My first post on the apostolic (read it here) drew some good responses from Ben, Mark, and James – thanks, guys. In this topic I really am trying to grapple with a subject that I don’t have any answers to – and yet feel that the answers so often given in church life today do not quite reflect what the NT says about being an apostle. Ben makes a very valid point that the apostles were called to plant the gospel rather than plant churches though it may well be that the role developed as time went on and a shift was made to overseeing churches – as James points out in one of his comments.

In this post I want to return to Matthew 10. This is the first time to word ‘apostle’ is used in the NT (though is probably not the first use in terms of chronology as Paul’s letters were written before the gospels) and we find Jesus sending out the twelve. It may be that it is not correct to take from this set of instructions alone what the role of an apostle is but we have to start somewhere. The whole of chapter 10 contains Jesus’ discourse as he sent them out. It’s worth noting that it includes some well know verses about the value of sparrows, the numbering of the hairs on ones head, and the rewarding of those who receive prophets – verses so often applied to all believers even though they were used in a very specific setting.

But let us not dwell on the taking of verses out of the context – that’s a very different bee in a different bonnet. Let me list the things the twelve were expected to do once they were on their journey: go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; declare the coming of the Kingdom; heal the sick; raise the dead; cast out demons; receive hospitality from those who are ‘worthy’ (we won’t worry right now about what makes a person worthy or not); greet the house(hold) and bless it with peace;  and share in public what Jesus has shared with them in private. (Again I want to say there’s nothing here about planting churches, nor about providing a vision for the church. It seems to me that the leader providing a vision for the church is a model that has been taken from the world of business rather than the NT.) We can probably leave out the receiving of hospitality as it refers to how the apostles were to be sustained as they were not to take any cash with them or spare clothing. With the remainder of the list could we sum it up like this: the apostle, with supernatural authority, is to usher in the Kingdom of God, thus reversing the effects of the fall in a particular area?

Why do I suggest this definition? Well first of all, Jesus gives them authority that is supernatural in its’ scope. It is authority to cast out unclean spirits/demons. There is no doubt that in the worldview of 1st century Palestine the demonic was seen as a spiritual force that had authority over the earth. Having authority over this force was surely a spiritual and supernatural power, therefore. Second, the sick being healed, the dead raised, the demonised set free (though it’s not just individual people who are demonised), are all signs that the rule of God is breaking through into this world and the kingdom of darkness pushed out. It is a sign of a change of tenancy of creation. And at the vanguard of this process is the apostolic ministry.

Now for a provocative question to close this post with: if there is no sign of this supernatural authority at work, can it be apostolic? Or at least, can it be any more than apostolic-in-training?