How long will these ministry gifts be given to the church? Jesus will give them as long as His holy people need to be equipped for service, which is at least until He returns. The church constantly takes in newborn Christians who need to grow, and the rest of us always have room to mature spiritually.
Some have unfortunately concluded that only two kinds of ministries exist today—pastors and evangelists—as if God has changed His plan. No, we still need apostles, prophets and teachers as much as the early church did. The reason we don’t see examples of these gifts among much of the church around the world is simply because Jesus gives these gifts to His church, not the phony, unholy, false-gospel church. In the phony church can only be found those who make a feeble attempt to fulfill the roles of some of the ministry gifts (mostly pastors and perhaps a few evangelists), but they hardly resemble the God-called and anointed ministry gifts that Jesus gives to His church. They certainly aren’t equipping the holy people for acts of service, because the very gospel they proclaim doesn’t result in holiness; it only deceives people into thinking they are forgiven. And those people have no desire to be equipped for service. They have no intention of denying themselves and taking up their crosses.
