166 - Ministry in the New Testament

Ministry in the New Testament
By David L. Bartlett
Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1993. 210 pp. $11.00.

"It may be," writes David L. Bartlett, a New Testament scholar and Lanz Professor of Preaching at Yale Divinity School, "that we shall discover that, in our quite new situation, what we need to learn from the New Testament is ... how to adapt the ancient visions [of ministry] to our own needs." Bartlett's book follows his own counsel, but within limits. Seeking an ongoing conversation with contemporary ecclesiologies, he engages his understanding of five strains of New Testament literature (Paul, Matthew, Johannine literature, Luke-Acts, and the Pastoral Epistles) with the Roman Catholic ecclesial formulae of Lumen Gentium (post Vatican II) and the World Council of Churches', Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982). It is unclear why the book of Ephesians is deleted from Bartlett's canon about New Testament offices and ministries. Nevertheless, Bartlett makes a strong case for a variety of styles and forms of ministry in the New Testament, the priority of gospel and community over offices and structures, and a professional ministry whose clearest functions are proclamation and teaching. Especially helpful are the summaries of contemporary scholarship about the offices of episkopoi, diakonos, and apostolos. Less helpful are the underdeveloped linkages between ordination and ministry, the relationship of baptism and charismatic gifts for all ministry. Unfortunately, also neglected are the roles and significance of "laity" in ministry. Surely, ministry is not confined to what the ordained do.

With an eye on contemporary ecclesiologies, the last chapter, "New Testament Ministry and Ministry Today," summarizes the author's views about ministries in the New Testament churches: They sought, especially the Pauline varieties, to be inclusive without being vacuous, and they responded to their multifaceted organizational crises by exploring alternative styles of leadership. In this manner, Bartlett ends where he began. For him, New Testament ideas about ministry are best understood as wisdom rather than prescriptions or templates for modern churches. Envisioning such New Testament wisdom might become useful, claims Bartlett, in the current ecclesial discussions about Ordination, declericalization, the ministry of the laity, and muscle-bound regulatory practices of modern churches.

John W. Stewart
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ.