What is the criteria for believers today?
The criteria for believers today is to be so taught in the Word that every believer can go out and be a living testimony to the world around them, regardless of education, and be a gifted person in God's program for today. This is how the Roman Empire was turned upside down.
Les explains that the early believers did not have great evangelistic campaigns or coliseums full of people, yet they turned the Roman Empire inside out or upside down. They did it by every believer being taught from the Word so he could go out and be a living testimony to the world around him. Les says this is the criteria for us today: to be so taught in the Word that you can be a testimony wherever you go, whoever you are. He emphasizes that no matter how little education you have, you can be a gifted person in God's program for today. He then returns to 1 Corinthians 12, noting that the gifts mentioned there are not repeated in Ephesians; he suggests that just as you don't use a 3rd and 4th grade arithmetic book in higher mathematics, those things are left in the background as we move on to the greater gifts Paul brings out in Ephesians and his other present epistles. Les also introduces the Body of Christ, explaining that while it is brought to its fullest in the present epistles, Paul introduced it here, and that every true believer is a member of the Body of Christ—a concept Jesus never mentioned.