F4F | The Masting of Michael Brown Part 2 - Big "A" or Small "a" Apostles?

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith here on YouTube. This is gonna be a long episode, buckle up, a lot of biblical teaching that we've got to engage in here.

We're gonna continue with the Masting of Michael Brown Part 2 today, and we're gonna need to do a lot of biblical work determining what

Scripture teaches regarding what the Apostolic Ministry is all about biblically.

You know, who is an Apostle, who was an Apostle, what are the biblical qualifications for Apostle, and things of that nature.

And we'll bounce these ideas off of things that are said by not only Michael Brown, but Joseph Matera, the convening

Apostle for the United States Council of Apostolic Leaders, which, by the way,

Michael Brown is a member of that organization. So let me go ahead and pull up our display here, and we're gonna begin by listening to Michael Brown talking about his affiliation with a group that is associated with the

NAR. No joke, he talks about that. Here's Michael Brown to explain.

Let me just alert you to a show we have planned for Monday with my friend

Dr. Joe Matera. He has been around with the forming of what was known as the

NAR, New Apostolic Reformation. He leads today the

U .S. Council of Apostolic Leaders. I'm a member of that, it's hundreds of leaders from around America, and he has...

So he's a member, Michael Brown is a member of the United States Council of Apostolic Leaders.

Important to note... Clearly made statements distancing himself and the organization from some of the tenets of NAR.

Right, the tenets that the critics have been pointing out. So he's distancing himself from the so -called

NAR, the stuff that the critics have been pointing out. He's distancing himself from them.

Important to note that Michael Brown, you know, until very recently has pretty much totally dismissed the idea that such an

NAR ever existed, and now he's recognizing that, yeah, it did exist, but we're changing it, and he's a member of the group that's actively working to, you know, to change and do away with the old

NAR. See, but he is... No, no, that's the terminological thing that I keep trying to help people understand, that there's a difference between those of us who believe in five -fold ministry today...

Now, we're gonna talk about that, by the way. Michael Brown is basically saying he's not in the

NAR, at least not the way the critics have defined it. Fine, fine. Instead, he's a five -folder, you know, a five -fold guy.

We'll talk about that biblically in a little bit here. Those prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, those of us who believe in that today, and what is often called

NAR. It is the sloppy use of the term that has concerned me. Now, I'm gonna take a real big issue here.

See, the issue is not the sloppy use of the term NAR, you know. I point to people like Holly Pivick and others, including myself, who've done their homework, who have extensively quoted from people who have been part of the

New Apostolic Reformation, especially going back to C. Peter Wagner and the things that he's written in his books.

You know, you think of Bishop Hammond and others that are part of the New Apostolic Reformation, and we've even noted that, you know,

Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California. He was introduced as an apostle by C.

Peter Wagner at Todd Bentley's Apostolic Commissioning Service. So, you know, what

I find fascinating here is that it is Michael Brown who is accusing critics who've actually done their homework, quoted primary sources, and people associated with the

NAR, Cheyenne and others, as somehow sloppily using the term

NAR. I'm going to note that it is Michael Brown and Joseph Matera and others who are engaging in a sloppy use of the word apostolic and apostle, and through their sloppy use of it, are actually creating more problems for the

Church as well as themselves. And we're gonna clean up the term apostle and apostolic with today's episode of Fighting for the

Faith. But I just wanted to have you hear him say how it's the critics who are sloppily using the term

NAR. Is the hysteria associated with some of the fringe abuses that have concerned me, and with that, oh hang on,

I used a wrong verb there. The hysteria, I should have said has, all right? So the hysteria associated with some of the abuses that has concerned me, just trying to be grammatically correct,

I don't want to frustrate any English teachers who are listening. But because of some of the hysteria,

I heard clips from a video, NAR now is controlling the lives of over 350 million people worldwide.

Yeah, that's a mischaracterization of Todd Friel's video, which you can purchase over at Wretched, called

Drunk in the Spirit. And well worth the watch, is the best way

I can put it, and it's clear that what Michael Brown is doing here is reacting to Todd Friel's work.

Now let me go back a little bit to February of this year, and I want you to listen to how

Michael Brown defines the word Apostle. And for lack of a better way of putting it,

I've heard him use this before, but this is not how he's going to use it in this video clip. But he makes a distinction between Big A Apostles and Little A Apostles.

Think back to the days when you used to watch Sesame Street, and you were learning the difference between capital letters and small case letters.

And so the idea here is that Michael Brown, in this clip, is going to say he's a five -fold guy.

He believes that Apostles have been around since the beginning, we just haven't called them Apostles, and so he's going to be describing

Little A Apostles. And we'll note how he's defining them, and we're also going to point out the fact that this is not how men like Joseph Matera are defining apostolic leaders.

But let's let Michael Brown spin this out for us. I'll tell you exactly what I believe. I believe that since Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven based on Ephesians 4, that there have been

Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers in every generation. I believe that they've been here for the good of the

Church, and that my understanding of the Greek in Ephesians 4 is that these have been established in the

Church until we reach full maturity. All right, so the five -fold argument is that Ephesians 4 .11,

basically it says that we are going to have Apostles on earth until Jesus' return.

We'll take a look at that exegetically in a little bit, but I wanted you to hear it. So he's saying there have always been

Apostles on the earth. Now, important to note here, men like C. Peter Wagner and Bill Hammond and others have been talking about the restoration of Apostles.

C. Peter Wagner was a guy who was a restorationist when it comes to Apostles, because he taught that people possessed an apostolic office.

And so, you know, what he's describing here, what Michael Brown is describing here, is different than what

C. Peter Wagner taught and wrote about. The Twelve Apostles, they are unique.

They wrote Scripture, their names are on the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem. No one has the authority of the

Twelve Apostles today. All right, so Big A Apostles, so he's making a distinction between Big A Apostles and then

Little A Apostles coming up. There are what we call Small A Apostles. The Greek is just emissaries. Barnabas, for example, is called an

Apostle Acts 1414, and that these were people that had certain roles. They were planters, they were founders, they were pioneers, they were spiritual fathers to other movements.

So planters, founders, pioneers. Let's just boil it down to one word.

We'll call the way he's describing an Apostle in the little case sense as a missionary.

You know, we'll just, we'll use the word missionary. So that's what we'll use moving forward, and as we listen to Joseph Matera talk about, you know,

Apostles, and we'll also do a little bit of historical work here, because one of the major leaders of the

U .S. Council of Apostolic Leaders is mentioned by a fellow in Rwanda.

We'll show you this, and we'll just, as we listen to these different things, we'll ask ourselves a question.

Does this make sense if what we're talking about is a missionary?

Now, my immediate question comes up if, you know, if the

New Apostolic Reformation is really nothing more than a missionary society, a loose conglomeration and network of missionaries and church planters, then, you know, clearly, you know, there shouldn't be any controversy.

I mean, there have been missionaries for centuries since the, you know, since the Christian Church was established 2 ,000 years ago.

So, you know, I mean, I believe in missionaries. I've never said, no, missionaries don't exist.

But see, notice he's defining things here in such a way that, you know, he's making a distinction between big

A apostles and little a apostles, and little a apostles are basically missionaries.

And things like that, I believe we've had them through history, but we haven't called them apostles.

So I always use the same examples, you know, Hudson Taylor, China Inland Mission, I look at him as a modern -day apostle.

All right, so Hudson Taylor, Chinese missionary, is an apostle, okay?

Now, I'm gonna note that this is a really sloppy use of the word apostle. Could cause all kinds of confusion, but he's basically claiming missionaries are apostles, okay?

Liam Booth, with his social outreach movement and Salvation Army, especially in its early days, clearly preaching the gospel.

I look at him as a modern -day apostle or apostle of recent past. My friend Yesuponim in India, he doesn't use any titles.

When he goes overseas and starts other ministries, he goes and helps the homeless and ministers to people. Nobody knows his name when he does it.

He's just there to serve. But he's planted over 7 ,000 churches in previously unreached tribal regions, been stolen for preaching the gospel.

All right, so missionary, missionary church planter, apostle, okay. Well, Jesus appeared to him. That's who he was saved.

I look at him as a modern -day apostle. I'm not into using titles. I see it as redundant.

I'd rather we didn't even put pastor in front of people's names, but that's okay. It's identifying, but it's recognizing a gift and a calling.

I believe we've had prophets through our church history, but haven't always. All right, so I'll leave off the prophet discussion for another time, but clearly you kind of get the idea.

So what he's saying, and notice that Michael Brown is a member of the

U .S. Coalition of Apostolic Leaders, which if we understand what he's saying here, well, all they really are is a missionary society.

They are recognizing men who are called to be missionaries, see? And they're using the word apostle and apostolic in ways that are confusing, but you know, the nefarious evil critics of the

NAR are just too obtuse to recognize that the only thing we've been discussing this entire time is, you know, missionaries.

Is that really what's going on here? And again, I'm gonna point out, the problem here is not that critics of the

NAR have been misusing the word or the phrase NAR. The problem is that men like Michael Brown and others have been really vaguely misusing the word apostle.

Now, let's note something here. So we're gonna play a little game, you know, and we're gonna work through a few different resources here.

We're gonna ask the question, Big A Apostle or Little A Apostle, a .k

.a. missionary? So from Joseph Matera's appearance on Michael Brown's line of fire, listen to this statement made by Joseph Matera, and we'll just ask ourselves, does this make sense if what they're discussing are missionaries?

I think that these are people driven by fear. The people driven by fear are critics, like, you know, like myself.

They have created their own bogeyman, and I don't think anybody should be afraid of true apostolic, prophetic leaders that God has ordained according to Ephesians 4 to continue until there's unity in the faith and complete knowledge and fullness of the

Son of God, which hasn't happened yet, so if they're against apostolic leadership, they're fighting against God Himself.

All right, so if you're fighting against missionaries, you're fighting against God Himself.

Which kind of begs the question, why would anybody fight against missionaries? Why would they be opposed to missionaries?

And if I'm opposed to missionaries and I'm fighting God Himself, you know, strange heavy -handed terminology there.

So if you're opposing the apostolic, you're opposing God Himself. But see, when you start talking about it in terms like that, you know, it no longer sounds like you're talking about a missionary.

Now let's go back in time to the year 2014, and the Norwegian Apostle Jean -Ange

Torp, and he was in Rwanda, and the name of the message is

God Anoints Apostles Today. You can find it on YouTube. And Jean -Ange

Torp here is going to describe the importance of apostles today and say this is part of God's order, and see if what he's describing to you sounds like he's describing, you know, small a apostles, you know, missionaries.

See if this makes any sense in that context. Listen in. For the kingdom of God to expand, we need to understand this order, otherwise there will be much mess.

But when we, out of respect and love, honor the work of God, we will be able to move swiftly around the world.

You know, I have a spiritual father in America by the name of John Kelly. Now John Kelly, by the way, is associated with Joseph Matera and the

U .S. Council of Apostolic Leaders. So, you know,

I just recently watched a YouTube video where John Kelly and Joseph Matera and another apostolic leader were talking about current trends and, you know, the apostolic churches and stuff.

So, Apostle John Kelly. Let's listen to this historical account of his apostleship and see if this makes sense if we were to just change his title from apostle to missionary, you know, because small a apostles, you know.

He's a great man. I love him very much. I hope that Apostle Gitwaza will bring him sometime here.

He's a big man, too. And he used to be an American football player.

He played professionally for the New York Jets. And he was the heavyweight champion in boxing of the state of New Jersey.

John Kelly was a man, a big man. All right, we got it. He can knock down anyone.

And he had a blue ox named Babe, too. I kind of get the idea. All right. But he's strong.

And, you know, he has built many churches. He's a great man.

And then many years ago, ten years ago, God said to him, start a coalition of apostles in the world. You know,

John Kelly is like a father, a spiritual father. He will cry with you.

He will laugh with you. He picked me up sometimes when I was finished.

Sometimes he would just love me. Other times he would kick me. And it was good.

But God told him to start a coalition of apostles in the world. And I was there with him.

We had the first year in 2000. It was exciting.

We were maybe about 100 apostles. And everyone felt the excitement.

So a hundred, you know, missionaries got together. A hundred missionaries. Yeah, okay. God is doing something great.

Bringing together apostles from all continents. But then

God spoke to Apostle John Kelly. I told you to start it.

But I want you to now submit to another apostle. Peter Wagner.

So Kelly went to Wagner. God tells me that you should lead this.

And I will serve you. So he knelt down. No, you're mistaken.

Come on. You're Peter Wagner. I'm John Kelly. So John Kelly down on his knees in front of C.

Peter Wagner. Have any of you ever gotten down on your knees in order to pledge your allegiance and servitude to a missionary?

You know, small a apostle. I mean, because that's all we're talking about here. You know, you know, like missionaries to China and stuff.

Have any of you ever done this? I haven't. I will serve you.

And I will help you. And Peter Wagner said, okay. And then

Peter Wagner has led it. You know, that's the order of God.

So the order of God requires me to submit and bend the knee to a missionary.

You know, because I call me crazy, but what he just described there sounded more to me like a big a apostle rather than a small a apostle.

So let's head over to the website for Joseph Matera, josephmatera .org.

And Michael Brown has recommended that his listeners go to Joseph Matera's website.

And we're going to look at, you know, a couple of things that he's written. I'm going to make the print bigger so that it's a little easier to read.

The necessity of restoring apostolic ministry today. Which kind of begs the question,

I mean, if we're talking about small a apostles, you know, missionaries, haven't we had those all from the beginning?

Why would we restore missionaries to the church? Unless, of course, he's not talking about missionaries.

Well, let's take a look. So Joseph Matera writes, since the late 1940s, there has been a resurgence of attempts to activate the fivefold ministry gifts as found in Ephesians 4 .11.

Like I said, we'll get into this. You'll need your Bible. We're going to do some Bible study here in a minute. And starting with the latter rain movement, which, by the way,

I came out of, it's a heretical movement. In Canada, various groups have arisen proclaiming the restoration of the apostolic.

Restoration. Somehow I don't think they're talking about the restoration of missionaries.

Just thinking, you know. And prophetic gifts to go along with the evangelist, pastor, and teacher gifts.

The result has been the emergence of great movements of independent networks led by apostolic visionaries.

So Joseph Matera, the leader of the United States Coalition of Apostolic Leaders, on his own website is saying that there's a great movement of independent networks led by apostolic visionaries.

And yet what he's describing doesn't sound at all like, you know, missionaries.

And which they have been exploding in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, which, by the way, the critics have been noting that.

And Joseph Matera here has just confirmed it. So this apostolic movement represents the fastest growing segment of global Christianity.

That's exactly what C. Peter Wagner said when he was alive. Furthermore, now even evangelical leaders and movements are embracing five -fold ministry language to describe church leadership.

The primary reason for this is because the church is being taught by the Holy Spirit that the church has to go from a pastoral model of church to an apostolic model in leadership if we're going to replicate the amazing

Jesus movement of the first few centuries of church history. Which is kind of bizarre here.

Because my question is, what does it mean to go from a pastoral model to a missionary model?

If we're talking about church leadership here, I thought missionaries plant churches.

And then it's the pastors who come in once the church is established and continue the ministry of preaching the word, baptizing people, administering the

Lord's Supper, caring for those who are ill, praying, and, you know, things like that. So it's weird because it sounds to me like Joseph Matera is talking about, you know, big

A apostles rather than small A apostles. It's weird because he keeps talking in terms of restoration.

So truly the Protestant Reformation, which began in the 16th century, is still taking place as the Reformed Church is continually reforming itself.

Evangelical leaders like Dr. Peter Wagner, who crossed over to embrace the charismatic gifts in the third wave of the 1980s, became the catalyst for the wider body of Christ, embracing this restoration.

It's weird because, you know, Michael Brown says we've always had apostles, you know, because they're missionaries.

And Joseph Matera is talking about the restoration of apostles. Although some of the earmarks of what

Peter Wagner called the New Apostolic Reformation have made many of us in the present restoration movement uncomfortable, such as top -down leadership, which doesn't make sense if apostles are missionaries, hyper -dominion rhetoric, which, again, doesn't make sense if apostles are missionaries, the use of apostle as title rather than a description, and the practice of laying hands on leaders proclaiming them to be apostles over regions and nations, which is exactly what

C. Peter Wagner did. It is still advancing because Jesus is the one building his church through the magisterium of the

Holy Spirit, who is pulling the whole body into the vortex of the New Testament pattern of church.

Now, this is weird because, you know, he's saying New Testament pattern of church, and, you know, in the

New Testament, the apostles were predominantly, you know, of the big

A variety. So we'll talk about that in a little bit, but in another article, part two of this one, of, you know, of the

NAR and the restoration of apostolic ministry today, part two, let me make the print bigger, we'll pay attention to what he's describing here and, again, ask the question, is he describing big

A apostles or, you know, little a, missionary apostles? So this one begins with what

God is doing today. I believe that the present embrace of the fivefold ministry of the evangelical pastors in the

USA is going to bring a convergence between the charismatic, independent apostolic networks, evangelical networks, and ultimately even evangelical

Bible -confessing denominations. The implications of this will be extraordinary. The church will go from being pastorally led to apostolically led and prophetically inspired.

Now, again, you know, for instance, I'm a pastor. I'm a Lutheran pastor of a tiny conservative congregation out in the sugar beets fields of Oslo, Minnesota.

And the fellow who planted the church, the missionary who worked to plant this church and others, he's long been dead.

In fact, the congregation that I serve was established over 135 years ago.

And it hasn't been led by a missionary since the guy who planted the church 135 plus years ago planted it at that time in the 19th century.

So the question I have is, why should my church go from being pastorally led to being led by a missionary?

Because, I mean, we're talking about little a apostles, you know, right? You see, it doesn't make sense because if you're talking about a church being apostolically led, now we're talking about big

A apostles, not little a. You see what I'm saying here? So this emerging apostolic paradigm, he continues, will shift the missionary focus from planting local churches to planting movements of churches and Christ followers that will permeate every facet of society.

The apostolic paradigm will shift the focus from gathering crowds on Sunday, which is weird because, you know, the book of Hebrews talks about not forsaking the gathering together of the saints.

What do we do on a Sunday? You know, we're there to hear the word of God, to worship, to pray, to baptize people, to receive the

Lord's Supper, you know, stuff like that. And so we're going to shift the focus from that to what?

To developing disciples who will manifest the reign of Christ from Monday to Saturday.

I don't even know what that phrase means, but, you know, I'm pretty sure if we're supposed to be doing that, that that equipping and developing disciples for doing such things would actually primarily be done on Sundays.

Anyway, the present apostolic paradigm will restore the church back to the way of Christ and his apostles.

Well, that's weird because Jesus' apostles were not apostles in the small A sense.

His apostles were apostles in the big A sense, you know.

So, and then he says the present apostolic paradigm will bring a course correction to the new apostolic reformation and the view of the apostolic ministry function, not an office, an adjective, not a title.

So, all right, so you kind of get the idea here, and my question is, how is he defining apostle here, and why are we saying that missionaries needed to be restored?

Because Michael Brown, you know, said that, you know, we've always had apostles and they're missionaries.

You know, missionaries to China, missionaries who start the Salvation Army and stuff like that. So in order to kind of wrap our heads around this, we're going to have to do some

Bible study. Grab your Bibles if you want to just watch along on my screen. You are welcome to. I will be working from the

English Standard Version, ESV, but you could do this with any good modern translation.

But we're going to begin by noting the biblical requirements for an apostle. And this is important because when we look at the biblical text, we will note that this is the definition for a big

A apostle, big A apostle. And these were the guys who launched and led the church in the opening century of this era, if you would.

And so we read in Acts chapter 1, verse 1, in the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day that he was taken up after he had given commands through the

Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

Apostolos, by the way, the Greek word. Oh boy, is that tiny. Let me make that a little bit bigger.

Okay, apostolos. It means, one, a messenger without extraordinary status, a delegate, an envoy, or a messenger.

That would be your little A apostle. And so if somebody is sent, they are sent by somebody else.

They are an emissary, a delegate, an envoy, a messenger. So if you were in the ancient world to show up to somebody's house and say,

I am an apostle, they would say, who sent you? Because you're representing somebody else.

And we're going to note that this use is used in scripture. And then messengers with extraordinary status, especially if God's messengers are envoys, which would be like, you know, the apostles.

And so we're going to note here that Jesus had chosen men that he sent.

They were sent ones. They were apostles he had chosen and sent them. So note that here.

So big A apostles are sent by Jesus. And so he presented himself alive to them, his apostles, after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Now, fast forwarding to verse 15 in Acts chapter 1, we read, In those days

Peter stood up among the brothers, the company of persons was in all about 120 and said,

Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested

Jesus. He was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness.

That would be the 30 pieces of silver that he acquired for betraying Christ. And falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all of his bowels gushed out and everyone said,

Ooh. And so it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the field was called in their own language,

Akadalma, that is the field of blood, for it is written in the book of Psalms, May his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it and let another take his office.

Big A apostles have an office. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the

Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

So they're going to choose from those who were around for all of Jesus' teaching, from the time of his baptism until the time of his ascension, really.

And this is somebody who has to be an eyewitness, have with their own eyes witnessed the resurrection of Christ.

And so they put forward two fellows, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was called Justice and Matthias, and they prayed and said, you

Lord, who know the hearts of all, show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which

Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they cast lots for them and the lot fell on Matthias and he was numbered with the 11 apostles.

So the Lord chose Matthias. So if you want to boil it down to two of the most basic requirements for an apostle, you have to have visibly seen the

Lord Jesus with your own eyes. You are an eyewitness to the resurrection. Oh, and Jesus has to have chosen you to be one of his apostles because an apostle is an emissary, a sent one, sent by somebody else.

Again, the question is, you know, if you say you're an apostle, the question is who sent you? Now regarding the

Apostle Paul, we're going to note, let me close BDAG here, close that. There we go.

Noting the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul talks about his apostleship explicitly in 1

Corinthians chapter 15, starting at verse 3, Paul writing about the gospel says, I delivered to you as of first importance what

I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas.

Then to the 12, and then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

And then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles. Last of all, to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Okay, so you're going to note, last of all. Yeah, that little last of all phrase, you know, and the last, it kind of actually implies that after the

Apostle Paul, Jesus ain't picking any more apostles.

That's the point. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary,

I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

So the Apostle Paul, eyewitness to the resurrection, Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, and Jesus particularly, specifically, chose him to be an apostle.

So when we look at the openings of Paul's different epistles, Romans 1,

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

Galatians 1 .1, Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the

Father who raised him from the dead. The Apostle Paul is an apostle sent by Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1 .1, Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ and our brother

Sosthenes. Paul, 2 Corinthians 1 .1, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother.

Ephesians 1 .1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Colossians 1 .1,

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother. So you get the idea.

So, you know, in order to be an apostle in that truest sense of apostle, you have to be chosen by Jesus to be an apostle, and along with it, you will actually, with your own physical eyes, be an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus, and the

Apostle Paul clearly fits that category. Now, the word apostle, in its smaller sense, as a messenger, an envoy, or a delegate, one who is sent by another to be a messenger, also appears in Scripture, and let me give you three instances where that happens.

In Philippians 2 .25, it says, Paul writing, So you're going to note that in this occurrence,

Epaphroditus was a messenger sent by the church at Philippi. That doesn't make him an apostle, nor does it even make him a missionary.

It just makes him, you know, one who is sent to deliver a message, which is why the

ESV translates apostolos there as messenger. 2 Corinthians 8 .23,

Titus, by the way, is not an apostle.

And as for our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ.

So you're going to note that the churches, different individual congregations, would send apostles, messengers, out, and they weren't considered at all like the twelve at all.

A messenger, in this sense, is an envoy and a delegate. And you're going to note, they're not even talking about them being missionaries, but they're just an official messenger from the church to deliver a message.

John 13 .16, Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger, apostle, greater than the one who sent him.

So you're going to note, in order for somebody to be an apostle, in even the smallest sense, they're sent by somebody else to deliver a message.

Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why a sloppy use of the term apostle through the ages has been referred to missionaries.

Missionaries, though, are those who have the gift of evangelism. They are not really apostles in that sense, and I think you actually torture the word apostle if you're using it in that way, and that's not how the first century understood an apostle to be.

An apostle is one who is sent by another. The apostles, big A apostles, were sent by Jesus and were eyewitnesses of the

Resurrection. Small A apostles were all over the place. They were messengers sent by another to deliver a message.

So again, if you showed up, somebody says, and you say, I'm an apostle, the immediate question is, who sent you?

And the apostle Paul makes it clear he was sent by Jesus. Now, two passages, then, in question, then, when we look at Ephesians chapters 2 and 4, vital that we take a look at them in context.

Ephesians chapter 2, 19, says this, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets,

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So here we see in Ephesians 2 that the church itself is built on the foundation, or the household of God is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. In other words, when you build a house, you don't lay the foundation again and again and again and again.

The foundation is none other than the apostles and the prophets, and this is talking about apostles in the big sense, and the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and the apostles and the prophets are the ones who have given us the scriptures themselves.

So Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple.

So the idea then is that Ephesians 2 makes it very clear that apostles and prophets, and think of the apostles and the prophets as being like Isaiah, Malachi, Jeremiah, Amos, guys like this.

The apostles and the prophets, that's the foundation that the household of God is built on.

These are the guys who wrote the scriptures for us. And then we see in Ephesians 4 .11

that God or Christ gave apostles and prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ.

Now, men like Michael Brown, you heard him talk this way, and Joseph Matera also already talked this way, that because it says for the work of the ministry of the building of the body of Christ until we all attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the

Son of God to mature manhood, that that means that there has to be apostles ongoing.

Au contraire. That's not the case at all. It just says God gave apostles and prophets to equip the saints.

Now, let me ask you this. Are the apostles and the prophets, you know, Peter, Paul, John, are they still equipping the saints?

The answer is yes, they are. And there's a reason for this, and that is because the

Church has always considered itself to be apostolic. In fact, let's talk about what that means, and we'll take a look at some other stuff here.

But if you are familiar with the Nicene Creed, the Nicene Creed is an ancient creed, but this creed has its predecessor in what's called the rule of faith.

We'll talk about that in a minute. The Nicene Creed hammered out at the Council of Nicaea in the early part of the 4th century, designed really to combat the

Arian heresy, which had invaded and decimated much of the Church.

And we read these important words in the Nicene Creed, in the third portion of it.

I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the

Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets, and I believe in one holy,

Catholic, and apostolic Church. One holy,

Catholic, and apostolic Church. Now, before you have a knee -jerk reaction and go, the word

Catholic! Yeah, I get it. I'm going to show you from the writings of the

Church Father Irenaeus what that means. A proper way of thinking about it is the word universal, because this is a religion that is for all human beings,

Jew and Gentile alike, people in all nations. But you're going to note that all the way back then, they talked about the

Church being apostolic. But what did they mean by it? Did they mean that there were ongoing apostles?

Nope, not at all. And to prove this, we are going to go to Irenaeus' work.

A better translation of it would be Against Heresies. And in his work

Against Heresies, there is a portion of it where he discusses what is known as the

Rule of Faith. The Rule of Faith is an early version of the Nicene Creed, kind of not really well -hammered out, and so it's a little bit verbose.

But the verbosity of it helps us understand what the word apostolic means. But let's take a look at both of the paragraphs as it relates to the

Rule of Faith so you can kind of see what's going on here. The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith.

So, for a church to be apostolic, it is for them to teach the same faith and the same doctrines that the apostles taught to their disciples and that they learned from their disciples.

So, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith. She believes in one

God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and the sea and all things that are in them, and in one

Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation, and in the

Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advent and the birth from a virgin, and the passion and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved

Christ Jesus our Lord, and his future manifestation from heaven in the glory of the

Father, to gather all things in one, and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that Christ Jesus our

Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the will of the Invisible Father, every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, that every tongue should confess to him, and that he should execute his judgment towards all, that he may send spiritual wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly and the unrighteous and the wicked and profane among men, into everlasting fire, but may, in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality on the righteous and holy, and those who have kept his commandments and have persevered in his love, some from the beginning of their

Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, from whom?

From the apostles. Although scattered throughout the whole world, yet as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it.

She also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul and one in the same heart, and she proclaims them and teaches them and hands them down with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.

For although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same.

For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the

East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya. By the way, this is what it means to be Catholic.

Nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world, but as the Son, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Nor will any one of the rulers in the churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these, for no one is greater than the master.

Nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition.

For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at length to discourse regarding it make any addition to it, nor does one who can say but little diminish it.

So, a little bit of a long sentence there, but now you know what Catholic means. It means universal. It's the same universal faith.

But we also know what apostolic means, and that means that it's the faith and the doctrines handed down by the apostles.

So when you see in the Nicene Creed that we believe in one holy, Catholic, and apostolic church, it's the same doctrines and the same teachings, the same faith, that the apostles had passed on to their disciples, who then passed it on to their disciples, and on and on and on.

I think you kind of get the idea. So then, coming back to this, this is explicitly taught, by the way.

You kind of get this idea from Acts 2 .42. After the day of Pentecost, the new converts to Christianity, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

So in other words, the apostles are still discipling us today. They are still equipping us today.

How are they doing so? Through the written word of God. They're still discipling the nations.

Matthew is, Mark is, Luke, John, all these fellows. All of this apostolic doctrine is continuing to go forward, and because the

Scriptures are the rule and measure of sound doctrine and what is considered good theology as opposed to heresy, the apostles still rule over the church through their doctrine and teaching that is handed down to us in Scripture.

The only place you can go right now to hear apostolic doctrine and to see it and learn it and properly understand it is the written word of God.

So the church has always considered itself to be apostolic, and so when we come back then to Ephesians 4, the idea here is that the apostles and the prophets have done their thing.

They are the foundation of the church. And moving forward, we have evangelists, pastors, and teachers who teach to us, give a living voice to, the doctrine and the faith that the apostles and the prophets have handed down to us in the written word of God.

The apostles are still equipping the saints for the work of ministry. Peter hasn't finished his job because his words still speak.

They still teach. You kind of get the idea. Until we attain to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the

Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

I think you get the idea. So what we're hearing from Joseph Matera and what we're hearing from Michael Brown doesn't sound like missionaries.

It sounds like big A apostles, and they're the ones who are adding all kinds of craziness to it.

Now I want you to listen now to Joseph Matera, and this is the sermon that, by the way, we review in Hour 2 of this episode of Fighting for the

Faith. So just look for today's episode, May 15, 2018, over at the

Fighting for the Faith website. I want you to listen to Joseph Matera and what he has to say and see if this makes sense, if what he's talking about is a small

A missionary. Boy, this tells you a lot also about their love, and you have to put that in air quotes, for sound biblical teaching and training.

Listen to this. And then we find in Chapter 4, after a fantastic miracle, a guy who was lame for 38 years was healed.

This is Acts, Chapter 4, by the way. And it caused a big, you know, a big, you know, celebration in the streets, and got the religious leaders all upset because they were preaching the name of Jesus, and they were thinking, wow, you know, they're laying this man's blood on us, and every time something happens in the name of Jesus, whom we crucified or part of the crucifixion, the blame is going to go on them because he's doing all these great healings.

So they were really upset. They called Peter and John, and they started interrogating them, finding out what's going on.

We told you not to do this. And this is what Peter said in Acts, Chapter 4, verse 11.

He said, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you.

The stone has now become the cornerstone, the one you rejected.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

So here Peter is lecturing and interpreting the Old Testament to a rabbi, to a scholar, because when he's talking about the stone, the building rejected, that is a psalm that David wrote,

Psalm 118. So what he's doing is he's teaching this learned religious leader about the

Messiah. And verse 13 is very telling. It says, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, uneducated common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Now a little bit of a note here, and that is that what he's describing here is the whole sermons about what the apostolic church is.

And he's looking at big A apostles to talk about what should be the hallmarks of the apostolic church today.

And so because in Acts, Chapter 4, the apostles were unlettered men,

I would note that the apostle Paul was definitely a lettered fellow. But because they were unlettered men, listen to what he thinks should happen in the church today, and we'll note the kind of the weird, quirky, spooky thing that he says along the way.

You remember in John, Chapter 7, they were astonished. Jesus spoke with authority, and it says he had no letters.

He had no training, no formal training, right? And so here

Peter is teaching this scholar, and they were shocked at the power, shocked at the healing, and they observed that they were uneducated, but they had been with Jesus.

Now what does that teach us about the apostolic church? Well, these apostles were not trained formally in the religious rabbinic school that taught the

Torah and the tradition of the elders. They were not trained by professionals.

They were trained as they did life with Jesus. They were trained in a community of faith.

The apostolic church trains their own. We don't have to ship people out to Bible school.

Mm -hmm. So apostolic leaders shouldn't go to Bible school, shouldn't go to seminary.

Okay. Don't have to ship people out to seminary. Matter of fact, when you send somebody out away from your church to be trained to be a pastor, for 3 or 4 years, they have no pastor.

All they have is professors who don't really care about them. What are you talking about? I mean, when

I was in seminary, I had a pastor. What are you talking about here? They're doing their job. They're nice people, but their job is not to pastor them, but to give them knowledge.

And for 3 years, they have no covering, no apostolic authority, no community. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! They have no covering, no apostolic authority.

So when somebody goes to Bible college, they have no apostolic authority. I thought that Michael Brown said that missionaries are apostles.

Why would somebody going to seminary need to submit themselves to the apostolic authority of a missionary?

You see, it doesn't make sense. And the reason why, it's not that the critics of the

N .A .R. have been sloppy in their use of the phrase

N .A .R. The problem is that the people in the N .A .R. are sloppy with the word apostle.

And I would point this out, is that you're going to note that nowhere in the

New Testament, and I mean this, nowhere in the New Testament, do you see a list laying out, in the future, apostles, here are the qualifications to be an apostle.

Nope. Not at all. Instead, you have the pastoral epistles and the qualifications to be a pastor.

Now, a little bit of a note here, Joseph Matera is a kind of fellow who tries to argue that the bishops of the

Roman Catholic Church were the equivalent of apostles back in the day, and that is absolutely patently false.

Scripture uses the same word for elder and pastor and bishop interchangeably.

I'll show it to you. Paul writing to Titus in Titus chapter 1, it says,

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders, that's presbyteroi, in every town as I directed you.

If anyone is above reproach, husband of one wife, his children are believers, not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination, for an overseer, episkopos, uh -huh, that's the same word for bishop.

You're going to note presbyteroi and bishop are interchangeable, and this is a pastoral letter, a pastoral epistle.

So the idea here is that his claim that bishops were the ancient Church's version of apostles, patently false, not true at all.

For an overseer, an episkopos, a bishop, as God's steward, must be above reproach.

He must not be arrogant or quick -tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

For there are many who are insubordinate and empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party, and they must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

You're going to note this is one of the lists given in the New Testament for the qualifications and responsibilities of pastors.

There is no list like this at all anywhere in the New Testament for the ongoing apostles.

An apostle must be this, must be that, must have this, and must do this. Nowhere in Scripture do you see any example of a list outlining what apostles are supposed to do, and the reason for that is quite simple.

Because a term apostle is referring to the big

A apostles, and there are no apostles. There haven't been any apostles on planet

Earth since the apostle John died. And since then, though, the apostles still continue to teach us through the written word of God, and the

Church has always considered itself to be apostolic. And Aaronaeus did a very fine job of laying that out for us in the second century, what it means to be apostolic as well as Catholic in the true sense.

So here's what it boils down to, is that Michael Brown and Joseph Matera and others are basically trying to demonize the critics of the

NAR, and by demonizing them, making them look like a bunch of tinfoil pyramid hat -wearing conspiracy wingnuts and hyper critics who have done a sloppy job of defining what the

NAR is and does and who's in it and stuff. When in reality, it's the people in the

NAR and guys affiliated with it via the five -fold ministry, because Michael Brown's a five -folder.

He's not NAR in the classic sense, because he had issues with some of the things that Peter Wagner taught.

But the reality is this, he still believes in apostles. But the thing is that what he said an apostle is is not what

Joseph Matera is describing. Joseph Matera isn't describing missionaries. He's describing people in Church leadership, governing the

Church. In fact, he bemoans the fact that guys who go off to seminary, not only do they not have pastors, they don't have any apostolic authority or covering over them while they're in seminary.

This is absurd. And so the problem here is not that the critics of the

NAR haven't done their homework in rightly defining the NAR. The problem is that Michael Brown and others haven't done their homework in defining what the

Bible teaches regarding who an apostle is and what an apostle does and all this kind of stuff.

What's really funny is that Michael Brown actually refers to a book on the apostolic by a fellow by the name of Katz, last name of Katz.

And the thing is absolutely atrocious. It is literally not even lucid in its describing of what an apostle is because it never defines it.

It never defines an apostle at all. So I think you get the point. The error here lies with Michael Brown and Joseph Matera and others and their vague, weird machinations and inability to actually point us to biblical texts that clearly define what today's apostle would do.

And I would note this, that if we were just to go back to maybe Ephesians 4, 11, it says that Christ or God gave us apostles and prophets.

Yes, we have them, and they're still continuing to teach us today through the words. And evangelists, that's what a missionary is.

You see, guys like Hudson Taylor, they were missionaries, not apostles.

They had the gift of evangelists. They were evangelists going out and preaching the gospel in places where it had never been preached before.

That's part of what evangelists do. So Hudson Taylor, according to Ephesians 4, 11, wasn't an apostle.

Hudson Taylor was an evangelist. Yeah, I think you get the idea. All right, hopefully you found this helpful.

I understand it was a wee bit long, but the idea here is that I needed to take the time to actually provide some biblical clarity for the word apostle because that's the one thing that Joseph Matera, as well as Michael Brown and others, have actually failed to do.

They continue to play fast and loose with the definition of apostle, and you never can seem to quite pin it down with any specificity or accuracy.

And, of course, I would just basically say this. If you believe in ongoing apostles today, show me in Scripture.

Who's qualified to be an apostle? Who's not qualified to be an apostle? What are the duties of an apostle and the responsibilities of an apostle?

And how does one go about becoming qualified to become one according to Scripture?

And you'll quickly see that that's not there at all, which is the reason why they can't actually clearly define what an apostle is or does today.

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Museum of Idolatry and the Encyclopedia of New Apostolic Doctrines and things like that. We have a lot of things available for you as resources to teach you the faith and to help you to not be schnookered by those who are engaging in false doctrine and trafficking in scurrilous, bizarre definitions of things.

Kind of cult -like, you know, like the NAR. So, there you go. Until next time, may God richly bless you.

And the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ is vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.