The Radical Resurgence

6.    Wellhausen’s  Children.

(The concept of multiple ministry) has not been one of the classic options in the inter-denominational arguments of the last four centuries…….Some of these are implicitly or explicitly arguments in favour of the abandonment of the multiplicity  in favour of the mono-pastoral pattern, and to these we turn first.

It is one of the commonly held beliefs of N.T. scholarship in recent years that one can discern within the documents of the N.T. literature itself the signs of a marked evolution in patterns of ministry.  In the young churches which arose directly out of the ministry of Paul, whose life we see reflected in his correspondence with them while they were still very young,  – for example, in the Corinthian letters – there was great spontaneity, even confusion, of enthusiasm and creativity, with a variety of “gifts” and “ministries” which  to our tastes would appear to be chaotic.  Paul did not deplore this enthusiasm (they say), but neither did he prescribe it.