The Beliefs of John Robert Stevens

The concept of the five-fold gift ministries comes from Ephesians 4:11-13.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers … to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

The purpose of these gift ministries is to bring every believer into the knowledge and the fullness of Christ. Therefore, John Stevens believed that this scriptural reality was a necessity for all of Christianity, and that every church should have each of these five ministries functioning. Stevens was determined that every individual know the Lord personally, and he believed that these gift ministries were essential in attaining that goal.

A leader is not a true ministry that God gave to the church if he builds a sphere around himself and makes people dependent upon him. A true ministry leads believers to be mature.¹

Of all the gift ministries, perhaps the least understood is that of the apostle. Stevens taught that apostles are given to the Body of Christ to bring an understanding of what God is doing in the present generation. This is accomplished by God’s illumination of the Scriptures to the apostle, and the apostle’s subsequent teaching of that illumination.

Ironically, Stevens taught that the five-fold gift ministries would not be necessary in the Kingdom. The purpose of these ministries is to bring the Body of Christ into full maturity, therefore once the Kingdom of God is fully established, that purpose will have been fulfilled. This should be the vision of every minister of Jesus Christ: to see every believer matured into the fullness of Christ so that these five-fold ministries become obsolete.

The term apostle appears 1,706 times in Stevens’ written materials.
The term prophet appears 3,575 times in Stevens’ written materials.
The term evangelist appears 157 times in Stevens’ written materials.
The term pastor appears 1,119 times in Stevens’ written materials.
The term teacher appears 408 times in Stevens’ written materials.