“8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."
Ephesians 4:8-16
We turn now to the purpose in our Lord's giving these gifts of ministry. We said earlier that this is expressed in 12 as being 'for the equipment of the saints for the service they are to render Christ …', and that the word Paul uses here means, in its verbal form, 'to bring something or someone into his proper condition in the purpose of God'. William Barclay points out in his notes on Ephesians that the word katartizein is used in surgery for the setting of a broken limb or putting a dislocated joint back into place. One does not need a great deal of imagination to realise that there are often situations in which the work of God is hampered and put in jeopardy by someone in a fellowship who is 'out of joint' spiritually, and who, by continuing to be out of joint, can grieve the Spirit away. We have only to look ahead to the last verses of this chapter (30-32) to see how real a possibility this is. One thinks of the murmuring that arose in Acts 6 about the alleged neglect of some in the daily ministration, which is described in words that indicate that it was under the surface, festering like a hidden sore before it finally erupted to the surface. And it was something that the apostles recognised had potential for harming the ongoing work of the Spirit. In the New Testament itself the word is used of the disciples mending their nets (Mark 1:19), and this readily recalls to us our Lord's words 'I will make you fishers of men', and reminds us that you cannot catch fish with torn nets! To be fishers of men we need to be made serviceable, and this is Paul's point in what he says in 12.