Sunday School - Teaching On Baptism (Cessationism) - Part 5

I was chatting with Tim, so it's his fault that I don't have a pen ready. We're going to continue with Cessation. Do keep in mind as we go through this today that we're following Sam Waldron's book to be continued.

I try to get attributions against him. Remember that? I just want to go back and run into this Philip the Evangelist. Philip says he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied a short verse. If we read that, we understand prophecy in the New Testament being fundamentally the same as the Old Testament.

We see that there were prophets named as such, and we can take them as such. Not just that they were prophesied for a moment, but they were prophets in the traditional sense. Calvin does a really good job of explaining this.

I'm going to read this little bit of a long quote here with me. Calvin says, Not only that we might think that his house was well ordered, but also that it was famous and excellent through the blessing of God.

For assuredly it was no small gift to have four daughters all endowed with the spirit of prophecy. By this means, the Lord meant to beautify the first beginnings of the gospel when he raised up men and women to foretell the days to come.

Prophecies had now almost ceased many years among the Jews, to the end that they might be more attentive and desirous to hear the new voice of the gospel. Therefore, seeing the prophesied, which was in a manner quite ceased, now after a long time returned again.

It was a token of the moral of the state. Notwithstanding, it seems that the same was the reason why it ceased shortly after, for God just supported the old people with the first foretellings until Christ should make an end of all prophecies.

That's what Baldwin said. It's fundamentally the same way for the Jews who heard about speaking through a person, mostly men, but sometimes women, as in this case, and the purpose of prophecy, especially in the New Testament.

It sounds like he was to establish the fact that this was God's work. Establishing that it was God's work, in an apostolic sense, speaking of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and prophecy more particularly to complete the canon.

God speaking through this human to bring the canon, bring Scripture to a close. We don't have any records of these four prophecies, although we know that they were prophesied in the traditional sense.

We have other prophets in the New Testament, but we don't know what they said. Some are called prophets, and we have some like Elijah and Elisha. Obviously they were prophets, but they didn't write anything, so this is from someone else.

So, it's a bit of a mixed bag. We don't have to worry about the fact that these prophetesses, we don't know what they said, until the end of the Scripture. That was the purpose, to bring forth the end of the Scripture.

There were prophetesses in the Old Testament, and I want to make this clear, some of whom we had their words recorded, others not. In Exodus 15, 20 and 21, this is right after Israel passed through the Red Sea.

The sea closed in on the Egyptians, and Moses says, you know, these Egyptians you see, you're never going to see again, that great victory that the Lord worked. In Exodus 15, the men sing this song of praise to God for what He's done, and the women answer, and it says there specifically, Miriam, Moses' sister, she's called a prophetess.

She's a prophetess as she leads the women in a song of thanksgiving after the Red Sea crossing. She's a prophetess in the sense of giving glory to God, but also her words were recorded, so we know these were from the Spirit of God, through her, in praise.

In Judges chapter 4, verse 4, Deborah is named both judge and prophetess. In 2 Kings 22, same as 2 Chronicles 34, Huldah, the prophetess, she actually speaks for God and makes prophecy in the traditional sense.

Okay? 2 Kings 22, 16, thus says the Lord, His words speak. Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the King of Judah has read. That was in Josiah's time, remember the book of the wall was found, and Josiah heard and read that he tore his robes and repented in sackcloth and ashes, because now he understood why they were in such bad shape, hidden away for a long time.

Huldah was this prophetess, and she spoke for the Lord, directed for God, prophecies in the traditional, futuristic sense. So what do we conclude here? That a prophecy in every sense of the word continued throughout the entire development of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.

Now prophecy was predominantly, but far from exclusively, the realm of man. Now regarding apostles, any questions? Regarding apostles, was that office limited, this was Charles's question, was that office limited to only the twelve, as named in Matthew 10, Mark 3, 13, 19, and Luke 6, 12, 15.

Now those three gospels, those passages I just read out, that's where Jesus, in Luke, he prays all night, and the other ones, obviously he prayed all night, but they don't say that specifically, that's when in the morning, he names the twelve disciples as apostles.

The same twelve disciples were following him, now named specifically apostles. So, was it limited only to them? The turn, if you will, to follow along now in these scriptures, Acts 14, 14, remember it is at first, just read it out, because you don't know it at first.

Go ahead, read it out, Acts 14, 14.

But when the apostles of Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd crying out. Thank you.

Did Barnabas ever name amongst the disciples? Jesus, no. This is an inspired offer, inspired by the spirit of God, the apostles, Barnabas and Paul. So, what do we conclude about Barnabas? He's an apostle, but he's not one of the twelve.

He's not even one who's born out of due time, but he's an apostle. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9, 5 and 6. Please read those two verses for us. So again, other apostles, now other apostles can mean Paul speaking of himself, and then he's saying, what about those other twelve, and they're the only ones?

That could mean that. And the brothers of the Lord, stop, what are the names of the brothers of the Lord? There was James, brother of the Lord. There were various sons. The other apostles and the brothers of the Lord, are they being included in this title of apostles?

They're apostles. Now, again, we have this distinction, I'm calling them capital A apostles, the ones who were named specifically and personally by Jesus Christ, small apostles, and these other ones, but they are apostles.

So the brothers of the Lord and Cephas, Cephas is Peter, who's one of the capital A apostles. The other apostles and brothers of the Lord and Cephas, he gathers them all together into this one grouper.

Paul's including them as administering the same office as himself. The brothers of the Lord were named by Jesus as apostles in the Gospels. In fact, in John 7, when we read about the brothers of the Lord, he says, even his own brothers could not believe him.

It wasn't until after his resurrection that James, the author of the book of James, or Jude, or these other brothers, came to believe him. While he lived, they didn't. Here they are, after the resurrection, and Paul says, by the Spirit of God, writing the inspired scripture, they were apostles.

1 Corinthians 12, 29 Apostles are all prophets, are all teachers, do all work miracles. That implies that some in the church could have been or maybe even were apostles and were prophets. In the Corinthians church, he's talking about this distribution of gifts and his question is, are all of you apostles?

What does that imply? The answer would be, no, we're not all apostles, but clearly in the question, it implies some of you not only could be, but you are. The same with the other offices. They're all apostles, they're all prophets, they're all teachers, do all work miracles.

Galatians 1, 19. Somebody read that out for us. Galatians 1, 19. Okay, right. James, the Lord's brother, not named by Jesus as an apostle, but under inspiration, Paul, writing Galatians, the book of Galatians, to the Galatians, he's speaking of James, the Lord's brother, as an apostle.

Ephesians 2, 19 and 20 also bears on this. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.

Now, this is a really interesting verse, and this is why we at the beginning pointed out that the apostles were prophets. Not all prophets were apostles, but all prophets were, not all prophets were apostles, but all the apostles were prophets.

This is a really strong proof that apostleship and prophethood were the same. In the Greek, the phrase apostles and prophets describe the same person, one and the same person. Have you ever heard of Branko Sharpe?

Raise your hand if you know Branko Sharpe. It's turned out not to be a perfect rule, but it's a really, really good rule, that if you have a certain phrase that has, um, let me think how much detail I want to go into.

I don't want to go into a lot of detail. When you have apostles and prophets in the Greek form that we find that short phrase, the apostles and the prophets, it refers to one and the same person. It's like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in that Greek form, the form that's nouns and the verbs and the connecting, the kai, it's all the same.

And that means that Lord and Savior is one and the same person, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Again, the same idea. If we have one person, not God, and Jesus is separate, I'll speak of them, speak of those two as one, great God and Savior Jesus Christ, one and the same person.

Same here, the apostles and prophets in this phraseology very clearly and distinctly means the apostles and prophets, that the one person here is the apostle and prophet. Paul, apostle and prophet. Matthew, apostle and prophet.

Okay? And finally, Ephesians 4 .11, somebody else read that out for us if you would please. And he gave the apostles,.

The prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers.

Now, this verse has to do with this idea that we have the small apostles within the church, we have prophets, we have evangelists, we have shepherds, we have teachers, we have all these things in the church.

Not everybody is them, but some can be. But it's a completed act in the church. Again, without going into detail in the Greek, he's speaking of something that Christ did, accomplished. Not an ongoing thing.

He did this in the church. He gave these gifts to the church. So the apostolic office extended beyond the twelve. The twelve still hold this special position, but their office and their function in testifying about Jesus' death and resurrection as eyewitnesses is what set them apart from the small apostles.

Small apostles in the traditional sense with this important exception. Jesus named the twelve, and the twelve were eyewitnesses to his life, they were eyewitnesses to his teaching, eyewitnesses to his miracles, and most importantly, eyewitnesses to what?

His resurrection. Now, is Paul an eyewitness to the resurrection? Is he? Be a little careful. I'm picking mitts here. He's an eyewitness to the resurrected Lord, and by that he can testify to the resurrection.

I had that one in notes. Nobody actually saw Jesus come up out of the grave.

There can be a distinction if you're trying to make people who saw him alive pre-crucifixion and post-crucifixion, like they didn't see a difference in his regular glory of my body. So Paul does, he is separate in that way.

Thank you.

So, again, this small name, Cabernet Apostleship, I just want to make sure that we understand that the function is the same, but the twelve are still set apart. And we get that in Revelation 21, 14, speaking of the New Jerusalem, and all the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

This is the twelve names of Abilene Apostles. Waldron, page 24, says, we must make a distinction in the New Testament between those who were apostles of Christ, big A apostles, and those who were simply apostles of the churches, small A apostles.

And again, confirmed in Acts 13, 1 -3, the small A, big A distinction. Now there were in the church and anti-prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manion, a lifelong friend of Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, he laid hands on them and sent them off.

So Paul, remember, considered Barnabas to be an apostle. There were, at that time, apostles in the church, outside of the twelve. Really important for us to understand. It was important for me to pick that up, so I thank you for the question here.

Apostleship, fatherhood, continuing throughout the time. So it was throughout the establishment of the church and the finalization of the Scripture, not limited to the twelve or to men alone, either in the Old Testament or New Testament times.

So what does all this tell us? I really appreciate the question. This helps us along this idea of continuationism versus cessationism. Against Pentecostalism, against the Charismatic movement, against the Third Wave movement, the miraculous gifts of the apostles were for them at that time.

And some in the modern Third Wave movement would go so far as to say that preaching not attended with signs of wonders, they don't specify what those signs of wonders would be, what they call power preaching, it's not preaching anymore.

Again, I want to know what they mean by signs of wonders in the preaching. Maybe, as I said, the Holy Spirit would smack you in the head and you'd have that Holy Spirit rolling on the floor type of thing that they were doing.

John Packer got caught up in that for quite a while. Did I tell you guys that he was here? We used to host the Whitfield Fraternity. It was a meeting of Reformed pastors and past speakers. Robert Gottfried, men of that caliber, and John Packer was here.

And it was several years after he came out of that Vineyard, Charismatic, Third Wave kind of movement. They talked about how people sort of barking like dogs and rolling on the floor and things like that.

That's a bit of an excursion, excuse me for that. But the Third Wave movement would say that if you preach, it's not coincident with signs and wonders, it's not preaching at all. What's the church you're reading?

Bethel? Bethel church you're reading. How many know about that church? Okay, everybody. With the glitter that comes down, that's the sign of wonder kind of thing that they're trying to contrive to show that the preaching has, that they take it very, very far.

So our question is, do miraculous gifts continue? Should we seek it out as narrative? So Waldron says on page 42, I think it is helpful, miraculous gifts when some measure connected with the presence of the living apostles in the church.

So what was this for? The gifts certified what? So we see these gifts of the Holy Spirit coming upon people. They certified the presence of the Holy Spirit in power, bringing salvation to those who heard the gospel.

The manifestation, especially by tongues of the Spirit working. What was that a sign for? Not a rhetorical question. I want to hear your thoughts. You read through Acts, Peter or Paul are preaching. And the people they preach to, suddenly they say the Spirit fell on them.

In Acts chapter 8, when the Spirit fell on the Samaritans, when John and, was it Peter and John? Yes, Peter and John went out and they saw the Holy Spirit. We don't even know what they saw. We don't know what it was that made them sure that the Spirit had fallen upon them.

Other places in Acts, when they preach, the people they preach to speak in tongues. What do you think the tongues were about in those cases? Apostle preaches, the Spirit is converting them, they speak in tongues.

What's that about? Who would you guess? Was it just to show that something new was happening? Something new was happening? Okay, good. This is not normative throughout the Bible. Even in the book of Acts, it's not even.

Normative. I think it's more on the explanation of the preaching for their own language. Okay. Or their own dialect.

Okay, their own dialect. That's Acts chapter 2. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. Okay. Those are all good. Good answers. Tongues as a special gift of the Holy Spirit. This is a biblical excursus for us.

I want you to understand this. They first appear in Acts chapter 2. When Peter is preaching, we're all familiar with that, the tongues as a fire fell upon the apostles and they spoke in tongues. That's the first place it would happen.

Peter's penitential sermon. Now this was inexplicably recurrent. They were there for the Passover festival, they have all these Jews coming by, they're going to the temple for the finalization of the festival.

Or perhaps on their way home they have to finalize the Passover festival. I'm not exactly sure who can adhere to it. It's those guys who were there for that reason. And tongues as a flame fell upon the apostles and they started preaching.

It was inexplicable that they didn't understand what was happening. And it was only by mutual consultation that they found out what was happening. Now, I have to admit, I have an opinion that is not 100 held by every commentator or scholar, but it's you know, it's widely, I'm not charting, I'm being grounded.

What was the tongues? The explanation of the tongues is found in Acts chapter 2. Sorry for all the flipping, I left my own Bible at home. Okay, Acts chapter 2 verse 7. And they, that's the men who stopped because of what the Spirit was doing, they were amazed and astonished, saying, are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?

There it goes. They knew the accent. What language do you think they were speaking? They heard the accent. They're Galileans. What language are they speaking? Anybody know? What? That's close. More specifically though.

What? Aramaic. The apostles were speaking Aramaic. That's the language Peter knew, that's the language Matthew knew. All those guys, Judas, they knew Aramaic. And they heard it. They say, I don't understand the accent.

They're Galileans. We know because of their accent. Do you know another place this came up? When Peter was outside while Jesus was being tried by the high priest. They said, but you're a Galilean. Because your accent betrays you.

Okay? I think they're speaking Aramaic, the language that they know. The miracle of the tongues is that we heard, this is what the people who heard, the people who were there who were gaining the benefit of this miracle of the Spirit, is that we're hearing it in our own tongues.

They're Galileans. We can hear their accent, but I'm understanding it as a Mede, as a person. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Camphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome.

The miracle is not that I'm speaking Latin or Mesopotamian to you. The miracle is you're hearing it. Thinking in terms of biblical theology. What is happening here? Christ is hearing stuff. The apostles have come together, and they've replaced Judas with him.

They're praying, they're waiting to see what's going to happen next, and here this happens. Preaching the gospel, preaching about Jesus, we're hearing it in our own language. What's really happening here?

Thinking in terms of biblical theology. Emmanuel. Is biblical prophecy being fulfilled? Prophecy fulfilled, okay. Do you have a specific one in mind? Joel. Joel, okay. You're in Joel chapter 2. Can you pull it without turning there?

Can you tell us what it says there? Okay.

I'll start in, oh, whoops. Let me back up one page. Okay, verse 16. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall.

Dream dreams. Good, good. He goes on to the rest of Joel's prophecy, and he says that I will show wonders in the heavens above, signs of the earth, blood and fire, vapor and smoke, and all that is what's happening.

Completion is the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy. So we can even say that it happened for them. That's Joel's prophecy. It doesn't go on and on and on and on. What we've seen is what Joel prophesied, okay.

As well as that, I think this is where the biblical theology that we really need to focus on here is the reversal of Babel. The birth of Babel, and then built a tower to go to God. And God says, we all speak the same language.

And because they speak the language, nothing is going to be restricted from them. And look what they're doing with this unity that they have. They're trying to be like God. It's one of the darkest chapters in all the Bible.

And so he gives them all different languages, and they go off. What happens when Peter speaks the gospel, the resurrected word of Jesus Christ, he speaks it here in the language. It's the reversal of Babel.

It's the reunifying of people in Christ. It's the reversal of that curse. That's what's happening in Acts 2, and that's what the tongues were about. I'm speaking, I'm speaking Galilean, I'm speaking Aramaic with my Galilean accent.

I just made my reservations for a fire conference in May. I know the person I'm speaking to is speaking English with that Mississippi accent. I had to ask her to repeat myself five times. That's not what's happening here.

They're hearing the language, they're familiar with it. They understand the accent, but it's coming to them in their own language. They understood it. Fairly important here that the languages were understood.

It wasn't just Babel that was understood. Now after that, tongues don't appear again until Acts chapter 10. And what happens in Acts chapter 10 is when Peter goes to Cornelius' household. Remember, he has that vision that three times with that blanket laid down with all the food on it, all the I've never eaten anything unclean.

Don't call unclean what I've cleaned. What I call clean. And so Peter understood from this, he needs to go to the Gentiles. The Gentiles are cleansed with the same blood as the Jews. And he goes to Cornelius' household.

Cornelius, obviously, a Gentile, and he tells them the gospel. And then the spirit falls upon them and they're speaking to us. I wanted to go to Acts chapter 8 before I did that. I gave myself a note before you do that about Acts chapter 8, I didn't.

In Acts chapter 8, there's a gospel going on. Philip the Evangelist had preached in Samaria to the perversion of many. The Jewish apostles couldn't really believe the Samaritans could believe the gospel that God would convert someone to the low down type or the latter as a Samaritan.

That's probably what they had with them. So they sent Peter and John to check it out. When they saw and then prayed with them, they saw the Holy Spirit fall on them just as he had upon them, the apostles.

It doesn't say it was tongues that they saw, but it was some manifestation of the spirit that they could see or hear and somehow recognize. Tongues is not certain in Acts chapter 8 in Samaria, but it's a good candidate for what they heard.

But then Cornelius' household and a spoken tongues, I've already spoken about that. Peter preaches, they hear the gospel, they're converted by the spirit, they speak in tongues. Now what's happening? What are the tongues about there?

In Acts chapter 2, you have that one case where I'm speaking my language, but you're hearing it in your native language. Reunifying, Babel, Genesis 11, that curse is reversed. Here's Peter's explanation of his experience with Cornelius' household.

Acts chapter 11, I'll begin in verse 15. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, Cornelius' household, fell on them just as on us at the beginning. That's Acts chapter 2, that tongues as a flame.

Not exactly the same, but falling upon them. And I remember the word of the Lord, how he said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?

So even on the Gentiles, that's 1045, chapter 10, verse 45, implying that the gift seen there in Cornelius' household was the same as they had seen among the Jews. He was seeing the gift that the apostle understood that the Gentiles were in need.

So what were the tongues about in Cornelius' household? What was the importance of the tongues in chapter 10? In Cornelius' household, what was that important? What was the importance of it? What did Peter say?

Gospel of the Gentiles. Who was it assigned to? Was it assigned to Cornelius that he was saved? No. It was assigned to Jews. It was assigned to Jews. It was assigned to Peter. It was assigned to the apostle.

It was assigned to the preacher. Okay? That's really important. If you didn't just start talking in tongues so that they would know that they were saved. How do you know if they knew what they were doing?

It's a whole other story when I could go into that excursus. But Peter himself says, when I saw this, I knew that they were saved the same way we were saved. It was assigned to the apostles that they were saved.

This happens again. Tongues, as a miraculous gift of the Spirit, as much as they get attention today, they don't get a lot of attention in the book of Acts. It doesn't happen that often. They are important, but not that common.

Acts chapter 19, this is Paul. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples and he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And they said, no, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said, into what then were you baptized? They said, into John's baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance telling people to believe in the one who is to come after him.

That is Jesus. Hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

There were about 12 in all. So it was for Paul to know that these had been converted and brought to the Lord Jesus Christ. And their understanding was not complete. They believed only in John's baptism of repentance.

They didn't understand that repentance was accomplished because of Jesus. That there is repentance was useful because of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. They understood that. They had the gospel.

They were speaking in tongues. That was a sign to Paul that these men were actually converted. It reminds me too of King Saul's conversion. We're back in 1 Samuel chapter 7. He says, after that you shall come to Gibeah where there is a garrison of the Philistines.

And there, as soon as you come to see you will meet a group of prophets coming down from a high place with harp, heifer, and flute and lyre before them prophesying. Then the Spirit of the Lord will worship upon you and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.

But all we knew previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets. The people said to one another, what has come over the son of Kish? Saul also went with the prophets. It was a sign of the sign of the holder.

It was a sign of the hand of the holder. Not so much would one speak about the sign bearer so much as the one who sees it. He is certified to be the onlooker if God had done the work. Any questions about that?

They're very interactive with me. Are there any objections to what I'm saying?

I remember hearing a sermon that the pastor was saying that he used the word conversion because he held the opposite view. I think there's a terminology called a common operation of the Spirit on an unconverted person.

I'm borrowing a little bit from Conley but I think another pastor was saying that he didn't think that Saul was saved. He didn't think. What? He didn't think that Saul was saved.

King Saul? Yes. I would agree. I was just using him as an example that the manifestation of the Spirit at that moment and the Old Testament was at that moment was a sign of the onlooker. That's all I was saying.

Thank you. I need a little disclaimer here. We have not dealt with 1 Corinthians 12 -14. That whole thing about ordering the church and when you speak in a tongue you need an interpreter and prophesy and all that stuff.

There's some reasons I haven't and one reason to be really honest with you is I had a hard time figuring it out. The other reason is that things going on in the Corinthian church were very unique to Corinth.

Paul speaks about they do things as in all the other churches so we had rules throughout all churches of Christ even at that time. The Corinthian issues would just drive us into a long rabbit trail going from where we really want to go.

Honestly, I did have a hard time figuring out how much of that was just at Corinth how much of that Paul did not do in the other churches how much should be in that church today. It can get very confusing.

Tongues do seem to be prevalent in that church at Corinth. Paul does insist upon interpreters that's 1 Corinthians 14, 6 -13 and he does not correct the use of tongues there only that they use them rightly which means for mutual edification of the church none of which compels us to extend tongues beyond the apostolic age.

So in the Corinthian milieu tongues could have been especially persuasive when the spirit of God was in the church and not the nearby highly varied and numerous pagan cults. It could have been one of the reasons there that God used a special manifestation of the spirit.

So for our idea of cessationism versus continuationism dependence on tongues falters on the biblical evidence that tongues were assigned to the preacher and in the cases that we have them showing up the preacher was an Apostle, capital A.

Capital A Apostles Peter and Paul those are the only two we have and both of them say it was assigned to me that the spirit of God had fallen. So for Paul that he had been defeated, that God had been defeated, the conversion of John the Baptist to disciples that was in Ephesus actually in 18.

For Peter that the gospel went out equally on the same basis to the Gentiles as to himself. Peter knew that they were saved. When Peter and John went to Samaria leaving who? Who could save the Samaritans?

Anything good come out of Samaria? Well they wouldn't believe that. Read chapter 4 of John. Jews and Samaritans had nothing to do with each other. The Holy Spirit fell on them. The Samaritans. And it was assigned to Peter and John.

Apostles. Capital A Apostles. Assigned to them that God had done the same thing to the Samaritans that he had done to the Jews. The Samaritans and the same thing happens with the Gentile nation via Cornelius Acts chapter 10.

So in answer to Charles' question, the other Apostles? There were other Apostles. I thank you for asking the question last week. I think it really helped develop what we're doing this week. There were other Apostles.

There were prophets. But we have biblical evidence as we've gone through that the manifestations of the Spirit in the special ways that we read in Acts were to the Apostles. That they know for sure that the church was expanding into those places.

And that gives us a very good biblical basis to say that the Gentile, the Samaritans, the Jews, the Jews now have the gospel. That's the world. And now that it's gone out. Now that it's been certified.

Now that those preachers, Capital A Apostles, know that the preaching of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the catalyst of conversion. As proven then by what they saw. We can say it's ending.

Because that foundation's been laid. Ephesians 2, laying on the foundation of the prophets and the Apostles. That's for one Apostle. Remember that we're speaking of the same person. Not a single person.

Apostle prophet as a single Apostle. So that gives us that foundation, that reason for saying we have the faith once for all to the saints. As Jude, who's also an Apostle of Saul, says in the prophet.

He gives us a foundation to say we don't have those miraculous signs, those manifestations of the spirit as they were 2 ,000 years ago. Why? So we have an answer to that. Why don't we have them in a practical way?