Matthew Poole Commentary - 1 Corinthians 12:28 - 12:28

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Matthew Poole Commentary - 1 Corinthians 12:28 - 12:28


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The apostle, Eph_4:11, seemeth to make a different enumeration; there he saith: And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. He mentioneth here only three of those there mentioned, viz. apostles, prophets, teachers. He reckoneth up there evangelists, whom be doth not here mention. He here first mentioneth apostles, by whom he meaneth those servants of God who were sent out by Christ to lay the first foundations of the gospel church, and upon whom a universal care lay over all the churches of Christ, having not only a power in all places to preach and administer the sacraments, but to give rules of order, and direct in matters of government; though particular churches had a power of government within themselves, otherwise the apostle would not have blamed this church for not casting out the incestuous person.



Prophets signify persons (as I have before noted) that revealed the mind and will of God to people, whether it were by an extraordinary impulse and revelations or in an ordinary course of teaching; whether they revealed things to come, or opened the mind and will of God already revealed. But in this text, and in Eph_4:11, prophets seem to signify, either such as from the Spirit of God foretold future contingencies, (such was Agabus, of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles, and others in the primitive church), or else such as interpreted Scripture by extraordinary and immediate revelation. Some think that prophets signify the ordinary pastors of churches; but they seem rather to be comprehended under the next term of teachers, unless we had better grounds than we have to distinguish between pastors and teachers, making the work of the teacher to speak by way of doctrine and explication, and the work of the pastor to speak practically.



Thirdly teachers: some by these understand governors of schools; others, such ministers whose work was only to expound the Scriptures, or the mysteries of salvation: but the apostle, in this enumeration, (which is the largest we have in Scripture), not mentioning pastors, it seemeth to me that he means the fixed and ordinary ministers of churches, or the elders, whom the apostles left in every city, which by their ministry had received the gospel.



After that miracles; after that such as he empowered to work miraculous operations, and those of more remarkable nature, for otherwise the healings next mentioned come under that notion also.



Then gifts of healings; then such persons as he gave a power to in an extraordinary way to heal the sick. Who the apostle means by helps, and by governments, is very hard to determine. Certain it is, that he doth not mean the civil magistrates; for the time was not yet come for kings to be nursing fathers, and queens nursing mothers to the gospel church. But whether he meaneth deacons, or widows, elsewhere mentioned, as helpful in the case of the poor, or some that assisted the pastors in the government of the church, or some that were extraordinary helps to the apostles in the first plantation of the church, is very hard to determine.



Diversities of tongues; such as spake with divers tongues, that faculty being a gift, as we heard before, not given to all, but to some in the primitive church. The apostle, by this enumeration, showeth what he meant by those diversities of gifts, differences of administrations, and diversities of operations, of which he spake in 1Co_12:4-6.