The "Five-Fold Ministry"
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14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
This says the 12 foundations will have the 12 apostles of the lamb.
Now if there are still apostles today, then that means Jesus will have to choose from all of those apostles names, to decide which ones get their names put on those foundations.
Which apostles is he going to choose from all the supposed ones existing throughout history? Maybe Larry from North Dakota? How about Apostle Snooky from Jersey? Surely Apostle Albert from Phoenix!
Do you see how ridiculous all that sounds?
In order not to sound ridiculous we have to take what the Bible gives us.
The Bible says they are the FOUNDATION.
The Bible says the are 12 apostles of the lamb.
The apostles laid the foundation of the church through Jesus. There is no need for apostles anymore.
This says the 12 foundations will have the 12 apostles of the lamb.
Now if there are still apostles today, then that means Jesus will have to choose from all of those apostles names, to decide which ones get their names put on those foundations.
Which apostles is he going to choose from all the supposed ones existing throughout history? Maybe Larry from North Dakota? How about Apostle Snooky from Jersey? Surely Apostle Albert from Phoenix!
Do you see how ridiculous all that sounds?
In order not to sound ridiculous we have to take what the Bible gives us.
The Bible says they are the FOUNDATION.
The Bible says the are 12 apostles of the lamb.
The apostles laid the foundation of the church through Jesus. There is no need for apostles anymore.
M
There is no need for churches to be overseen? No need for establishing new churches? No need for mentoring pastors and teachers? Really? You can have your Burger King view and SEPARATE the offices that GOD listed together. Who are YOU to separate and END something that GOD put in place and NEVER, anywhere in His word, said was to cease? Truly, like the rest of, you are no one.
1
Yes Paul was an apostle.
An apostle is someone called by Jesus directly to be an apostle.
Matthew 10
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Judas betrayed him. So he wasn't any longer an apostle.
His replacement was chosen by lot, not by the direct call of Jesus.
26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.
Leaving us with 11 total who we know had that direct call of Jesus to be an apostle.
Then Paul received his call for apostleship. Making it 12.
1 Corinthians 1 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
An apostle is someone called by Jesus directly to be an apostle.
Matthew 10
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Judas betrayed him. So he wasn't any longer an apostle.
His replacement was chosen by lot, not by the direct call of Jesus.
26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.
Leaving us with 11 total who we know had that direct call of Jesus to be an apostle.
Then Paul received his call for apostleship. Making it 12.
1 Corinthians 1 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
TWO?
IN 2000 YEARS SINCE THE 12? that's it?
do they have authoritative letters? accompanying miracles? a 100% accuracy in all writings and revelations? have they seen the resurrected Christ?
that's the continuing foundation? 2 guys in ND?
i thought you said the offices continued? shouldn't there be millions? or hundreds of thousands?
we apparently have a couple right here. but they don't give their real names.
and i will indeed google them.
IN 2000 YEARS SINCE THE 12? that's it?
do they have authoritative letters? accompanying miracles? a 100% accuracy in all writings and revelations? have they seen the resurrected Christ?
that's the continuing foundation? 2 guys in ND?
i thought you said the offices continued? shouldn't there be millions? or hundreds of thousands?
we apparently have a couple right here. but they don't give their real names.
and i will indeed google them.
Revelation 21
13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
So you're telling me we're going to see the name of apostle Larry and apostle Jim on the foundation next to Peter and such?
The lamb is clearly described as having 12 apostles. No more.
The 12 apostles were part of the foundation. Jesus is done laying foundation. He won't even accept Obama money in exchange for concrete to lay new apostolic foundation...
13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
So you're telling me we're going to see the name of apostle Larry and apostle Jim on the foundation next to Peter and such?
The lamb is clearly described as having 12 apostles. No more.
The 12 apostles were part of the foundation. Jesus is done laying foundation. He won't even accept Obama money in exchange for concrete to lay new apostolic foundation..
.
AMEN!!!!.....
Originally Posted by 1still_waters
Yes Paul was an apostle.
An apostle is someone called by Jesus directly to be an apostle.
Matthew 10
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Judas betrayed him. So he wasn't any longer an apostle.
His replacement was chosen by lot, not by the direct call of Jesus.
26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.
Leaving us with 11 total who we know had that direct call of Jesus to be an apostle.
Then Paul received his call for apostleship. Making it 12.
1 Corinthians 1 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
Yes Paul was an apostle.
An apostle is someone called by Jesus directly to be an apostle.
Matthew 10
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
Judas betrayed him. So he wasn't any longer an apostle.
His replacement was chosen by lot, not by the direct call of Jesus.
26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.
Leaving us with 11 total who we know had that direct call of Jesus to be an apostle.
Then Paul received his call for apostleship. Making it 12.
1 Corinthians 1 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
So the apostles falsley assigned the 12th apostleship to Matthias huh? Not buying, but good try
Acts 14:14 Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,
Apostles and Prophets and the Foundation of the Church
Bibilical Exegesis that Proves that Only the New Testament Apostles are Authoritative
by Bob DeWaay
“And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, 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 fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13).
Today a popular movement is making brash claims about itself. The movement claims that God is raising up a huge wave of end times prophets and apostles who will be instrumental in subduing entire nations and eventually the whole world before Christ returns. They claim that those of us who do not submit to this “prophetic-apostolic” movement will be judged or moved out of the way.1 These apostles and prophets will be so powerful that people will be struck dead if they show up at their meetings with sin in their lives.2 The new apostles and prophets will have power over nature itself.3 They will be a “new breed of man” with revelations, power, and prophetic insight not seen since Christ Himself was on earth.4 Bill Hamon who makes all these claims includes himself in this category of a “new breed” apostle: “In 1994 at CI’s eighth annual IGOP Conference I accepted God’s ‘commissioning’ as one of His new breed of restored last-days apostles.”5 He claims to have, “one thousand pages of type-written prophecies” that prophecy that Hamon is an apostle and prophet.6
The key proof text that underlies this movement is Ephesians 4:11-13 cited above. In this article we will examine this passage in its Biblical context to see if it predicts a new breed of apostles and prophets who will empower the church to take dominion over the world before Christ returns. The passages tells us that God gave the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers until we achieve the unity of the faith and the fulness of the stature of Christ. The claim that Hamon, C. Peter Wagner (who wrote the forward to Hamon’s book) and others are making is that the church has failed to fulfill this calling through most of church history because we have only had the last three of these ministries. Supposedly we need the “signs of an apostle” and new revelations of prophets to finally propel the church into its glorious state of perfection before Christ returns.
The Foundation and the Building
In interpreting Ephesians 4:11, there is a question about what Paul means by the terms “apostles and prophets” in this passage. The questions are several: are these authoritarian prophets and apostles who gave us the New Testament revelation, are they apostles and prophets in a functional sense only, or are they fully revelatory and authoritative apostles and prophets who Paul envisions to be continually raised up throughout church history. Each of these possibilities needs to be examined in the context of the Book of Ephesians and the New Testament.
The best place to start is with what Paul has said earlier in Ephesians about apostles and prophets. The first such mention is in Ephesians 2:19, 20 “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.” This passage uses a building analogy that is carried on in Ephesians 4:11-13 where he uses the phrase “building up.” The word in Ephesians 4:11 is from the base of the same Greek word that was used in Ephesians 2:20. Here in Ephesians 2 apostles and prophets are the foundation with Christ being the cornerstone.
This passage has several interpretive issues. The first is: does it mean 1a) “the foundation that the apostles and prophets lay,” or 1b) “the foundation that consists of the apostles and prophets”? The second issue is, “who are the prophets here, Old Testament ones, New Testament ones, or ‘the apostles as prophets’”? We shall address these questions one at a time. I believe that Paul means that Christ as the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets to whom Christ gave the New Testament revelation together constitute the foundation. I will discuss the questions and give evidence for my position.
The reason for the first question is that the Greek can allow either interpretation, so we need to look at the context to decide. In Ephesians 2 Paul is primarily concerned with the fact that this one building consists of both redeemed Jews and Gentiles. The next mention of apostles and prophets in Ephesians is instructive: “And by referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:4-6). The mystery of the gospel is that God is saving Gentiles as well as Jews and adding them to the church. This was revealed to the “apostles and prophets.” Clearly here it means the New Testament message in its fulness, as epitomized in the gospel. This does not settle the questions raised in 1a and 1b above, but does point to New Testament apostles and prophets.
That apostles could be considered a part of the foundation is evidenced by this passage: “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:14). Another pertinent New Testament passage is 1Corinthians 3:11, “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” So the question is, if Christ is the foundation, how can it be that in Ephesians 2 the apostles and prophets are? The answer lies in the cornerstone analogy, which likely is an allusion to Isaiah 28:16.7 Here, Christ is the corner stone and His apostles and prophets are the first stones laid that will constitute the foundation. This allusion shows that Paul means “apostles and prophets as the foundation,” 1b.
Several scholars have written astute observations on this. F.F. Bruce wrote, “Apostles and prophets constitute the foundation ministries in the church, not only in Ephesians but in 1Corinthians: ‘God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets . . .’ (1Cor. 12:28). Apostles and prophets, then, might well be viewed as the first stones to be laid in the new building.”8 Lenski’s comments are very enlightening:
In I Cor. 3:11 Jesus Christ is called the foundation, not laid by Paul, but by God, not laid in founding this or that congregation, but laid by God once for all, for the church as such, for all time. In Ephesians ‘the foundation’ is to be understood in the same sense, the one laid by God. Then the genitive is appositional: “The foundation which consists of the apostles and prophets,” not, indeed of their persons as being the first believers, or of their faith as being the original faith, but of their office as “the apostles and prophets,” the recipients of the entire divine saving revelation for inspired transmission to all future ages.9
Charles Hodge comments as follows on Ephesians 2:20:
There is a true and obvious sense in which the apostles are the foundation of the church; secondly they are expressly so called in Scripture — as in Rev. 21:14, besides the disputed passage, Matt. 16:18; and thirdly, the figure here demands this interpretation. In this particular passage Christ is the corner stone, the apostles the foundation, believers the edifice.10
The passage in Ephesians 2 sees the apostles and prophets as the foundation of the building which is the church. Though Paul does speak of himself as laying a foundation in 1Corinthians 3:10, the figure is slightly different there. Plus, there was a very important church in the New Testament (the one in Rome) that as far as the Biblical evidence shows was founded by no apostle, but by the witness of individual Christians. Considering all the evidence I conclude that Paul means that Christ as the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets to whom Christ gave the New Testament revelation together constitute the foundation. Throughout church history this one foundation is continually being build upon, but not altered or changed. The reason Paul likely means New Testament prophets is that he mentions them with apostles in Ephesians 3:5 (previously quoted) as the ones to whom the New Testament revelation was given. This is Paul’s meaning in Ephesians, though from the rest of the New Testament it is not clear who in particular were these prophets. That has caused some to interpret him as meaning, “the apostles as prophets.” The text does not show that he meant this. They are listed separately in several New Testament lists, including Ephesians 4:11.
So we have concluded that apostles and prophets in Ephesians 2:20 are foundations of the church, because of what Christ, the Cornerstone, has done through them by giving them the New Testament revelation. This New Testament revelation that was given to them concerns this basic truth, often repeated in Ephesians: “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6). It is the Gospel and all the attendant teachings that are given in the New Testament. We have also concluded that these are New Testament apostles and prophets as referenced by Paul in Ephesians 3:5,6.
The Five-fold Ministry
As we now address Ephesians 4:11-13 the immediate question concerns his third mention of apostles and prophets in Ephesians. I will argue that Paul is speaking of the same people. Is there any evidence from the context for taking apostles and prophets in Ephesians 4:11 to mean different people from what Paul had in mind in Ephesians 2 and Ephesians 3 where he previously taught about apostles and prophets? Keep in mind that his terminology “building up” continues the thought of the church as a building, with a foundation, that is continually built upon. That in itself is strong evidence that Paul is still speaking of New Testament apostles and prophets. The so called “five-fold” ministries of Ephesians 4:11 were given to the church upon Christ’s ascension (Ephesians 4:8-10). Their effects will continue on until the end of the age: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God . . .” (Verse 12).
The ministries of the apostles and prophets continue throughout the age only in the sense that they gave us the New Testament revelation that serves as the once for all laid foundation, Christ as the cornerstone. Considering that Paul called Christ the cornerstone, and in Corinthians the foundation itself, we can see that the foundation must be laid once for all. Those who claim that there must be a continual giving of apostles throughout the church age for the body to come into the unity of the faith have a huge problem with what Paul taught in Ephesians. Obviously many Christ’s do not have to be given to the church throughout the church age or at an end time restoration period for Christ to be the cornerstone! So why do we imagine that many apostles and prophets have to be given later in church history for them to be the foundation? Neither the cornerstone nor the foundation need to be laid more than once.
Therefore, the context provides good reason to take the apostles and prophets of Ephesians 4:11 to be Christ’s apostles and prophets of the New Testament era whose foundational ministries continue to be in effect throughout the church age because of the final and authoritative revelation of truth that was given them. Christ gave them to His church, once for all, and their divinely inspired teachings are final and authoritative. Apostles in particular have certain qualifications that no one today can meet. Charles Hodge explains in his comments on Ephesians 4:11:
First, the apostles, the immediate messengers of Christ, the witnesses for him, of his doctrines, his miracles, and of his resurrection; infallible as teachers and absolute as rulers in virtue of the gift of inspiration and of their commission. No man, therefore, could be an apostle unless — 1. He was immediately appointed by Christ. 2. Unless he had seen him after his resurrection and had received the knowledge of the Gospel by immediate revelation. 3. Unless he was rendered infallible by the gift of inspiration. These things constituted the office and were essential to its authority. Those who without these gifts and qualifications claimed the office, are called “false apostles.”11
There is good Biblical evidence for this claim that there were only a limited number of authoritative apostles and it is explained by Orrel Steinkamp’s article in this issue of CIC.
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