What
it takes to be an Apostle
"...There
are false apostles....
A few days ago, I received an e-mailed from someone about a person calling himself an Apostle; I am not sure why I was sent this e-mail, but I am sure about one thing: The word of God has a definite prescription for one who is an apostle. It is true that Paul said, "He has given some, apostles; some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers…." [Eph. 4:11] Yet I often wonder why self-appointed men always seem to use the most unearned and unqualified for, but the most lifted titles--elder, overseer, bishop, apostle, fake PhD's--and wrap themselves in the name of God simply to steal from the people of God or to wrongly influence them.
When a person has the spirit of God upon him, all these trappings are unnecessary. It is when he does not have God or the gifts of God that he will take on these meaningless trappings; they are meaningless when they are not given by God or they are unearned by the holder. It is the anointing that breaks the yoke and removes the blindness from the mind, not meaningless trappings. [Isa. 10:27] Since many do not have the anointing, their yoke of ignorance and blindness remains. Self-appointed ministers have always heaped upon themselves lofty titles they do not qualify for and cannot bear its behavioral load.
The Bible teaches that elevation/promotion comes from God, not man; for He is the judge, and He sets up one and puts down another. Some 25-years ago, at seeing the Lord had blessed me in his word, I was offered a bishopric as a way of controlling God's mighty workings in me; I refused then and have since refused all similar offers from men of organizational means. Promotion comes from God! [Psa. 75:6] I know that all I have comes from God; the word of God in me comes from God; the spirit of God upon me comes from God; the education acquired comes from God.
It should be noted that when the sons of Esau had no God with them, for Esau was out of the blessing line of God and so were his sons; for the godly line passed through Jacob, they gave themselves titles--Dukes, Lords, Kings, etc. [Gen. 36:15-43] This pattern has existed throughout all the ages of man, and it exists today as well. Without God men need something else, but that something else is never enough; there is no substitute for God, even though men have used various things attempting to substitute Him.
Today more than ever, men seem to be taking on the title of apostle, but anyone can go to a dictionary, a mere reference of a word's meaning, and find that apostle means a messenger, one sent forth, etc. That is a rough approximation of the meaning used in common discussions, but that meaning is quite different from how God defines apostle.
What modern man has done generally is concocted his own definitions of God's word and his own standards of morality and attempted to place those on God. But God will not be bound by man's ways of thinking or by man's definitions and standards of morality. This behavior is man's transposition of truth. Human beings must, instead, comport themselves to God's ways. And He has declared that His ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts. [Isa. 55:8-9]
The idea that God conforms himself to human definitions and behavior allows whole church organizations to place or tolerate open and known homosexual ministers into positions of leadership over the people of God and declare that God is doing a new thing. But these people unknowingly testify against themselves as they twist God's word to fit their destiny of destruction. For the Scripture of old says, "Thou has consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people and has sinned against thy soul; for the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." And they (the stones and beams) shall testify against them, even today! [Hab. 2:10-12]
When the justice of God is slow in coming, that slowness prompts men to position themselves and God's people into thinking the justice of God will never come; so they do as they please and attempt to make God's word conform to their flawed reality. [Ecc. 8:11; 2 Pet. 2:3] But the wrongly divided word of God is not what God is saying; it is what man wants God to say. God's thoughts and ways are different.
The rightly divided word of God is what God is saying; the wrongly divided word of God is what man is saying and what man wants God to say. But God will not be contorted and pulled by the desires and emotions of men who want to twist His word to their desires. To rightly divide the Word of God requires work, and that is a primary cause of much of the wrong teaching that many do. Isaiah writes that Satan's ministers are lazy dogs loving to slumber; they are greedy dogs that will never get enough. And Paul tells us that we are to be aware of these dogs.
The Apostle Paul also wrote that we should examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. This examination is vital for keeping Christians living in the Word of God. [1Cor. 11:28; 2Cor.13:5] We examine ourselves not by each other, but by the naked, unadorned, and rightly divided Word of God. [1Cor.2:13] Those who examine themselves by each other (by pastors, some ministers, or another Christian) the Bible has declared as unwise--a fool. [2Cor.10:12]
Many who take upon themselves the lofty title of apostle have not read God's word long enough to learn how to rightly divide it, and their understandings have not been opened by Christ. To go to a dictionary for a definition of the ministry of an apostle and thereafter take the title upon himself is simply awful! More than that, it is a disgrace! Why bring down this lofty godly title of His holy apostles upon unholy men for small money morsels? And what these ungodly men seek through their ungodly ways is little more than what a dog seeks as he raids garbage bends--scraps! God will remember these unholy times and those ungodly men who play in and with the things of a holy God.
The Bible teaches that the church ...is built upon the apostles...and all the building is fitly framed together for a habitation of God.... [Eph.2:20-21] But these new-day apostles build their own churches in their own images, and certainly not for a habitation of God. Such churches are corrupt, sensual, vain, earthly, devilish, and man-centered. [James 3:15] These present day apostle-built-churches are about money, lust, foolishness and falsity--fake titles, fake positions, fake salvation, fake holiness, fake degrees, and a fake gods--they only use God's name to take away their shame. [Isa.4:1] Still the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber will answer it.
Bible Definition of Apostle
Paul writes repeatedly that he was an apostle called, chosen in Christ;
he identified himself among those who were called and chosen of Christ.
It is worth noting that Jesus had disciples and from those disciples he
called and selected 12 to be apostles.[Lke 6:13]
Jesus said that if we would search the Scriptures we would see that they testified of him. [John 5:39] The Old Testament spoke to Jesus and what he would do. [See Search the Scriptures, they Testify of Me for a discussion of this concept] As an example, when David was escaping Saul's anger, God used that situation to symbolize what Christ would say on the cross. David, in his distress at his plight, penned the following words, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?" [Psa. 22:1] And those words were Jesus' death cry. A cry that was utterly important to all mankind! God announced this momentous event through the affairs of his chosen one, David, about his chosen one, Jesus.
Likewise, when God chose Israel's (Jacob's) 12 sons as the 12 tribes of Israel--the very foundation and founders of that nation--that selection was symbolic of what Jesus would do in the flesh while on the earth; he chose his 12 apostles--a clear earthly demonstration that Jesus is the Very God of Very God; he is the great I AM! And these 12 apostles were part of the foundation and the founders of the church, through God. But this act had been foretold by God so we could see what He would do. And this is what Jesus did; all one need do is follow that allegory in the old to see what curves and bends would be taken in the new.
Note also that Jesus chose from among his disciples a certain group that they would go higher and deeper with him. [Lk. 6:13] Not only would they go deeper, they would have to pay the price of going deeper. We all love positions and affectations, but few are willing to pay the price for those positions. [Mat. 20:22]However, that unwillingness to pay the price never stops the ungodly; they take on titles and positions they are not worthy of having, and they disgrace those very positions, the true ministers of God, and the very Church of God itself.
In today's churches, we have ministers who cannot properly function as good Sunday School teachers, we have bishops who are as unaware of God's word as many street people are--I use overstatement to emphasize a point, and the point is this: Far too many ministers are unqualified and make a sham of the position and bring God's ministry into disrepute.
Some years ago, I was in a ministers' meeting, and the minister teaching had been a minister longer than I had lived. At that time, many church members were more interested in personal experience than the Word of God, which is experiences of the ages. During the meeting, three unsaved "ministers" came in and tied up that minister into confused knots. These unsaved ministers from afar were only slightly knowledgeable in the Bible, but they confronted the teacher minister on a certain point of scripture and overthrew him because that minister was unqualified to teach the things of God--he taught personal experience, which is self; God wants us to teach the Word. How many of untutored-in-the-word ministers are there? Too many! We love titles and positions we do not possess the qualifications for, and we make a mess out of ourselves, the people of God, and we bring open shame upon the ministry and the Church of the Living God
Jesus selected 12 disciples and made them apostles. They were selected from among the many disciples he had following him. These were a special lot and class of men who possessed certain qualifications and lived under certain conditions. Today, we have the basest of men declaring themselves to be apostles, yet they are merely playing in holy things, self-deceived, or they are demented in some way. They certainly have not met the qualifications and conditions of apostleship. There are conditions and qualifications for apostleship. One cannot simply wakeup one day and decide that he is an apostle, as many seemingly are doing.
The Conditions and Requirements of Apostleship
The Apostle Paul writes, "The signs of an apostle were wrought
among you..." as the result of his apostleship.
[2Cor. 12:12] He sets forth certain conditions--the signs
of an apostle. He also wrote, that he had seen Christ.
[1 Cor.9; 1-2; 15:8] Paul and other apostles
stated that they were especially selected/chosen by Christ as apostles.
[Lk. 6:13; Acts 1:2; 1 Tim. 1:1; 2:7]
Apostles built the very infrastructure of the church, receiving
commandments given to the church through the Holy Spirit and writing the
scripture/doctrine for the church throughout the ages. The
apostles were the forerunners and the vanguards of the church establishment--the
founders of the institutional church, not an assembly or two. [Mat.
28:19; Mk. 16:15; Acts 1:2; 1Cor. 12:28; Eph. 2:20] Finally,
the apostles had their understanding opened personally by Christ.
[Lk. 24:45; Gal. 1:16-19; 2Cor. 11:5]
For one to claim to be an apostle today he must measure up to the
qualifications and conditions set forth in scripture. And that is a tall
order indeed, if not an impossible one.
Problems that hinder Modern-day Apostleship
First, Paul wrote that the signs of apostle were manifested through him,
and he was not behind the very chiefest of apostles in terms of
his knowledge of and work in the Lord or anything else. He argued that
the Corinthians had seen mighty signs, wonders, and mighty deeds among
them at his hands, just as the other apostles of Christ has wrought. [2Cor.
12:11-12] A study of the Acts of the Apostles shows
that they had wrought mighty signs and wonders at the beginning of the
church--actions needed to demonstrate that God was with their assemblage.
Study similar actions of Moses, and you will see God did mighty works
through Moses to show all that he was with Moses. That also foreshadowed
what he would do among the apostles. [Acts 2] Paul
said that these same wonders were manifested through his apostolic ministry
as well.
Second, Paul wrote that we know Christ no more after the flesh. [2Cor. 5:16] This would be the most difficult to overcome obstacle to anointing oneself an apostle. All apostles of Christ saw him in the flesh, but since he has taken off the flesh, we know him no more in that earthly house.
Third, the signs of an apostle were more than merely establishing a few churches and healing a few sick people. The Bible says that many mighty signs and wonders were done at the hands of the apostles. These signs and wonders were done among the people. [Acts 43; 4:33; 5:12] Please note that all believers have the ability to lay hands on the sick so that they recover; all believers have the power to petition God and get an answer to prayer. Furthermore, God testified with their preaching through mighty demonstrations of His power.
Fourth, these apostles, being the infrastructure developers of the church, got commandments from God about the foundational aspects of the church--"...of all Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up, after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandment unto the apostles whom he had chosen." [Acts 1:1-2] Since the cannon of church order and doctrine is already established, it is hard to overcome this obstacle to modern-day apostleship. Furthermore, there is Scripture that prohibits adding to or taking away from the established cannon given by the apostles. John writes in the book of Revelation that the person who adds or takes away from the prophecy is in danger of having his name taken out the book of life. [Rev.22:18]
Sadly, this danger does not dissuade enough unholy men from dabbling in the holy things of God. But Paul warns those who would be saved that just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament, claiming to be something they were not, [Joshua 9] there are false apostles among us today, and they transform themselves into angels of light and their ministers into ministers of righteousness. [2Cor. 11:13] But God says, He knows those who say they are apostles and are not! [Rev.2:2]
The ministry of the apostle was a ministry used initially for the actual building of the church institution--they were the pioneers. These were special men, especially selected by God. That ministry may well be a ministry that does not function today, since the church infrastructure is in tact, even though many within the church misbehave very badly. Knowing the terror of God, I would be more than concerned for one who is so presumptuous as to take on the title of apostle. For one to take on that standard, one must be able to live up to it; a failure to live up to that standard while still maintaining the title is to pull the original apostles down, and that is very dangerous indeed. It is dangerous to the one who does it and to those who follow such a one. Jesus said that they both will fall into the ditch. [Mat. 15:14]
There is some room in scriptures for one to desire the office of a bishop, for Paul says, he desires a good work. But even when desiring, that MAN must qualify according to the scriptures--a woman could never qualify according to the Scriptures. [1Tim. 1-3; Titus 1:7] But, seemingly, it is always the case that when one takes upon himself the title apostle, that person is usually self-deceived. In the title and office of an apostle, there is no scriptural authority for one desiring and becoming or for anyone being ordained an apostle by men. From my examination of Scripture and church history, the apostle ministry was a special ministry used for a limited time to do the foundational work of building the institutional framework of the church establishment. Thereafter, since that infrastructure is in place, there is no use of this ministry--only a few aberrant cases of men claiming apostleship.
There are those of low self-esteem who have sought a dangerous way to salvage their low self-esteem by reaching into godly areas without the requisite qualifications. They reach for a godly title they do not qualify for and put it on. But that is a very dangerous endeavor indeed. For the foundation of God stands sure: The Lord knows those who are his, and everyone who names the name of Christ will depart from iniquity!
Instead of playing in the things of God, by taking on titles they cannot possibly qualify for, I suggest that these apostles of modernity may want to find another way to elevate their self-esteem or fatten their wallets because the justice of God is sure; it will come and will not tarry! Then, the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber will answer it and condemn them all.
I further suggest to these intrepid and godless men that they would do well to be careful, lest they fall into the hands of the living God! [Heb.10:31]
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