Apostles and Prophets in the NT Church
After Jesus arose, HE gave to the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers … for the work of the ministry … Eph. 4
So who are they? Where are they? What is their role in the NT church today?
I was born again by God speaking by HIS Spirit to me. I thought I was a Christian. I had gone forward and been baptized in water. But my life did not change.
After God spoke to me in 1975, my life changed immediately!
God said to me, “Joan. You know those mistakes you’ve been making all these years? Those weren’t mistakes. Those were sins.”
I was very shocked … I thought they were mistakes…
The change in me was of God. I was given the Spirit of God and that made all the difference.
John the Baptist said …
Mt. 3:11 … I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but HE (Jesus) that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: HE shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
I was so different that I would speak and not even recognize I was the one speaking those words for the change in me was so different.
I was definitely “a new creation.”
Paul speaks of this in II Cor. 5:17 … 17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
After this happened, I was asleep in the night. I was transported into heaven and was with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. I was merged into the body of Jesus, God and Holy Spirit witnessing. (I saw no images. This was all in the spirit.)
A few days later, the exact same thing happened to me again. I was asleep in the night. I was transported into heaven. I was with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. Again I was merged into the body of Jesus … made one with the Word of God.
I was really on fire! At the time this happened, I owned a small business in Dallas. I no longer cared about anything but Bible. I went to church constantly. I went to prayer group. I went to all meetings of the church that I could manage. I read Bible constantly, day and night.
I thought I might marry a minister. I had no thought whatsoever that I was called to be a minister. I would have rejected that immediately having been taught in Church of Christ that a woman could not speak in the church.
God had a very big work to do with me to get me from where I was to where I would eventually be in the work in Christ.
I got a young preacher (from Dallas Theological Seminary) to come teach weekly Bible classes at my shop for me, my staff, and any customers who wanted to study Bible.
At the first Bible class, this young man asked me to open the class with prayer. I was horrified. I responded, “I can’t pray with a man in the room.” He said, “You can’t?” I thought this is what they taught at Church of Christ.
I read all the things in the NT concerning the role of women in the church but somehow I missed the scriptures in Acts telling about Philip’s 4 daughters who were prophets. (Acts 21:9) I had never heard of a prophet in the NT church.
One day I sat in my office at my business and wept! Woe is me. There is no place for me in the church. Paul said for the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands and to care for their husbands and children. But I had no husband nor children. There was nothing for me to do at all in the church, so I thought.
My business was profitable so I decided my role in the church would be to make money and support ministers!
God had other plans for me!
It was clear to all that I was very different. People were frequently saying, “We know God’s hand is upon you.” (I had no idea what that meant.)
I hadn’t told anyone that I was taken into heaven twice in the night … I thought that happened to every Christian.
At some point, it was revealed to me this did not happen to every Christian.
Then all manner of prophecies began to be spoken over me saying I was called by God to be a prophet.
God was also teaching me Bible.
I tried to enroll at Dallas Theological Seminary to study Bible. I wasn’t planning to try to be a minister. That idea never occurred to me. I just wanted to study Bible
The head of the seminary explained to me “gently” that they did not allow woman in the seminary. That was fine with me. But I already had an earned doctorate in Education and had several years teaching experience. Therefore the dean of the seminary said I could come to any of their Bible classes and “sit in” on the class if I would agree to help the young men learn to teach the Bible. He said some of their students were really terrible teachers. I was very happy to do that.
I can’t say I helped anyone. I can’t even say I learned anything about the Bible at the school.
I didn’t understand that God was teaching me and raising me up in the “calling”. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as being called by God.
I was just on fire over the Bible!
In time, God spoke to me and said, “I have called you and set you in the body of Christ as an apostle.” I was very shocked!
Apostle? I shouted. What’s an apostle?
At that point, I set about learning about apostles in the NT church.
I started at the church I attended by asking my Sunday School teacher.
He gave me a vague, meaningless answer.
Then I asked him who were the apostles at our church group? Our church group professed to believe Eph. 4 that Jesus set apostles and prophets in the ministry of the NT church along with evangelist, pastors, teachers.
So who were the apostles in our church group, I asked. Don didn’t know who they were.
At that point, God took me to Acts 15 and started teaching me about apostles and the role of NT apostles in the church.
Acts 15 … 1 And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. 2 When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.
… 6 And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. 7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. 8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. 10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? 11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
12 Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.
13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: 14 Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. 15 And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, 16 After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:17 That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. 18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. 19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
God showed me apostles in NT church have an anointing from God to enable them to deal with church doctrine and rules of the NT church.
Through the subsequent 30+ years, God has often given me insight to doctrine … which I have shared with pastors and other ministers in the NT church…
And also I was set in body of Christ as a prophet. God showed me the following concerning prophets in NT church.
Hosea 12:13 … And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.
Prophets are used by God in the NT church to help people get out of various bondages and to help people stay out of traps.
We bring correction and warnings to the church and to individuals in the church.
I’m so glad NT is not like OT. Today all people who belong to God are given the Spirit of God. So they no longer have to seek the will of God through a prophet. They go directly to God through Jesus in prayer.
But God still uses HIS anointed prophets to bring correction to the church and to individuals to help them get free from traps of this world.
There are several examples of prophets in NT.
Agabus was a prophet. He delivered messages to Paul and others. Acts 20
Silas, who traveled with Paul, was a prophet. Acts 15-18
It is not that prophets tell the future, though God might show them something in future. But often a prophet has a type of sensitivity from God and knows the truth about situations before it becomes general knowledge to the church. God gives NT prophets an anointing for the office and the calling.
I was visiting my mother in the town where she lived. One of my relatives, a Baptist woman, and another Baptist met with me at a coffee shop. The other Baptist woman was talking about the new building they were building at the church she attended. She told of one woman in their church group who was so negative and against the project. Alice asked me what I thought might be wrong with this woman and without any thought at all, the following came from my mouth. “Maybe she’s a prophet.”
A woman at the church I attended when I was first born again identified herself as being a prophet.
She told me this story: She was invited by pastor and elders to speak at a church gathering. Pastor and one of the elders had decided to open a secular business together. Ava said when things were wrong, she got sick at her stomach. At the gathering, she spoke and they were going to lay hands on pastor and elder and pray over their new business venture. Ava began to get sick. She slipped out of the room. Everyone else was praying and laying hands on pastor and elder.
Shortly after this, the business failed and pastor and elder were in the US courts suing one another.
I believe prophets are all over … in churches. But often they have no idea they are prophets.
Ephesians 4 … 7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11 And HE gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Some churches teach that Paul is the last apostle.
I believe Paul to be the first of the NT apostles.
Paul was not like the apostles who walked with Jesus prior to the crucifixion.
Paul was persecuting the Christians after the crucifixion of Jesus, when Jesus spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus. (Acts 9)
I believe Paul is one of those apostle/teachers given to the church by Jesus after Jesus arose as described in Ephesians 4.
And further, in Ephesians 4, we read: And HE gave some, apostles; and some, prophets…
Plural … apostles … prophets … multiple people… multiples apostles, prophets …
But I see these people today … I recognize prophets in various church groups when I meet them.
And I know apostles are there also, though I can’t say I have any personal dealings with any though I would certainly like to.
Mostly, they don’t even know that they are such, is my belief.
We are in very perilous times today in the church and in the world … It seems like “peace” when it is anything but peace, spiritually speaking …
Paul described these times for us …
II Tim. 3 … 1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
10 But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, 11 Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. 12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; 15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
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