For some reason I feel very unsettled by modern day ministries led by people who pronounce themselves Apostles, or Prophets, or so on. It is just difficult for me when I see the Apostle such and such going on in our modern day churches. This might be wrong of me, but it's how I feel. I'd like to discuss it with others here to see how they feel about it too.
Blake,
When you study the NT, you will notice that one of the qualifications of an apostle was to have
personally seen the resurrected Savior with his own eyes (Acts 1:22). This qualification was met by the apostle Paul (Acts 9:1-16; Gal 1:11-12). The second qualification was that those men must have been
companions of the Lord while He was on earth, and
personally taught by Him. Paul met the second condition also (Gal 1:15-20). The third qualification was that the apostles received
the sign gifts in order to authenticate their Gospel messages (Mk 16:17,28; 2 Cor 12:11,12 "the signs of an apostle"; Heb 2:1-4 "God also bearing them witness"). The fourth qualification was that they must
belong to "the apostleship" -- the specfic ministry assigned to the apostles (Acts 1:25) from which Judas Iscariot was banished. The fifth qualification was that there would be
only twelve apostles in Christ's eternal Kingdom, who would receive 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel, and that those 12 names would be written in the 12 foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem ( Lk 22:28-30; Rev 21:14). In view of this, modern apostles are simply frauds.
If yes, what is the role of the modern Apostle? How is it different than the modern evangelist?
We need to distinguish between the sign gifts and the gifts given for the edification of the Church. The latter are listed in Eph 4:11-14 as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. As long as the complete New Testament had not come into existence, God gave the Church apostles and prophets.
After the written Word of God was finished (around 90 AD) those two gifts were withdrawn (1 Cor 13:8-10, and "apostles" is not mentioned here because they would be eventually martyred). Today we can look for
evangelists, pastors, and teachers (more precisely people actually
gifted with those spiritual gifts, not merely those who graduated from some seminary or Bible school).
If you study the history of Christianity through the writings of the Early Church Fathers (as well as just Church history) you will note that
none of them claimed the spiritual gifts of apostles and prophets. Therefore those who claim such gifts today are frauds. I realize that many Christians insist that all the spiritual gifts are still operational, but Scripture and Church history prove that this is not so. That's why you are having a problem with so-called "apostles" with their problematic "ministries". While you are going by feelings, you have objective facts to back you up.
