The Correct and Balance Ministry of the Apostles

By:

Kenneth E. Hagin

 By not rightly dividing the Word of God, some people have misinterpreted the office of the apostle and taken it to the extreme. Anything taken into extreme is in error.

  People need to interpret Scripture in the light of other Scripture on the same subject. Therefore, in order to rightly divide the Word of truth on any subject, people need to take all the scriptures on a given subject and study them in the light of all the Bible has to say on that subject.

  By assuming the apostle is listed first because it is preeminent over all the ministry gifts, some people are going from church to church in a dictatorial attitude declaring that they are apostles and demanding that people and churches submit to them.

   Obviously, in the establishing of the universal Church following the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles and prophets were of primary importance because they brought forth the revelation of the New Testament that is the foundation upon which the Church in all generations is to be established.

   However, in terms of the operation of the local church today, First Corinthians 12:28 could not be referring to the offices of the apostles and prophets as the most important offices or the the governing offices with the local church, because Paul listed governments as an entirely separate category.

   Therefore, Paul couldn’t be listing ministry gifts in their order of importance within the local church because in the passage in First Corinthians 12:28, Paul lists teachers third. However, in Ephesians 4:11 he lists the office of the teacher last. That’s not consistent.

   Also, assuming that the “governments” is the pastoral office, in First Corinthians 12:28 Paul lists the ministry of helps before the pastoral office. If he were listing them by importance in the local church today, then the teacher and helps ministry would have authority over the pastor in the local assembly.

   That’s not scriptural. And according to the list in Ephesians 4:11, that means the evangelist would be in authority over the pastor in the local body! That isn’t biblical, particularly because the evangelist’s ministry is usually not a stationary ministry in the local church; it is usually more of a roving ministry to the unsaved outside of the church.

   So we can readily see that Paul does not list the ministry gifts in their order of importance in the local church today. Neither was he establishing the hierarchy for local church government by the order in which the ministry gifts were listed. No, the office of the apostle was not listed first because it is the most important office in the local body and is supposed to rule over all the other ministry gifts.

 Actually, in Ephesians 4:11 and First Corinthians 12:28, it would seem logical that Paul listed these offices in that order by the way God "set" or developed the ministry gifts in the Early Church. The Early Church didn't have the five fold ministry to begin with because it takes time for God to develop ministries and ministers. And God doesn't put novices in positions of authority or in ministry offices because He won't violate His own Word (1 Tim. 3:6). So for a time, the apostolic ministry was the only ministry in operation in the Early Church.

Therefore, the apostolic office was the first ministry gift that was initially evident in the Early Church. The twelve Apostles of the Lamb were the only ministers in the beginning days of the Early Church. These men had acompanied with Jesus in His earthly ministry (Acts 1:21). They were chosen by God, and the Holy Spirit had equipped and qualified them as ministers of the gospel.

The apostles seemed to have the ability to operate in all the ministry gifts to some degree. And, really, they needed that ability because the Church was in its infancy stages and no other ministry gift had developed in the Church yet. It would also be safe to say that they ministered prophetically to some degree, and they did minister evangelistically as well. There was also an element of pastoral oversight, and we know for certain that they taught the Word.

Apostles, however, did not remain as the only ministry gift in the Church. As time progressed, those who ministered as prophets also began to appear. The prophets spoke by inspired utterance. The scriptures don't give us much detail on this subject, but we do know that the ministry of the prophet was well established by the time the account in Acts 13:1 occurred:

"Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain PROPHETS _______ "

Similarly, the Scriptures don't give us the exact beginning of the evangelist's ministry. However, we see the office of the evangelist first mentioned in Acts 8 in Philip's ministry. By then the Church had already been in existence for many years, and there had been time for the Holy Spirit to develop the ministry of the evangelist in the Church.

Pastors or shepherds were raised up as the Church grew and believers matured spiritually (Acts 14:23; 15:2; 20:28). And the ministry of the teacher was developed in the Early Church as believers were trained and instructed in doctrine (Acts 2:42; 13:1).

Another reason it is erroneous to exalt the apostle's office above all others is that even in the Early Church, the apostles didn't govern all the churches — even churches they had helped to establish. Paul only had spiritual oversight of churches while he was establishing them. But he had no oversight in the church at Jerusalem or any other church whatsoever. Once he left a church he had established, he delegated oversight to others (Acts 20:28).

After leaving, Paul did respond to questions the Church asked, and he offered godly input to them. But he did not control or govern them.

I don't really like to use the words "spiritual authority," in reference to the apostolic office because that gives the idea that apostles rule and govern people and churches, and they don't.

But the point is that in First Corinthians 12:28 when Paul said, . . God hath SET some in the church . . . he was probably referring to the order in which God "set" or developed ministry gifts in the Early Church. Another error in this doctrine is a teaching which says that all the ministry gifts make up the "government" of the local church, and each church, regardless of its size, is to be ruled by the five fold ministry.

Again, people haven't rightly divided the Word. They haven't distinguished between the Church as a whole — the universal Body of Christ — and the local church. In the Church as a whole, we will find all five ministry gifts in operation. But every local church will not have all five ministry gifts operating in its assembly.

These misconceptions really put the Body of Christ into bondage instead of liberating believers. The Bible says that the Word of God will set us free (John 8:32), not bring us into bondage.

You see, if we aren't careful, we can have misconceptions on both sides of this issue. We can get in the ditch on one side and deny the true office and function of the apostle. Or we can get in a ditch on the other side and give the apostolic office unlimited preeminence and authority.  Those who give the apostolic office too much pre-eminence and claim to stand in that office, seem to take the attitude, "I'm an apostle! You've got to do what I say because in order to have correct New Testament government, the local church has to be governed by apostles."

Actually, I can't find anywhere in the New Testament that there is any higher office in the local church than the pastoral office. I don't see anywhere in the New Testament where apostles ruled over pastors and other ministry gifts. These unscriptural teachings that apostles and prophets are to rule and govern people and churches are not new. I've been in the ministry more than fifty-seven years, and I've seen these same unscriptural teachings in the Body of Christ before. These errors run in cycles. They crop up in every generation in the Church and have to be dealt with.

You see, another generation will come up that hasn't been taught the truth of God's Word on a particular subject, and they'll get off in a ditch in an area and get off-balance scripturally.

In every generation God has to raise up someone in church leadership to deal with these issues. God raised up Donald Gee in the 1930s to deal with this same extreme teaching on apostles in his book, The Ministry-Gifts of Christ, which is now out of print. Donald Gee was one of the pioneers and great teachers of the Pentecostal Movement.

Then we had the same problem surface again in the Body of Christ in the 1950s. Gordon Lindsay addressed it again in his book, Apostles, Prophets and Governments, and the problem died down. Lindsay was the founder of the Bible school, Christ For The Nations, and he published the magazine, The Voice of Healing. Almost all the leading healing evangelists of the day published their articles in this magazine.

Because Donald Gee and Gordon Lindsay were respected leaders in the Church, and their books were scripturally balanced, they stopped much of the wrong doctrine that had surfaced back then. There was a real revival in those days, and that's usually when the devil starts all of these spiritual tangents to try to stop the move of God. He diverts believers by getting them off in spiritual error, trying to abort the real move of God's Spirit.

In our day, a new generation has grown up in the Church.  And this same controversy has resurfaced in the Body of Christ, so it has to be addressed again. I tried to get God to have someone else do it, but He said, "No, you do it." That's the reason for this book.

I will quote from Gordon Lindsay's book, Apostles, Prophets and Governments from time to time in this book, because it amplifies what I believe and his insights help explain some of the things the Lord said to me in that visitation. But one reason these errors have occurred again in our day is that people try to give the apostolic office of today the same status as the second or third class of apostle in the days of the Early Church. But it simply does not have the same status. 

Now there is no doubt at all that some folks in our day could rightly be called apostles in the fourth class. (We will discuss the fourth class of apostle in the next chapter.) But a fellow who goes around broadcasting to everyone that he is an apostle, probably isn't one. If you are a minister, I would encourage you to let others call you what they will based on the spiritual endowments or equipment and fruit they see manifested in your life and ministry. Let's just rejoice to see the ministry gifts in manifestation and glory in the work the Lord is doing in the Body of Christ without being concerned about titles.

February 05, 2019
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Providing excellent motivation and inspiration to unleash potentials in everyone and mentoring life's journey through life's experiences for us to become better persons that God want us to be, overcomers, victorious and conquerors for the glory of God.

YOUR TRUE CALLING

Have you ever considered why the Lord called you to be a child of God? Was it to become a powerful preacher of the gospel, to be a missionary in a far-off country or to be a good husband and father or wife and mother? Is your calling to be a successful business person or an efficient administrator? While these may be valid pursuits in life in obedience to the calling of God, we need to look more closely into the Scriptures to identify our true calling.

In my study of the Scriptures, I have discovered at least 41 calls that apply to the lives of believers. Consider, for example, that we are called out of darkness into His marvelous light (see 1 Pet. 2:9) or that we are called to be saints (see Rom. 1:7).

But not one of these 41 calls is our primary call. When God created Adam there were no churches to pastor, no heathen to preach the gospel to and no businesses or offices to manage. The primary reason God created Adam was to fulfill His desire for a family with whom He could enjoy sweet communion. His first priority is the same today as then: to enjoy His children in a love relationship.

Jesus declared, “’If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him’” (John 14:23, NKJV).

Our primary calling is our destiny to enjoy relationship with God, not to work for Him. The work God gave Adam to do was to have dominion over the earth. He was in charge of taking care of the place where he would live with his descendants and where God would come to walk with him and commune with him.

God’s desire for believers is to cultivate a love relationship with each of us. In the context of that relationship He will then give us specific tasks to do. Yet the tasks should never diminish the priority of relationship with Him.

Of course, God has ordained that the church, the body of Christ in the earth, serve one another as we serve God. But we must be careful to prioritize our calling the way God does and not according to man’s perspective. God intends that our service to the body of Christ and to lost humanity proceed out of relationship with Himself. That relationship of worship – the creature to the Creator, the redeemed to the Redeemer – will motivate us to serve out of a heart of love for God.

I am convinced that whatever God does to advance His purpose on the earth is born out of a worshiping people. When the woman at the well asked Jesus questions about worship, He responded, “’The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him’” (John 4:23).

It was the woman’s question and Jesus’ answer that led me to seek God and search the Scriptures in order to understand what Jesus meant by worship in “spirit and truth.” God seeks worshipers who will cultivate a love relationship with Him. He values our relationship with Him more than anything we can or will ever do for Him. We can show Him that we value it as well by laying hold of our primary calling to enjoy and worship Him.

BY: Dr. Fuchsia Pickett

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Healing Before Ministry

"And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed." - Joshua 5:8

Before the nation of Israel could go into the Promised Land they had to be circumcised. Circumcision is painful, bloody, and personal. God requires each of us to be circumcised in the heart before we are allowed to enter and receive the blessings that await each believer in the Promised Land.

This circumcision can often be very painful. Circumcision requires losing our old way of life. The process of spiritual circumcision may mean a loss in areas that have been a part of our lives in order to draw us to the Savior. God understands this. Consequently, like the people of Israel, we must wait until we are healed before we begin to be effective in our calling. If we launch out too early, we will be ineffective and may risk infection and disease and will not be at our full capacity. God wants each of us to walk in His healing grace.

The people of Israel fought only two battles when they were coming out of Egypt. In the Promised Land they fought 39 battles. Each of us must be prepared to enjoy the benefits of living in the Promised Land. However, we must also be prepared to wage war against the enemy of our souls. Make sure the Lord has provided the needed healing to your circumcision experience before you enter the Promised Land.

by Os Hillman

_______________________________

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YOUR TRUE CALLING

Have you ever considered why the Lord called you to be a child of God? Was it to become a powerful preacher of the gospel, to be a missionary in a far-off country or to be a good husband and father or wife and mother? Is your calling to be a successful business person or an efficient administrator? While these may be valid pursuits in life in obedience to the calling of God, we need to look more closely into the Scriptures to identify our true calling.

In my study of the Scriptures, I have discovered at least 41 calls that apply to the lives of believers. Consider, for example, that we are called out of darkness into His marvelous light (see 1 Pet. 2:9) or that we are called to be saints (see Rom. 1:7).

But not one of these 41 calls is our primary call. When God created Adam there were no churches to pastor, no heathen to preach the gospel to and no businesses or offices to manage. The primary reason God created Adam was to fulfill His desire for a family with whom He could enjoy sweet communion. His first priority is the same today as then: to enjoy His children in a love relationship.

Jesus declared, “’If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him’” (John 14:23, NKJV).

Our primary calling is our destiny to enjoy relationship with God, not to work for Him. The work God gave Adam to do was to have dominion over the earth. He was in charge of taking care of the place where he would live with his descendants and where God would come to walk with him and commune with him.

God’s desire for believers is to cultivate a love relationship with each of us. In the context of that relationship He will then give us specific tasks to do. Yet the tasks should never diminish the priority of relationship with Him.

Of course, God has ordained that the church, the body of Christ in the earth, serve one another as we serve God. But we must be careful to prioritize our calling the way God does and not according to man’s perspective. God intends that our service to the body of Christ and to lost humanity proceed out of relationship with Himself. That relationship of worship – the creature to the Creator, the redeemed to the Redeemer – will motivate us to serve out of a heart of love for God.

I am convinced that whatever God does to advance His purpose on the earth is born out of a worshiping people. When the woman at the well asked Jesus questions about worship, He responded, “’The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him’” (John 4:23).

It was the woman’s question and Jesus’ answer that led me to seek God and search the Scriptures in order to understand what Jesus meant by worship in “spirit and truth.” God seeks worshipers who will cultivate a love relationship with Him. He values our relationship with Him more than anything we can or will ever do for Him. We can show Him that we value it as well by laying hold of our primary calling to enjoy and worship Him.

BY: Dr. Fuchsia Pickett

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Are We Saved by Faith Alone or by Faith that is Not Alone?

MORAL LAW

 Another group, the Antinomians, void of the law.  Antinomian is a compound word from the Greek roots “antinomian” meaning “without law.” The sect originated in the days of the Apostles, Its followers suppose that the gospel was designed to release Christians from their obligation to obey the moral law. Their doctrine grew out of a perversion of the doctrine of justification by faith.

The Jewish scholars had taught that men would be saved only by perfect outward conformity to the moral and ceremonial laws. In opposition to this, Paul taught that by the works of the law no flesh can be justified; first, because all men had broken the law already, and second because no obedience however perfect could make restitution for past disobedience.  Therefore, all people are already condemned by the law because of their pardon and acceptance. The atonement of Christ is, therefore, the only ground for pardon. Those who are saved are justified solely by faith in Christ irrespective of any legal righteousness of their own.

     The Biblical view of justification by faith was perverted by the Antinomians. They maintained that if people were justified by faith alone, then good works are unnecessary. They believed that faith in Christ is substituted for obedience to the law of God. They overlooked the fact without personal holiness no one shall see the Lord.

Holiness of Heart Is Part of the Gospel

    Varieties of the Antinomian sect have existed throughout history and in almost every part of the Church. They have not always been known by this name, but thousands have and still do manifest their belief and practices. They may generally be recognized; when holiness of heart and life are demanded, they complain that this is legal preaching, that the gospel has been exchanged for the law. They think that the gospel is designed to repeal the moral law; not only to set aside the penalties for believers in Christ, but also to discharge them from any obligation to the moral government of God, render it impossible for either law or gospel to sanctify them and “utterly perish in their own corruption.”

    Obviously, a person professing faith in Christ must live a holy life, as holy as if he expected to be saved by his works. If he indulges in sin, abandoning all regard for the law, he is the minister of sin. He is perverting and abusing the gospel. He becomes, in heart, an Antinomian. The gospel becomes a license to sin and Christ the apologist for sin.

PRINCIPLES OF REVIVAL p. 98

Charles Finney

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CAN YOU TRACE IT?

Peculiarities Of The Movement

There is no preaching, no order, no hymn books, no choirs, no organs, no collections and, finally, no advertising. I am not saying these things are wrong. I simply want you to see what God is doing. There were the organs, but silent; the ministers, but among the rest of the people, rejoicing and prophesying with the rest, only there was no preaching. Everybody is preaching. No order, and yet it moves from day to day, week to week, county to county, with matchless precision, with the order of an attacking force. Mr. Stead was asked if he thought the revival would spread to London, and he said, “It depends upon whether you can sing.” He was not so wide of the mark. When these Welshmen sing, they sing the words like men who believe them. They abandon themselves to their singing. We sing as though we thought it would not be respectable to be heard by the man next to us. No choir, did I say? It was all choir. And hymns! I stood and listened in wonder and amazement as that congregation on that night sang hymn after hymn, long hymns, sung through without hymn-books.

The Sunday-school is having its harvest now. The family altar is having its harvest now. The teaching of hymns and the Bible among those Welsh hills and valleys is having its harvest now. No advertising. The whole thing advertises itself. You tell me the press is advertising it. They did not begin advertising until the thing caught fire and spread. One of the most remarkable things is the attitude of the Welsh press. I come across instance after instance of men converted by reading the story of the revival in The Western Mail and The South Wales Daily News.

The Three Characteristics Of The Meetings

It was a meeting characterized by a perpetual series of interruptions and disorderliness. It was a meeting characterized by a great continuity and an absolute order. You say, “How do you reconcile these things?” I do not reconcile them. They are both there. If you put a man into the midst of one of these meetings who knows nothing of the language of the Spirit, and nothing of the life of the Spirit, one of two things will happen to him. He will either pass out saying, “These men are drunk,” or he himself will be swept up by the fire into the kingdom of God. If you put a man down who knows the language of the Spirit, he will be struck by this most peculiar thing. I have never seen anything like it in my life; while a man praying is disturbed by the breaking out of song, there is no sense of disorder, and the prayer merges into song, and back into testimony, and back again into song for hour after hour, without guidance. These are the three occupations—singing, prayer, testimony.

In the afternoon we were at another chapel, and another meeting, equally full, and this time Evan Roberts was present. He came into the meeting when it had been on for an hour and a half. He spoke, but his address—if it could be called an address—was punctuated perpetually by song and prayer and testimony. Evan Roberts works on that plan, never hindering anyone. I venture to say that if that address Evan Roberts gave in broken fragments had been reported, the whole of it could have been read in six or seven minutes. As the meeting went on, a man rose in the gallery and said, “So and So,” naming some man, “has decided for Christ,” and then in a moment the song began. They did not sing Songs of Praises, they sang Diolch Iddo, and the weirdness and beauty of it swept over the audience. It was a song of praise because that man was born again. There are no inquiry rooms, no penitent forms, but some worker announces, or an inquirer openly confesses Christ, the name is registered and the song breaks out, and they go back to testimony and prayer.

In the evening I stood for three solid hours wedged so that I could not lift my hands at all. That which impressed me most was the congregation. I stood wedged, and I looked at the gallery of the chapel on my right, and there were three women, and the rest were men packed solidly in. If you could but for once have seen the men, evidently colliers, with the blue seam that told of their work on their faces, clean and beautiful. Beautiful, did I say? Many of them lit with heaven’s own light, radiant with the light that never was on sea and land. Great rough, magnificent, poetic men by nature, but nature had slumbered long. Today it is awakened, and I looked on many a face, and I knew that men did not see me, did not see Evan Roberts, but they saw the face of God and the eternities. I left that evening, after having been in the meeting three hours, at 10:30, and it swept on, packed as it was, until an early hour next morning, song and prayer and testimony and conversion and confession of sin by leading church-members publicly, and the putting of it away, and all the while no human leader, no one indicating the next thing to do, no one checking the spontaneous movement.

A Church Revival

What is the character of this revival? It is a church revival. I do not mean by that merely a revival among church members. It is that, but it is held in church buildings. I have been saying for a long time that the revival which is to be permanent in the life of a nation must be associated with the life of the churches. What I am looking for is that there shall come a revival breaking out in all our regular church life. The meetings are held in the chapels, all up and down the valleys, and it began among church members, and when it touches the outside man it makes him into a church-member at once. I am tremendously suspicious of any mission or revival movement that treats with contempt the Church of Christ, and affects to despise the churches. Within five weeks, twenty thousand have joined the churches. I think more than that have been converted, but the churches in Wales have enrolled during the last five weeks twenty thousand new members. It is a movement in the Church and of the Church, a movement in which the true functions and forces of the Church are being exercised and filled.

The movement is characterized by the most remarkable confession of sin—confessions that must be costly. I heard some of them, men rising who have been members of the church and officers of the church, confessing hidden sin in their heart, impurity committed and condoned, and seeking prayer for its putting away. The whole movement is marvelously characterized by a confession of Jesus Christ, testimony to his power, to his goodness, to his beneficence, and testimony merging forevermore into outbursts of singing.

This whole thing is of God; it is a visitation in which he is making men conscious of Himself, without any human agency. The revival is far more wide-spread than the fire zone. In this sense you may understand that the fire zone is where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel the flame that burns. But even when you come out of it, and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere, men everywhere are talking of God. Whether they obey or not is another matter. There are thousands not yielded to the constraint of God, but God has given Wales in these days a new conviction and consciousness of himself. That is the profound thing, the underlying truth.

The Origin Of The Movement

In the name of God let us all cease trying to find it. At least let us cease trying to trace it to any one man or convention. You cannot trace it, and yet I will trace it tonight. Whence has it come? All over Wales—I am giving you roughly the result of the questioning of fifty or more persons at random in the week—a praying remnant has been agonizing before God about the state of the beloved land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come. You tell me that the revival originates with Roberts. I tell you that Roberts is a product of the revival. You tell me that it began in an Endeavor meeting where a dear girl bore testimony. I tell you that was part of the result of a revival breaking out everywhere. If you and I could stand above Wales, looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here and there, and yonder, and somewhere else, without any collusion or prearrangement. It is a divine visitation in which God—let me say this reverently—in which God is saying to us: See what I can do without the things you are depending on; see what I can do in answer to a praying people; see what I can do through the simplest who are ready to fall in line and depend wholly and absolutely upon me.

________________________________________________

Much can be gained from studying the move of God throughout history. I would be unwise to attempt to mimic the exploits of these men and women of God from old, but there are reasons why God used them, and we would do well to put ourselves in the same position. Evan Roberts was only used because he travailed in prayer day in and day out for years in expectation for what God would do. Are we so committed? Because until we are willing to suffer with Christ like Evan Roberts suffered with Christ, we will never see the glory of God like Evan Roberts saw the glory of God.

-from the book titled simply The Welsh Revival

 

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Living the Love Life

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

– John 15:13

We often think of "laying down your life" for someone else in terms of dying. That's what Jesus did. He loved us so much He laid down His life by dying in our place so that we could live.

But now, He's asked us to lay down our lives in a different way. He's asked us to show our love, not by dying for others, but by living for them.

Exactly what does that mean?

Sometimes it means giving our lives by spending time in prayer for someone. Other times it means giving of ourselves with love and understanding. Many times it means laying down our own selfish desires in order to meet the needs of another.

Romans 15:1 puts it this way, "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."

When you lay down your life, you live to please God instead of yourself. You let your life be guided by His love. If love leads you to the person next door, you follow. When love calls you to intercede for someone in need, you yield.

Commit yourself today to lay down your own life—and take up the love life. Say:

"Father, in Jesus' Name, I see from Your Word that You were willing to give of Yourself, in the person of Your Son, for all men. I understand that because Jesus is Lord of my life, I, too, am called to give myself to others. I choose to accept that calling today.

"I'll give of my time. I'll give of Your love in me. I'll be strong and lift up those who are weak. I'm willing to be available to be used of You so that those around me might experience the abundant life You have provided.

"You have loved me, Lord, with the greatest love there is. I count it a privilege now to share that love with others. I thank You for it in Jesus' Name. Amen."

FAITH TO FAITH
KCM

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 About me:
                                     
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Preparing the Way of the Lord
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