The Ministry of the Apostle in the Early Centuries
(C) Tricia Tillin December 2001
I
n Spirit-filled circles today, there is much talk about the need for restoring
apostles and prophets in the Church, based on the idea that over the centuries
the importance and centrality of these ministries were lost in the wake of
Church history. These proponents point out that the huge and varied denominational system
of today does not follow the Biblical pattern for Church structure and function,
but represents a formless hodgpodge that can in no way express the kind of
higher level unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17. Some even say, based on Ephesians 2:20, that the entire household of God is "built
upon the foundation of [these present-day] apostles and prophets...",
who must come forth to "put the Church in Divine order." They claim
this unity cannot take place until these offices are restored to the prominence
and pre-eminence they once had in the New Testament era. In other words, the
role of the apostle is so important that it actually is the linchpin that brings
the Church into unity.
As if to put flesh on the bones of this kind of thinking, quite a few ministers
in the Charismatic Church today are participating in the quiet formation of
large international apostolic networks. This development, in conjunction with the spread of cell churches, seems to
be resulting in the emergence of a huge hierarchical "post-denominational" (non-denominational)
Church system, with units as small as a local cell, overseen by a local church,
who are in turn overseen by city-wide boards of elders, then regional, national,
and international apostles. The net effect of all this could be a radical
restructuring of the Church into a vast hierarchical form that will be virtually
defenseless against the logic of Rome to "go all the way" and come
back into her fold. What surprises me about this development is that this movement apparently
ignores the fact that "apostolic church" denominations structured
like this have already emerged out of the Reformation, yet they have had no
apparent special blessing of the Spirit on them in a way that would indicate
that these issues are all that important to God. On the other hand, this is not to say I am unconcerned with being as "Biblical" as
possible in as many areas as I understand. I am not unsympathetic with some
of the concerns behind this whole phenomenon. I agree that the Church world
of today is characterized by many positions and titles that are nowhere to
be found in the Bible's lexicon. We have "regional directors", "superintendents", "metropolitans", "rectors" and
a whole host of other terms and titles that are unbiblical. Yet I cannot conclude
that questions of "church polity" (governmental structure) are really
that pivotal. It's true that some offices may be more or less efficient and
practical than others, but they are not at the heart of the Church's disunity
today. I say that for several reasons. For one, what a lot of people call the great "disunity
factor" hindering the Church is actually more a problem of carnal competition,
prejudice, jealousy and the like among groups and a subsequent duplication
of efforts than a disunity problem. The present-day ecumenical / unity movement
is doing more than enough to purge the Church of such duplication. In fact,
it seems to me there's a danger of going too far the other way by being tempted
to look to a quick-fix shortcut i.e. a uniform church structure solution to
paper over deeper problems. You see, on the one hand, the Church--the true Church, the mystical Body of
Christ--already is united by virtue of its common faith in Jesus Christ. But
the kind of unity Jesus prayed for in John 17 refers to a deeper knowledge
of God akin to the charge of Paul to the Corinthians--"Now I beseech you,
brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same
thing, and that there be no divisions (Gk. schisma) among you; but that ye
be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I
Cor 1:10). Now that's a tall order!, and I know of no quick route to that except the
slow process of the Holy Spirit and His anointing "teaching us all things" (I
Jn 2:27). And it is made all the more near-impossible because the fact of
the matter is, at any given time the Church is always made up of "infants,
young men and fathers" in the faith, that is, people at different levels
of knowledge and maturity (I Jn 2:13,14). Moreover, the same principle also
applies somewhat to different churches and groups. And for yet another reason, just as our larger society finds it fashionable
to bash the Western Christian heritage as being the fount of all evil, so likewise
it is wrong for Christians to assume that the denominational system has arisen
from nothing but the basest of motives (i.e., "divisiveness"). Denominations often arise because people hold to different convictions, distinctives
or emphases, and one of them is the question of different types of church polity
(church government). These polities range from the centralized, hierarchical
authoritarianism of Roman Catholicism to the extreme democratic practices of
the Quakers, Congregationalists and smaller sects. In my opinion, a middle
ground primitive form of Presbyterianism is most Biblical, but I stick with
the contention that church structure is not at the heart of the disunity problem
in the Church today. Now on the other hand, I too look forward to God bringing us all into a greater "John
17" unity before Christ returns to the earth, but it's a process that
can only be pursued the Biblical way of Ephesians 4--"speaking the truth
in love", etc. This will entail a greater level of doctrinal unity (but
never to the point of violating personal convictions of truth or particular
leadings of the Spirit according to cultural vagaries or whatever.) And this
is why in last year's series, I attempted to make the case that a more uniform
eschatological vision is going to be necessary because, as the last of the
last days unfolds, we cannot afford the luxury of greatly differing opinions
on this. If we do not have the "rhema word" here, and the discernment
to recognize what is happening around us and where both Christ and the Devil
are headed, how can we say we have any vision at all? And I find this to be
especially important because, coming from a Classical Pre-Millennial interpretation
of the prophetic Scriptures, the identity of Mystery Babylon becomes all-important. Does
it entail in whole or in part a last days false Christianity? I say yes, and
if that's true, There is a lot of talk in the Church lately about giving birth to a new movement. I
believe this new move will be a people who punch a hole in the wall of the
ecumenical prison and say, "Enough of this! This is the truth of God,
and this is where He is headed. God's not a beggar Who has to put up with
the lowest common denominator just to keep everybody happy! The cloud is moving
on, and we're going on with or without you!" In the "Last Days Leaven" series,
I said that if someone were to ask me if I believed in the "restoration
of the apostles and prophets" I would say, "Both yes and no." "Yes" in
the sense that these ministries could stand some better definition, functionality
and status in the Body. But "no" in at least two senses. Firstly,
I don't think these functions have been as lost as people think they've been. The
titles may have been missing and the skills underdeveloped, but they haven't
been absent altogether. And secondly, what they were like in the early Church is not what I hear people
implying they were. The ministries of the apostle and prophet in the early
days were, paradoxically, of a higher status than they are today, yet what
I hear being proposed is their restoration to a governmental position that
ordinary apostles never had. And the upshot of it all is that if this idea
persists, it could, when applied to a false Church with a false image of itself
and its mission, create a class of very intimidating apostolic and prophetic
leaders leading the Body of Christ astray with false revelations and guidance. Yet in spite of all this, some of the literature and teachings I have looked
at in regards to the idea of restoring the function of the apostle in the Church
today I find to be fairly sound. They seem to dwell upon the idea of the apostle
being a "sent one", a church planter/missionary, a foundation-laying
ministry, one who ordains elders and other ministries, who moves in signs and
wonders, a father/spiritual advisor to pastors and other leaders, and the like. The concerns I have with it though are mostly oriented around the whole issue
of apostolic authority and the issue of authority in general. And I don't
count these problems to be trivial. To me the entire Reformation seems to
be at stake, for it seems that there's a central concern in this movement to
re-establish the apostle to what they conceive to have been the ultimate governmental
position in the Church. If this issue is not understood on a deeper level,
this movement could serve to lead the Church even further into the arms of
the Vatican, as it repeats the mistakes made in the first few centuries of
Christianity. What this deals with is a story that is quite tragic, and took the Church
centuries to even begin to recover from. In fact, it seems to me that to this
day, we little recognize or appreciate the significance of what really happened. The
reason why is because it involves one of the most baffling and elusive concepts
ever grappled with in Christianity or any religion, and that is the issue of
authority. In fact, the issue of authority is so profound that it's a foundational question
even of life itself because it deals with the a priori assumptions we make
about truth and reality in general, and what we take to be credible explanations
for such. As theologian Dr. Bruce Shelley so well put it, "No more fundamental
religious question can be raised than, 'By what authority?' It is antecedent
to all other questions about living and thinking." [1] The somewhat naive and simplistic answer given by the average Christian to
this question might be something along the line of, "Well, the Word of
God is our authority". But that is a Protestant answer. The Roman Catholic
would say it's the living revelation of the Church wherein "the Church" is
defined as the heirarchical leadership. This "living revelation" started
with the Church's "oral traditions" (eventually preserved as the
Scriptures), and continues to today with the ongoing traditions promulgated
by the Pope and the teaching magisterium. To the Eastern Orthodox, it would
be the Scriptures plus tradition, especially that tradition as set forth in
the first seven early Church councils. To the first century Jew what was authoritative was the Law of Moses (corrupted
and superceded of course by the rabbinic traditions). Thus it was that when
Jesus came along doing miracles, they concluded He must be doing them by the
power of Beelzebub! Their attitude was, "We know that God spake unto
Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is" (Jn 9:29). Yet
Jesus set the pattern promised to all believers, that the Lord would work with
them, "confirming the word with signs following" (Mk 16:20). And
to this the Protestant philosophy of authority agrees, saying that the Holy
Spirit has been sent to bear witness of Christ and His Word, and that the Spirit
and the Word agree in one. But what are we to make of human authority? Does God, or even can God, delegate
to men some or all of His authority? Let's start by taking a look at the connotations found in the term. In the
New Testament, the Greek word most often translated "authority" is
exousia which, according to the Scriptures and extra-Biblical sources conveys
the following senses. First of all, the idea of understanding or knowledge. When someone is seen
as having gained a lot of knowledge or expertise on a given subject, they are
said to be an authority on it. Moreover, the root of the English word comes
from the Latin auctor which means "author", and obviously the most
knowledgeable person about something is its author. Secondly, "authority" conveys the idea of certainty or confidence. Someone
who speaks or acts with authority is someone who knows what they're talking
about or what they're doing. It was said of Jesus after the Sermon on the
Mount that He "taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" who
only gave guesses or opinions (Mt 7:29). Thirdly, "authority" conveys the idea of power, or the ability to
see one's will, or another's will, done. This usage is similar to the Greek
word dunamis which refers to a demonstration of power such as a miracle. But
the emphasis in this use of "authority" is less on physical power
than on the ability to resort to it if need be. A policeman, for instance,
is physically only one man, but he represents potentially the entire authority
or power of the state behind him. This kind of power can be either self-endowed
(as in God's case), or something delegated to another. The fourth aspect is the idea of a conferred priviledge or a right bestowed
on another by someone greater. In Rev 22:14 it is said, "Blessed are
they that do his commandments, that they may have right (exousia) to the tree
of life..." So what we are talking about here is someone who either is an authority, who
speaks and acts with authority, who has authority, or who is given authority. The
first two relate to the qualifications for authority, while the last two to
the exercise of it. I think it is obvious then as to how God fits into all this. He is certainly
the Author of all creation with undoubted expertise as to how to run it. "Great
is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is inifinte" wrote
the psalmist (Psa 147:5). Secondly, because He is omniscient He can speak
and act with certainty and confidence, since He knows infallibly all that is
going on at any given time. And thirdly, as for power--well, God is omnipotent. What
can we say? And fourthly, as for rights, God has conferred them all onto
Himself. It's His creation and He in His sovereignty can do with it as seemeth
good to Him at any time. Because of these realities, there are a number of conclusions we must infer
(which the Scriptures bear witness to also.) The first is that it was never
God's highest goal to merely rule on the basis of His power. Although He put
on just such a fearful display of power at Mt. Sinai when He gave the Law to
Israel, it is obvious that He didn't stop there, but went out of His way to
establish His authority over us on the basis of His character qualifications
and benevolent intentions. This is the entire story of the New Testament,
that, far from wanting to rule through fear and obligation, He actually became
weak and died on a cross in our place, that we might have faith and trust in
the One Who showed love to such an "nth" degree. Secondly, the reason He did this is because the Old Covenant did not allow
Him to have enough personal rulership over the average believer, nor did it
provide the level of intimacy He wanted to have with each of us. Thus He was
not content to remain so removed from His people, stuck in a physical Temple
and only approachable through a mediating priesthood. He wanted to be in us,
making of us a living Temple of many living stones with, as John Wesley put
it, all of His people being priests and the world as our parish (I Pe 2:5,9). Thirdly, and I know this runs contrary to about 50 years now of "pop
theology", but we must face the fact that God cannot delegate to men any "spiritual
authority" at all. This is so because spiritual authority is something
only God can have, seeing it is based on attributes such as His omniscience,
sinless character, perfect heart and other qualifications that no creature
can have. Men can no more claim to possess spiritual authority than they can
claim to have gifts of healing in their back pocket, or an infallible word
conjured up from their own finite understanding. Now the Holy Spirit can work miracles through a man or speak or act through
him at times, and to that degree he can be said to be moving in "spiritual
authority". But he himself will not have that authority; it can only
work through him. The various "gifts" of the Spirit by which God
operates His spiritual authority through all Christians also takes an operation
of the Spirit called "the witness of the Spirit" (Ro 8:16) in those
who receive the ministry. But what God can and does delegate to men though
is what I would call a certain functional authority or limited ecclesiastical
powers that relate to the exercise side of authority. He does this because the Church has a corporate life, and certain corporate
decisions must be made by those who have been chosen to rule or oversee the
local congregation. But it's something that He wants kept to a minimum, lest
men encroach upon God's prerogatives in His rule over His individual subjects. This understanding formed the basis of the political philosophy the Founding
Fathers of America developed. To their credit, they understood that while
human government was necessary they still didn't trust fallen human nature. So
to help public officials deal with the temptations of power, they strictly
spelled out and limited in the Constitution what powers had been delegated
to them. It's the same in the Kingdom of God. God knows that church government is
necessary, but its oversight will be in accord with the spiritual maturity
of the people. A truly altruistic church will seek to maximize God's prerogatives
by minimizing human ones, because the essence of the Kingdom is a very spiritual
and personal relationship with the living God. What the corporate life of
the Church expresses is a community of people of like precious faith, all of
whom have different ministries, and through some of which operates the ministry
gift called "governments" (I Cor 12:28). All this may seem like nit-picking to you, but this question of authority
is a very important matter. Getting it wrong has been the source of much
confusion and abuse within Christendom throughout the ages. It also begs at
least two other questions that we need to answer. One, was the Protestant Reformation just a protest movement, a reaction or
over-reaction to some authoritarian excesses in the medieval Church such that
it has now bred so much individualism and "freedom" that it won't
let go of it? Or was it really complete in itself, and a genuine attempt to
at least get started on the road back to New Testament Christianity? And number two, just what is "the Church? Is it the visible Body of
Christ on the earth, or the invisible Body of Christ in the spirit? I'll begin my answer with the second question. According to First Corinthians
12:12-27 and other passages, "the Church" in the New Testament is,
in its essence, an invisible, mystical "Body" wherein Christ is the
head, while the sum total of all those truly "accepted in the Beloved" make
up its various members. In keeping with the sometimes-mysterious language
of the Bible, it is something "in the Spirit" (meaning the Holy Spirit),
or "in the spirit" (that is, of the non-physical, invisible world). In
other words, the Church is not essentially an institution, it's the people,
a group of people known ultimately only to God. It's a spiritual Temple of
living stones (believers) for an habitation of God through the Spirit (I Pe
2:5; Eph 2:21). This is the great error of the Roman Catholic Church, whose many errors begin
with her own self-conception as being "the Mother Church". In her
eyes, she is the one "catholic" (universal) church by virtue of one
institution, one Pope, one sacramental system, one priesthood who alone are
truly ordained to mediate the grace of God, etc., etc. It has been Rome that
has initiated and guided (ever so gingerly) the current ecumenical movement,
breaking down the theological and philosophical defenses of the Protestant
churches in her attempt to fulfill Jesus' command for greater unity. Now because people do live in flesh-and-blood bodies on a physical earth,
the Church does have a visible side, expressed through local Christian communities,
local assemblies, denominations and the like. But this is a very secondary,
imperfect representation of "the Church". Some groups and denominations
consist of almost all believers (Rev 3:7,8), some are lukewarm (Rev 3:16),
and some are downright dead with but a few believers at all (Rev 3:1-4). In
essence therefore, the Kingdom of God is a very spiritual Kingdom, a very personal walk
with a Living Being Who alone knows the hearts and lives of men, Who alone
is qualified to judge who is in, who is out, who is faithful, who is fruitful
and how much, etc. (I Cor 4:1-6; Rom 14:7-10; Mt 13:8). In this way it is
not inferior in the least to the experienced-based spirituality of mystical
cults, Eastern religions and the like who often caricature Christianity as
a mere cultural or political phenomenon, or a religion obssessed with a certain
kind of moralism. Yet whenever the Church has sought to portray itself primarily
as an institution, it has all-but invited such caricature. Now within the language of the apostolic movement there is a fondness for
slogans like, "God is building an army", and "this army needs
generals". For the most part, there is a lot of emphasis on the "corporate" side
of the "work of the Church". (See the "Last
Days Leaven" series for more on this.) And as we've admitted, there is indeed a legitimate and visible side to "the
Church". Thus it is that churches pool their resources to send out missionaries,
feed the poor, evangelize the lost and the like. None of these things can
be done by individuals acting alone. But once again the question arises, just what is the "work of the Church"? Ideally
it should be "the work of God Himself," and the work that God accomplishes
through His people is so often such a hard thing to evaluate and identify,
for it all takes place in the Spirit (spirit). Most of us have probably caught
the tail end of a circumstance wherein we were being used by God in something
we said or did without even realizing God was working through us, to communicate
or model the knowledge of God to someone. This, it seems to me, is the most effective and powerful way God accomplishes
His work. This is why Paul said he'd rather glory in his limitations than
have the support of an entire army behind him (II Cor 12:9,10). There is a
limitation to the value of professionalism, beyond which it becomes so efficient
and "human" that God.can hardly do a miracle and get the glory. He
loves to get things done with a Gideon's army or a David's slingshot rather
than a Saul's armor. Jesus expressed the same sort of thinking in His encounter with Nicodemus. "The
wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you don't know
where it's coming from or where it's going. So is everyone who is born of
the Spirit" (Jn 3:8). This was said to explain the meaning of being "born-again"--that
it's a person so under the influence of the Spirit that, although they may
seem to a hard-bitten world as flighty as the blowing wind, they are really
being led by God. And Nicodemus, a man used to finding his identity in a no-nonsense
religion that "gets the job done", no doubt would have sympathized
with a modern-day mindset that looks forward to seeing every member of the
Body of Christ "mobilized" according to the strategies, ambitions
and control of men. [2] The reason people can't see the already-existing "army of God" is
because the Body of Christ is a mystical, invisible entity whose members already
operate in the Spirit. Now they may not function very efficiently or effectively
in their giftings in this, and that is why God has given to the Body the five-fold
ministries, to help equip the army for the very spiritual nature of this battle. But
this is an army wherein The General does not usually operate according to a
chain-of-command, because He's omnipresent and in each of His troops. This brings us to the question of the Reformation. Was it just a reaction? A
protest against excesses? Or was it complete in its germ, and the beginning
of a long process of the restoration of the New Testament Church? For one
of the great distinctives that the Reformation sought to establish was the
priesthood of all believers, the idea that, although we may have different
roles and functions in the Body, we are all brethren (Mt 23:8) and priests
(I Pe 2:9; Rev 1:6), and the world is our flock. It was the affirmation of
the idea that the Church exists and operates in the spirit, and that human
government, though somewhat necessary, was a lower level concern in the work
of God, and not the ultimate one. Moreover the Reformation declared that since God alone has spiritual authority
over his people, that that authority is only perfectly represented by the Word
of God and the Holy Spirit Who is in the midst of His people. It declared
that, even though for instance education is good and useful, that still, God
could work through nearly illiterate people, sometimes more effectively than
through those who should know more, all according to where the heart of a believer
was at. It declared that the Roman Catholic system not only overplayed the
role of human authority, it totally misunderstood its place and did not comprehend
how the work of God went forward. As I said at the beginning, although I believe that much of what is being
said about re-establishing the role of apostles and prophets in the Church
is good and legitimate, still, there are a number of grave problems with the
current trend. The main one seems to be the assumption that what needs to
be restored is the apostle as a governmental office in the Church, and the
highest one at that. But the apostleship is not an office, it's a ministry. In the Kingdom of God, everyone has a ministry and those ministries operate
by means of various divine gifts divided to His people as God endows and wills. These "gifts" include
various "manifestations of the Spirit" (I Cor 12:7-10), and what
have been called the "ascension gifts" of Christ given to the Body
--what are called the five-fold ministry of Eph 4:11. But the thing to note
is that these are ministries, not offices. In I Cor 12:5 it says, "And
there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord (i.e., Christ)". That
word translated "administrations" is diakonion, where we get "deacon" or "minister" from. In
other words, there are different ministries given by Christ Himself as gifts
to His Body. A ministry describes a function in the Body; an office describes
a position or title. Now each of these things have their place, but we should not assume that a
ministry is inferior in importance to an office. The problem is that over
the course of the centuries since the early Church, the two categories often
became intertwined and thereby confused. And while good hearted men have debated
forever it seems, over what is "biblical" or "New Testament" in
the area of proper Church structure and authority patterns, it seems to me
that a look at the earliest centuries, especially those right after the "Apostolic" era
when the New Testament was being written, will give us some clues as to what
went wrong and why. Some twenty years ago, when I felt a personal need to come to grips with a
series of questions on authority that were being raised by the Shepherding
controversy, I did a study and ran across a turn-of-the-century book that has
proven to be one of the most informative and helpful things I've ever read. It's
called, "The Church and the Ministry In The Early Centuries" [3] by
a Thomas M. Lindsay, a Free Church of Scotland scholar on Church history. It
was actually a series he gave called the Cunningham Lectures wherein he presented
2 or 3 years of research into early sub-Apostolic literature to determine what
happened to the ministry in its evolution into the hierarchical Roman system. Perhaps "devolution" would be a better term to use, for Lindsay
traced a marked deterioration in the Christian ministry as the centuries proceeded
from the earliest days. And it seems to me that what he was describing in
essence was a mix-up over the two different kinds of authority--spiritual vs.
functional--that we talked about above, and how this corrupted the ministry's
conception of its own mission. To help you understand what happened, it is important to give you some of
the historical context of what was going on. As we said earlier, there is
no more important issue to establish in religion than, "By what authority?",
and as long as the Twelve Apostles (and Paul) were alive, the Church could
always turn to these men who had personally been trained by Jesus Himself for
the answers to any questions. But as they began to die off, a real crisis of authority quickly arose in
the Church. This development was precipitated by the rise of the Gnostic heresies
which were taking the Gospel and reinterpreting everything in terms of Eastern
mystical thought forms. This proved to be a great problem because it was so
close to the original, and yet so twisted. This coupled with the pressure
of periodic persecutions was creating no small crisis of authority in the churches. The solution they seemed to come up with was the rule of thumb that the bishops
(the senior pastors) of the churches, especially those of the larger cities
of the empire, were the ones who had inherited the authority of the Apostles
by succession from generation to generation. This theory of "apostolic
succession" evolved with time into the idea of a "bishop of bishops" or
a Pope out of Rome (the seat of the Empire) who claimed to inherit the ability,
like his apostolic predecessors, to promulgate new revelation on almost every
matter as long as he was speaking ex cathedra ("out of the office or chair" of
the papacy). As the centuries unfolded, this theory of authority began to
reap the ugly consequences of its wrong assumptions, as the Church, following
the pattern set by the Pharisees and rabbis of Jesus' day who had so encrusted
the Law of Moses with stifling traditions, weighed down the Church with every
wrong idea and practice imaginable. Eventually the Reformation proposed the suggestion that the early Church had
missed what God was doing. That is, because the theory of apostolic succession
arose and took root before the canonization process of the New Testament was
completed, the Church failed to see that the authority of the Apostles had
stopped with, and been deposited by God into, a completed New Testament. This Protestant "philosophy of authority" also felt it necessary
to distinguish between different classes of apostles. In a special category
were the Twelve Apostles trained by Jesus who were the indisputable leaders
of the early Church. Although they were at first the sole form of "government" over
the Jerusalem church, in time the system of seven elders emerged (Acts 6),
copied no doubt from the synagogue system of their day. But the real call
of these Twelve was doctrinal, to be the standard for the truth of the Gospel. And
to ensure the survival of this standard, unbeknowst to them, they were also
called, along with Paul and other men associated with them [4] , to write the New Testament. Beyond them were the "ordinary" apostles. What this means is that
as the years began to pass and the Gospel spread, the ministry of the apostle
came to settle down into what was essentially a missionary. Paul, although
he helped write a large proportion of the New Testament, also fulfilled this
kind of a calling and the patterns he set in this area became something of
a standard. Yet the apostolic ministry was never essentially a governmental
position, except for that short period of time when a missionary was founding
a church and before he had ordained elders to rule over it. Lindsay in his lectures states that what eventually became "the clergy" of
the Church had always been divided into two categories--what he called the "Prophetic
Ministry" (or the "Spiritual Ministry"), and what he called
the "Local Office Bearers". He said the Prophetic Ministry consisted
of three gifts that were often linked together. They were the apostle, the
prophet, and the teacher. These people were regarded to be the most important and "prestigious" ministries
in the Body because they all were involved in the speaking forth of the Word "as
the oracles of God" (I Pe 4:11). This Scripture goes on to present a
second broad category of ministry in contrast--the office holders who were
to "minister...as of the ability which God giveth". Paul bears witness to the importance of the Spiritual Ministry in I Cor 12:28
when he wrote, "And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily
prophets, thirdly teachers..." What this means (and what the sub-apostolic
literature confirms) is that within this collection of preeminent ministries,
the ministry of the apostle was regarded as the most preeminent of them all. This
was so because he had to be either a prophet or a teacher (or both), as well
as a skillful evangelist, pastor, apologist, administrator and about everything
else it took to found a church. For the essential work of an apostle beyond
the circle, calling and times of the Twelve was to be a missionary, a church
planter. In addition, he had to be, of course, very mature in the faith, to the point
of being a spiritual father (I Jn 2:13,14). Plus, as the ministry began to
evolve with the passage of time, he had to make a big sacrifice by dedicating
himself to a lifetime of service away from fellow Christians. [5] Right below the apostle in status was the prophet who spoke by direct Divine
inspiration. The operation of the Spirit that worked through him was considered
by Paul to be the gift most to be coveted (I Cor 14:5). Contrary to the fear
and reluctance people have to referring to some as "prophets" today,
in the early Church they were actually quite common, even though their reputation
and demand would vary a lot one from the other. The next most important was
that of the teacher who taught the people the meaning of the Gospel, the all-important
doctrine of Christ., and how to live out the Kingdom of God. Now this does not mean there were not offices in the Church, there were. In
the early Church, the elders and deacons were what Lindsay termed the "local
office bearers". The term "elder" (Gk. presbuteros) was a title,
but they were also called "bishops" (episcopos) meaning "overseers",
or shepherds or pastors (poimen), describing their function. [6] These men operated on the basis of certain
powers delegated to them by the Lord for the purpose of administrating and
ruling over the corporate life of the local churches. These elders along with
the deacons who were elected by the people became known as the "local
office holders". This is not to say that these men were just mere administrators, for they
were somewhat in the spiritual ministry themselves, being shepherd-teachers. First
Timothy 5:17 says that some of them who ruled well were worthy of "double
honor" (i.e., pay), "especially they who labour in the word and doctrine." Furthermore,
their ranks were always being fed by those in the Spiritual Ministry who were
often called upon to serve as elders too. In time this proved to be very
problematic for the Church, for eventually a man came to be looked upon as
moving in spiritual authority by virtue of his holding an office. This created
a new mediating priesthood, a professional clerical class that corrupted the
Church's proper functioning. In the first century, the common pattern was for these elders to rule as equals
and as a group. But by the dawn of the second century, the common pattern
was for one elder to emerge as the preeminent one over the others. In our
day, in this most common form of structure, this person would be called "the
pastor" while the others would be called elders. But in the second century
they were called "bishops". Again in our day, in what's known as the "episcopal" system, a denominational
leader would be called a "bishop" who oversees a region of pastors. In
the early Church, local bishops would naturally yet informally turn to more
prominent or mature bishops for guidance, similar to the fatherly role an apostle
would play to the churches he established. But in time this became formalized
until an episcopal system emerged, and eventually a "bishop of bishops" or
a "Pope". But in the years between this and the Apostolic first century, what happened
was that over a period of time, people who were especially gifted in the far
more important spiritual ministries of Eph 4:11 were naturally often elected
to also be elders, until in time, the different types of authority involved
became blurred and confused. This meant that there was a tendency to regard
ministers as operating in spiuritual authority by virtue of the office they
held. This led to a mediating priesthood and the centralized Roman system. Now the points I would like to raise in regard to all this are as follows. Although I appreciate all the words of caution and assurances against abuse
that I hear of in circles where restoring the apostles is advocated, I cannot
help but be suspicious of either the motives or the apparent naivete or ignorance
of church history being expressed by this movement. For the fact of the matter
is, if we exclude the primitive and temporary Apostolic Council government
in Jerusalem and the special calling of the Twelve and Paul to replace their
doctrinal oversight of the first generation with the New Testament for all
subsequent generations, then the role of the "ordinary" apostle in
the early Church (and by implication today) was that of a man trying to work
his way out of a job. That is, as a missionary going about planting churches, he would seek to raise
up elders as quickly as possible so that he could move on to found another
church. His goal was to get them to a point of enough maturity that they could
stand up on their own two feet and not need him anymore, because they've got
the Lord. In contrast, it seems that this movement is seeking to work certain people
into a job. According to both the Bible (I Cor 11:3) and the Reformation,
the head of every man is Christ, not an apostle. Is this progress? Or is
this regression, back into a time in the history of local churches when they
were spiritual infants? The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of churches in the earth today
were not founded by apostles. Maybe the pastor himself founded the church. Or
maybe it was founded with or without an apostle, but that was several generations
ago now. Or maybe they were founded by a denomination of some sort that has
its own system of clergy training and oversight. Are we to believe that all these churches are so immature that they need a
formal spiritual father over them specifically called an apostle? I'm all
for being "Biblical", but the sight of churches seeking for apostles
to rule over them, or certain leaders proclaiming themselves to be apostles
makes me wonder if what's happening here is the erection of a straw man argument
as a pretext for seeking a title, or control, or both. I am doubly concerned about this when I hear about certain apostles being
over other apostles. One can make a case for Paul and others being "over" certain
churches, especially at a time when the Holy Spirit was completing the New
Testament. But there is no Biblical precedent for some apostles being over
others. [7] Perhaps in a sense
of influence, but not in the sense of a formal structure. What this basically
is otherwise, is a replication of the Roman system, except with the idea of
apostles instead of bishops. On the other hand, I would like to make it clear here that I would not want
to stand in the way of true visionaries coming forth to lead the Body of Christ
into its end-time inheritance. It stands to reason to me that these visionaries
are going to be found among the ranks of the apostles, prophets, teachers and
the like, not mere local elders. (Unless in the sense that such men also serve
somewhere as local elders too.) But what has always bothered me about the issue of apostolic restoration is
that the Church today already has apostles. These are the ordinary missionaries
out on the field, and too often they are looked upon as they who "couldn't
make it at home" or wherever. The early Church sent out its best, but
in our day, the most "prestigious" positions are found in the "home
nations". To me, this sub-standard situation may be more an indication of our real spiritual
need than any presumed structural solution could address. Are those who are
clamouring for the fame of being an apostle willing to "step down to service" in
more than a rhetorical way by becoming real church planters in a real foreign
field, and not just the ironic purveyors of another denominational schism in
Christianized lands? Are they willing to become those unappreciated nobodies,
the despised, weak, foolish, defamed "offscouring of all things" that
Paul described (I Cor 4:9-13)? Why is it that the foreign missionaries and Third World leaders who "bear
in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal 6:17) are so often never
taken seriously to be most honored in the Church? I'll tell you what I believe the answer is. It's two fold. One, those who
are most preeminent in the eyes of the Church may not be the same as those
in the eyes of God. And two, the current "apostolic movement" is
so soaked in dominion eschatology of one version or another that it is as blind
to the true scenario of the last days and the true nature of apostolic glory
as the young Apostles were (Lu 22:24; Mt 20:20 ff). In my opinion, if God really wants a restoration of the apostolic ministry
to a strictly Biblical pattern, there would have to be a resolution of the
kinds of questions raised above, and the coming forth of an apostolic class
that will have to be careful with its motives and purposes. There would have to be a dovetailing of these sorts of considerations in a
way compatible with true spiritual maturity and Reformation philosophy. Tactically,
the success or failure of it would hinge on whether it's approached as a ministry
or an office. And doctrinally, if the apostles and prophets use their influence
to prophesy and direct the churches further into this ecumenical quagmire,
I do not see how they can avoid disaster. If they turn out to be such, they
will be showing that they are after power and control, a title and an office,
that they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. I hope this article has provided at the least some food for
thought, and has shed more light than heat on a most complex and difficult
subject. [2] This is not to say that the move to develop such manifold ministries
is bad; it's just to say that in the context of the current ecumenical
movement, it can be used for the wrong goals and purposes. [3] "The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries",
by Thomas M. Lindsay, (London:Hodder and Stoughton), 1902. [4] The writers of the New Testament were either of the Twelve Apostles
themselves (Matthew, John, etc.) or men associated with them (Mark with
Peter, Luke with Paul, James and Jude with Jesus), or Paul himself, a special
vessel who received special revelations for his task. [5] In fact, according to
the Didache, one of the earliest documents past the New Testament era, if
an apostle stayed with Christians for more than three days in a row, he was
considered to be false (Didache 11:4,5). I would probably consider this
to be a part of the growing tendency in those days towards legalism, however. [6] Lindsay, pp. 152-53. [7] Consider for example,
the attitude of Paul towards Apollos when he asked him for cooperation! (I
Cor 16:12). The Kingdom Gospel Messenger © 1995-2013 Tricia Tillin of Banner Ministries. All rights reserved. Cross+Word Website: http://www.banner.org.uk/ This document is the property of its author and is not to be displayed on other websites, redistributed, sold, reprinted, or reproduced in printed in any other format without permission. Websites may link to this article, if they provide proper title and author information. One copy may be downloaded, stored and/or printed for personal research. All spelling and phraseology is UK English.We Already Have Apostles
We are Already United
how can we ignore the compromise that is happening all around
us? What Is An Apostle?
What Is Spiritual Authority?
What Is The Church?
Taking The Historical Route
The Two Classes of Ministry
Bringing It All Home
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