If Present-Day Apostles Exist, How Do They Function? Last week, we started talking about present-day apostles. If you didn t hear that podcast, I d advise you to listen to that first so that the session today makes sense. Our main text is Ephesians chapter four verses eleven through sixteen that tells us what happened after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Scripture records that as He ascended he gave gifts to men: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teacher whose sole purpose is to equip Christfollowers to do ministry work. These five gifts are in contrast to the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit illuminated in I Corinthians. These gifts come from Jesus himself with one specific objective: bring the church to full maturity. As I pointed out last week, all five ministry gifts were given to the church after the resurrection. So the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers here clearly are separate from the original twelve. Because centuries of traditions have ignored or rejected the concept of present-day apostles, where do we begin in our quest to recapture God s intent towards His Church? The place to begin I believe is to understand the basic premise of Christian leadership. During the Last Supper, Jesus said something revolutionary. In Luke 22: 24-27 we read: The apostles got into an argument about which one of them was the greatest. So Jesus told them: Foreign kings order their people around, and powerful rulers call themselves everyone s friends. But don t be like them. The most important one of you should be like the least important, and your leader should be like a servant. Who do people think is the greatest, a person who is served or one who serves? Isn t it the one who is served? But I have been with you as a servant.
So what did Jesus tell these future church leaders? Forget about titles, amassing power or gaining respect and recognition. That is how the world leads. If you want to lead, become a slave to serving other believers. Pay attention to the needs of other brothers and sisters and position yourselves to serve them. That is how leadership is done in my Kingdom. I want you to notice that nothing is mentioned here about oratorical skills, adding a title to your name, or getting noticed. In fact, the Pharisees were all about getting noticed, respected and appreciated by the crowds. Jesus warned his apostles not to be like them. Many pastors mistakenly add the title, apostle to their business cards hoping to gain more respect or attention. They believe that their experience in ministry merits adding a new title to their name. This just adds more confusion to the discussion. Paul describes his work as an apostle in I Corinthians 4: 9-13: It seems to me that God has put us apostles in the worst possible place. We are like prisoners on their way to death. Angels and the people of this world just laugh at us. Because of Christ, we are thought of as fools, but Christ has made you wise. We are weak and hated, but you are powerful and respected. Even today we go hungry and thirsty and don t have anything to wear except rags. We are mistreated and don t have a place to live. We work hard with our own hands, and when people abuse us, we wish them well. When we suffer, we are patient. When someone curses us, we answer with kind words. Until now we are thought of as nothing more than the trash and garbage of this world. In another reference, he describes himself using the analogy of a slave moving a ship forward by rowing. In ancient times, slaves were chained together below deck. Since there were no engines, slaves powered ships continually rowing with large oars. This back-breaking labor moved the vessel at whatever speed the captain required and if the ship went down in a battle, these slaves they lost their lives. Paul likens himself to this type of slave. Apostles are someone you don t often consider or think about who give their life to move the church forward.
In several places, Paul describes apostolic ministry as hard labor, suffering, and persecution. His analogies seem like a far cry from being continually honored at expensive dinners and lauded as a great speaker, doesn t it? Anyone called to apostolic work, if I read this correctly, should expect to suffer. To understand the gift of apostle or prophet or any of the five, I believe it is vital to view the church from God s perspective. Jesus is the Head of the Church. That means he is in charge. When he looks down at his church, he doesn t see First Assembly of God, Buzzards Bay Community Church or Liberty Baptist. He sees his body. If we could see his church as He does, we would not see all the fanfare, programs, buildings and potluck suppers. We would see people at various stages of spiritual development. Christ laid out a plan to bring his people to full maturity by sending forth 5 gifted ministries. All of us are familiar with pastors, evangelists, and teachers to some degree, but even then I do not believe we fully grasp the purpose for these vital ministries. All five gifted ministries were designed to complement each other and work in unison to equip Christ-followers to do ministry work. Practically speaking, how does that occur and where do we start? To borrow from the business community, I think the place to start is to write a job description. If someone goes to work for a company, it is vital that they receive a job description so that both the worker and the company know what to expect from their contribution. In most cases, people are either fired or promoted based on how faithfully they fulfill the expectations outlined in their job description. Part of the confusion about apostles and prophets is that we don t really have a working job description. Who are these people? What do they do? What should they do in the local church or not do?
Part of the reason for the confusion is the lack of job descriptions offered in the New Testament. In fact, not one of the five gifts highlighted in Ephesians 4 comes with a job description. I also was fascinated to discover that this is the only time pastor is mentioned in the entire New Testament. Our entire church system is built squarely on the shoulders of pastors, yet this is the only time their gift is mentioned. Please understand, I am a pastor myself and I personally feel that pastors are some of the greatest people on earth. I am not undermining this important ministry. I just find it curious that we have built the church through the centuries centralizing the pastor while largely ignoring the other four giftings. Part of this may be due to the work itself. Pastors care for the specific and local congregation of people. Arguably, the other four in many cases are trans-local, meaning that their influence is designed for many congregations at one time. While all may serve one local church, it is hard to imagine someone who is called to be an evangelist just preaching to the same congregation year in and year out. To get back on track, what is that apostles do? What is their job description and how can they benefit a local church? How can apostles make a pastor s job easier? According to Ephesians 2:20, apostles and prophets are primarily foundation-oriented ministries. Their focus and strength are making sure that the church locally or regionally is built on the solid foundation of Christ. In I Corinthians 3:10, Paul tells the church that he laid the foundation of their assembly and that each successive leader ought to pay attention to what he adds to the building. Because of these and other references, many believe that apostles are church planters. They are congregation starters. They come into a region and have the innate ability to gather people together into a viable church.
I tend to agree with this assessment, but I would also add that planting new churches is not the only thing apostles do. Remember that God views the church from a heavenly angel. Pastors tend a specific flock of people. Their responsibility before God is to feed, nurture and protect the sheep Christ has put into their hands. Pastors tend to be myopic in their vision. What do I mean by that? Pastors tend to be focused on their own congregations. The care for the church consumes most if not all their time. I don t fault them for this. Pastoral work is vital. However, God views the church on a larger scale and that is where the other gifts come into play. If pastors are left to themselves, the church will never function as one. I am not saying that to be critical, just practical. If I am focused on my church 24/7, I have no time to see the larger picture of what God is doing in a city, state or country. Apostles, prophets, evangelists and some teachers are trans-local and see the church as a whole, rather than individual churches. Their focus is to unite churches for a common purpose. Apostles, prophets, evangelists and what I will call regional teachers have a larger vision than pastors, but here is the key: they serve local pastors. When any of these four ministries view themselves as superior or indifferent to the local church, they invalidate their ministry and are essentially worthless to the cause of Christ. If an evangelist comes into town and makes no effort to meet with local pastors and just holds meetings to win the lost, they are wasting everyone s time. Any ministry that ultimately does not support and help local churches has no value to the Kingdom. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers are called by Christ to work alongside pastors to equip Christ followers in practical ways. During my life, I have seen various movements try to set up a governmental hierarchy over cities or regions. These hierarchies attempt to identify apostolic and prophetic ministries and coordinate their influence in the area.
These hierarchies always fall apart because they keep falling into the error of exalting apostles and prophets into positions God never met for them to occupy. Remember, Ephesians 4:11-16 is written from God s vantage point. We don t need a new governmental structure. We need servants who strengthen local churches. Well, here we ve run out of time again with so much more to say about the ministry and role of apostles. I am going to finish up next week on more of the practical ways these five ministries are designed to serve the church. For now, I put together and download for you with some of the scriptures in the New Testament pertaining to apostles with a few of my observations. If you d like it, just go to ministerstoolbox.com and click the download on the show notes page. You can follow me on Twitter @leadersministry or catch my blog at freshteaching.org. Thank you again for listening. As always, I end with a quote especially for you. This one is from John Maxwell who said: A leader is one who knows the ways, goes the way and shows the way. `