What a contrast this presents to that New Testament picture of the divine ecclesia, exhibiting the highest form of human society known to history, a body in which every member had his gift and use for it. Among these many activities, oversight and preaching had their place, but did not constitute the whole sum of Christian service. Paul describes Christ as the living head "from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the _effectual working in the measure of every part_, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). The object of the ministerial function was "the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ" (verse 12, R.V.). In his early epistle to the Philippians, Paul makes reference to the officers that guided that church. He sends greetings "to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons" (Phil. 1:1). Polycarp, writing to the same church in the next century, addresses the "presbyters and deacons," showing that the apostolic order was still preserved there. [Sidenote: Bishops vs. Presbyters] In the Ignatian epistles, however, written early in the second century, there appears positional authority of a new order. In place of the New Testament standard of a plurality of elders, or bishops, jointly teaching and guiding the local church, we find recognition of an office which was superior to that of the presbyters and to whose incumbents alone the term "bishop" was applied. A few extracts from his writings will make clear this recognition of a threefold order of the ministry--bishops, elders, and deacons. "Wherefore, it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also ye do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp" (To the Ephesians, chap. 4). "He is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the will of Jesus Christ" (To the Magnesians, chap. 2). And again, in the same epistle he says, "I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbytery in the place of the assembly of the apostles" (chap. 6). "In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as the appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these there is no church" (To the Trallians, chap. 3). To the Smyrnaeans he writes: "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father.... Let no man do anything connected with the church without the bishop" (chap. 8). "It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God" (chap. 8).