What Is The Ministry?

'And he said unto them, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.'' Mark 16:15 ''Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.'' Matthew 28:20

These two commandments of our Lord Jesus constitute the ministry. 'Preach the gospel to every creature'--evangelism, and 'teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you'-- edification. Evangelism deals with calling the lost to repentance and reconciliation with God, and edifi-cation deals with helping them grow to maturity in the Faith; nothing else constitutes the ministry. You may give a cup of cold water to the thirsty, but it is always in Jesus Name with the objective of helping them to either come to know Christ or grow in Christ. Any form of giving must have this as its objective in order for it biblically to be called ministry.

The followers of Christ have always known that helping alleviate the physical suffering of people gives them an entree to preaching the gospel. Thus, hospi-tals, orphanages, schools, agricultural aid, all have laid a foundation of relationships that enhanced the ministry, but none of these ancillary activities are the ministry, 'for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'[1] What does a person profit if you educate him and fill his stomach and he ends in hell? The ministry always has as its objective the eternal, 'because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.'[2]


[1] Mark 8:36
[2] II Corinthians 4:18