There are still many parts of the church today that believe the ministry of apostle was limited to biblical times and even to the 12 mentioned in the gospels and Acts. However, in the last few decades there has been a real interest in apostles in today's church. I said in the section on ekklesia that there is evidence that the Romans had apostles who led the ekklesia to transform a conquered people into Roman citizens. Culture change or bringing about a different kind of kingdom was something that Roman apostles did. Until Jesus, no one used the word for any other kind of ministry. Its such a unique technical word with such a clear meaning that we don’t even have an English word we just use the Greek ‘apostolos’ and tweak it.
I find it amazing that there are several books published over the last 10 years about apostles, but few seem to begin at the beginning. They nearly all want to describe apostles from what they think they are now, coloured with some biblical ‘evidence’ for their assumptions.
I believe that there is absolutely no reason to believe anything other than Jesus and the writers of the New Testament were using the Greek word used by the Roman people in its technical sense. This means that we cannot assume that apostles were network, movement or mega church leaders, nor that they were gifted visionaries or even that to be an apostle you had to work miracles, do healing or plant churches. In the Bible we do find apostles doing some of these things, but maybe its not because they are apostles, just because they are people who are part of the body of Christ and have received all kinds of gifts for the situations God places them in.
The first ever mention of an apostle is found in Phoenician culture and then the term gets used by the Romans. As I said earlier the apostolos was the leader of the culture changing team. In fact the name was also given to the lead ship in a fleet sent from Rome to a new land, but especially it was used for the leader. In Roman times it was clear when the apostles had done their job because everyone would now be wearing a toga and taking Roman baths in Roman villas etc.
In the early church the apostles went to cities which had no church and saw churches founded, but the churches weren’t little fellowships of 24 adults trying to keep the machine going. They were spiritual ekklesia, changing culture from Roman pagan ways to kingdom of God ways. There is evidence that by the end of the first century Ephesus had a population of around 300,000 and the church there, which was begun by Paul in AD52, comprised one third of the population!! Even if we have any cause to mistrust that evidence on the size of the church in Ephesus as 100,000 strong we must assume that it was a huge church in a very large and important Roman city. The bible tells us that John and Timothy also served as apostles in Ephesus in the first century. What did they do? They brought about the Kingdom of God by leading the spiritual ekklesia Jesus was building out of living stones. It is certainly no surprise to me that in AD62, while he was imprisoned in Rome, Paul wrote the most detailed description of church to the people of Ephesus. I will come back to the size of the church in a much alter blog, but for now let me say that 100,000 Christians has a huge influence in a city the size of Ephesus.
How sad that later Jesus has to speak to that church in the way he does:
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lamp stands.“ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent.
Rev 2:1-5
The church in Ephesus had lost its first love and wasn’t doing good works anymore. It wasn’t changing culture anymore and so Jesus judged it as no longer a church. Even though in 21st century eyes it was the mega church of all mega churches. Maybe that should cause us to ask today when is a mega church a church!
Sometime in the second century apostles seem to have become less frequently mentioned and bishops become more prominent. Its my theory that this is really where the church began to become something which Jesus was not building. Bishops, or elders as we might better call them became digital leaders of the city church rather than a plurality of elders, and they became responsible for ministry and authority. The authority they exercised rapidly became wrong way up leadership and not servanthood. The church grew in size and influence during the next few centuries, but it was slowly ceasing to be the culture changing ekklesia Jesus was building to see his kingdom come on earth and it soon stopped being the Bethel, House of God, thin place, portal it was called into being to be.
Today, we need to restore the ministry of apostle to the church, but we also need to restore the church to be the ekklesia in the city that brings about the Kingdom of God, otherwise the apostle will be something which it was never intended to be, a title given to people with big ministries, or particularly gifted people in signs and wonders with platform ministries and book deals or else excellent practitioners in building and planting Christian fellowships.
We will think about the role of Prophet next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment