Apostles- apostolos
"sent forth with orders" -Thayer, "delegate"- Unger
Secular Use- A fleet of ships sent out on a mission.
"sent one"- John 13:16
"messengers"- 2 Cor 8:23; Phil 2:25
68 out of 79 times in Luke/Acts & Paul
"Apostles," in partnership with "Prophets"
"Foundation" - Eph. 2:20
Revealers of Church Doctrine - Eph. 3:5
Gifts to the Body of Christ - Eph. 4:11
Qualification #1
From John's Baptism to Jesus' Ascension
Acts 1:20-26
Qualification #2
Eyewitness of the Resurrected Lord Jesus
1 Corinthians 9:1
Qualification #3
Gifted to Perform Signs & Wonders
2 Corinthians 12:12
FALSE APOSTLES
Overview for "Apostles Today"
by C. Peter Wagner
"Transformation of the city was the battle cry in the 1990s. What’s happening on the streets today? How far have we come since then? How do apostles fit into the urban landscape? How do they fit into God’s plans?
C. Peter Wagner, our generation’s greatest authority on the apostolic realm, has been writing on these subjects for a number of years. He now brings these topics together in one volume for an insightful look at the spheres of authority that are all around us. Wagner’s most authoritative book yet on apostles, Apostles Today looks at the progress of the New Apostolic Reformation begun in the beginning of the 1990s and continuing today.
This book is a call for apostles to assume their rightful place of work with God to see his will accomplished here on earth. Wagner relates his decades of experiences and those of others, which show the role of apostles not only in the traditional church, but also in the extended church. Apostles Today offers fresh vision for the role of apostles in healthy churches, workplaces, and cities."
"The apostles were agents of God’s revelation of the truths that would become the Christian rule of faith and life. As such, and through Christ’s appointment of them as his authorized representatives (2 Cor 10:8; 13:10), the apostles exercised a unique and functional authority in the infant church.
There are no apostles today, though some Christians fulfill ministries that are in particular ways apostolic in style. No new canonical revelation is currently being given; apostolic teaching authority resides in the canonical Scriptures, of which the apostles’ own writings are the core and the key. "
J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1993), 197.
"The canon of the New Testament, by implication from the factors that formed it, should be viewed as closed. It is a reasonable view that the New Testament canon was completed by the first century AD, by which time all the apostles had died. On dealing with this issue, it is important to consider the passage in Hebrews 1:1-2, which states that God has spoken through Christ as final revelation."
Joseph M. Holden and Norman Geisler, The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 2013), p. 176.
"One thing must be emphatically stated. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognizing their innate worth and generally apostolic authority, direct or indirect.
The first ecclesiastical councils to classify the canonical books were both held in North Africa- at Hippo Regius in 393 and at Carthage in 397- but what these councils did was not to impose something new upon the Christian communities but to codify what was already the general practice of those communities."
F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Bottom of the Hill Publishing, 2013), p. 25.