not believe that God still speaks prophetically and have seen them prophesy very accurately, but they just did not call it that.
The prophetic ministry is about much more than getting revelations of the future, but this is an important aspect of this ministry. It has been the special heritage of all who have walked with God to be given prophetic revelation into the future, and this is a gift that will become increasingly critical in the times ahead. Prophets are called “seers” and “watchmen” in the Old Testament because this was their function—to see. In places like Isaiah 29:10, prophets are called “eyes” and they are called to be the eyes of the body of Christ. Because the prophets are the eyes of the body, a church without prophetic ministry is in fact blind in some basic ways.
As the Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians, one part of the body should not say that it has no need of another part of the body, but this is in fact what much of the body has done, not just in relation to the prophets but to other ministries as well.
Most churches may not know they are blind because they are not moving, going anywhere, and so they are not stumbling about in the dark. However, if they do get moving, they will stumble if they do not have prophetic vision. They may still be able to feel their way through and crawl to where they’re going. However, we will see a major difference in the times to come between the churches, ministries, and missions who have prophetic vision and those who do not.
We are told in Acts 2:17-18 that “in the last days” the Lord will pour out His Spirit, and the result of this will be prophetic revelation in the form of visions, dreams, and prophecy. This is necessary “in the last days” because as we draw closer to the end of this age, we will need prophetic guidance more than ever.
