What is the benefit of a plurality of people—of Christians—working together as a team? Well, one of them is just support. There is the emotional and the physical and the spiritual support of your colleagues. If you are involved in ministry, you know very well what a blessing it is to have friends whom you are working with, and you pray together, and you share the joys and the ups and downs—you all do together. There is also a balancing of complementary gifts. Any one of us only has certain gifts. We have temperaments, and we balance each other out. And there is also the fellowship and accountability that should reduce the likelihood of a leader—or anyone serving—falling into sin.
The other thing you will see in the New Testament—and we experience in the church today—is when you have a camaraderie of people working together in ministry, it encourages the same thing in the church. There is often a tendency to say,
Richard D. PhillipsWell, we have to have one person—the celebrity preacher or the dynamic leader—and that person is going to build the church.No, no. The whole church is given gifts. We are all called together to do the ministry, each in our own way, to advance and spread the gospel, to build the church up. And the ministry team will show that. I think we can easily imagine Paul—while clearly he is really writing the letter—but he would have consulted with Silas and Timothy, and surely they would have gotten on their knees together and prayed for God to bless this, their joint letter to their dearly beloved church in Thessalonica.1
1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.