Pastors and Teachers: One Calling or Two?

Question 09081

Whether pastors and teachers in Ephesians 4:11 describe one office or two is one of those questions that looks like a footnote and turns out to shape a great deal. It affects who we appoint, what we expect of them, and how we read the qualification lists in the Pastoral Epistles.

The verse is short. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12). The argument turns on a small feature of the Greek, and I want to take you into it carefully rather than assert a conclusion.

Why Pastors and Teachers Are Treated Differently in the Verse

In the Greek text Paul places the definite article before apostles, before prophets, and before evangelists. Then, in the final pair, one article governs both nouns, with the two joined by the conjunction kai. The literal shape is the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. That change of pattern is deliberate and it is the whole basis of the discussion.

The construction is often called a Granville Sharp type arrangement, though the strict Sharp rule applies to singular personal nouns rather than plurals, which is where the caution comes in. When two plural nouns share one article and are joined by kai, Greek grammarians recognise that the groups are being linked in some way, but the precise relationship has to be established from context rather than from the grammar alone.

So the honest starting point is this. The grammar tells us Paul has grouped pastors and teachers more closely than he grouped the earlier offices. It does not by itself settle whether he means one group with two functions, or two overlapping groups, or a subset relationship where every shepherd teaches but not every teacher shepherds.

The Case for One Office

Those who read pastors and teachers as a single office point to the qualification lists. An elder must be able to teach (1 Timothy 3:2), and must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it (Titus 1:9). Teaching is not an optional extra bolted on to oversight; it is written into the qualification.

The same connection appears in 1 Timothy 5:17, where the elders who rule well are worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching. Peter joins the ideas as well, telling the elders to shepherd the flock and exercise oversight (1 Peter 5:2), which is impossible without feeding, and feeding is teaching.

On this reading the phrase describes teaching shepherds. The pastor is not a chaplain who happens also to preach but a man whose shepherding is largely conducted through the word. That fits the Greek poimen well, since a shepherd’s primary daily task is leading the flock to food.

The Case for Two Related Offices

The other reading takes the shared article as indicating close association rather than identity. On this view there are men who shepherd and men who teach, with substantial overlap and different emphases. Not every gifted teacher is suited to oversight, and not every faithful overseer is a notable teacher.

There is real evidence for this. The gift lists in Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:28 mention teaching as a distinct gift without tying it to office, and the New Testament certainly knows teachers who were not elders. James 3:1 warns that not many should become teachers, addressed to a wider group than the eldership. Priscilla and Aquila taught Apollos privately and effectively.

This reading also has the pastoral advantage of realism. Anybody who has served in church life knows men of great gentleness and wisdom with the flock whose preaching is workmanlike, and men whose exposition is superb but who should not be left in charge of anything requiring patience with people.

Where I Land

My own judgement is that Paul is describing one office with two inseparable functions, while recognising that the gift of teaching operates more widely than the office does. In other words, all pastors must be teachers, but not all teachers are pastors. That reading honours the grammar, satisfies the qualification lists, and accounts for the wider evidence about teaching as a gift.

I hold it as a considered conclusion rather than a hill to die on. Godly men have read the construction differently for centuries and the church has survived the disagreement. What matters far more than the label is that the man entrusted with a congregation can actually handle the word and actually loves the people.

What the Wider New Testament Adds

Stepping back from Ephesians 4 for a moment is worth doing, because the debate about pastors and teachers can become so concentrated on one clause that we forget the rest of the evidence. Luke describes the church at Antioch as having prophets and teachers, naming five men including Barnabas and Saul (Acts 13:1). No pastoral office is mentioned there at all, and the group is plainly a leadership body.

Paul also tells Timothy to entrust what he has heard to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). That is a chain of instruction running well beyond the eldership, and it suggests a congregation full of people teaching one another rather than a single authorised voice.

The word for teacher is didaskalos, used of Jesus more than of anyone else in the Gospels. It carries the sense of one who instructs with authority derived from what he has been taught. That is exactly the posture the New Testament expects of pastors and teachers alike, and it explains why the office and the gift overlap without being identical.

So the evidence pulls gently in the direction of my conclusion. The office of oversight always includes teaching, while the gift of teaching operates more widely than the office. Pastors and teachers, on that reading, is Paul’s shorthand for the men who shepherd by feeding, and the shorthand assumes a congregation in which many others teach in their own settings.

Why It Matters in Practice

Take the question into a church meeting and its practical weight appears immediately. If pastors and teachers describe one office, then a congregation cannot appoint a leader who is not competent in Scripture, however impressive his other qualities. Warmth is not a substitute for the word, and neither is administrative skill.

Equally, it forbids the opposite error. A man who can hold a congregation spellbound for forty minutes and has no interest in the widow in the third row does not meet the qualification either. Shepherding without teaching is sentimentality; teaching without shepherding is a lecture series. Scripture will not let us separate them.

I have watched churches suffer from both mistakes. The friendly minister who never fed his people left them defenceless when a false teacher arrived. The brilliant expositor who despised visiting left a congregation that admired him and did not trust him. Neither man was doing the job the New Testament describes.

Equipping Rather Than Performing

There is a further point in the verse that is easy to miss in the grammatical argument. Whatever pastors and teachers are, they were given to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. The offices exist to make the members useful, not to concentrate ministry in a few hands.

That reframes success entirely. A pastor who is indispensable has failed at the thing Paul actually names. The measure is whether the congregation is being built up, whether members are serving, and whether the body is growing into maturity so that it is no longer tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14).

Teaching Beyond the Pulpit

If teaching is intrinsic to the office, it follows that a minister’s teaching cannot be confined to Sunday. Paul taught in public and from house to house. Much of the most effective instruction I have given has happened at kitchen tables with a Bible open and a cup of tea going cold, where a question could be asked without an audience.

It also follows that a congregation should expect its leaders to keep learning. A man who stopped studying when he left college will be teaching second hand material within a decade, and the people will know it long before he does. The word does not exhaust itself, but preachers can certainly exhaust their notes.

Guarding Against a Cult of Personality

One more caution. Because pastors and teachers are so closely bound together, the man in the pulpit inevitably carries influence, and influence is dangerous. Paul had to correct the Corinthians for lining up behind their favourite communicators, asking what Paul and Apollos actually were and answering plainly that they were servants through whom you believed (1 Corinthians 3:5).

The safeguard is plurality of leadership, a congregation that weighs what it hears, and a preacher who deliberately points away from himself. If your people leave talking about the sermon rather than the Saviour, something has slipped, and the fault usually lies with the preacher rather than the hearers.

So, now what?

If you are involved in choosing leaders, put the ability to handle Scripture and genuine love for people on the same page of the specification rather than treating one as essential and the other as desirable. The New Testament will not let you pick between them.

For church leaders reading this, the practical question is not how to settle the grammar but whether the men you are training could stand up next month and feed a congregation from an open Bible. Pastors and teachers, on any reading of the verse, must be able to do that.

If you teach in any capacity, remember that you are handling the food of the flock and take James 3:1 seriously without letting it paralyse you. And if you are a member, pray for the men who carry this double burden, because most of them feel their inadequacy at both ends of it. It is worth reading this alongside the role of a pastor and whether pastor, elder and bishop are different offices.

Who taught you what you know of Scripture, and when did you last thank them for it?

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV)