is to begin with a paper written by
Bob Gladstone, one of the teachers from the
fire school, that he left with us on
what is apostolic it's very fresh and an
original paper so I thought maybe to read
it or read portions of it and to
open that for discussion I've got a few
supplementary readings on the same subject so let's
call on the Lord who is the great
apostle and the high priest prophet and king
Lord, precious God on high, the God of
beginnings shall we bow before you my God
yet again and look to you for the
commencement of these days thank you Lord that
though we are only feeling our way, you
know already explicitly what is in your heart
to express and we invite you my God
to wrap our knuckles if we are venturing
into anything that is not appointed but and
if it is Lord to give grace to
examine that very great word and to receive
my God some illumination, understanding of what is
currently being debased so give us your free
spirit your presence Lord we invoke your blood
upon our heads and upon this door and
house, over these grounds all these people my
God under your blood afresh, purge even the
air my God, of anything that would thwart
or inhibit, adversely affect the expression of your
great heart toward us so Lord we are
all just getting newly acquainted and there is
that sense of awkwardness and strangeness for those
who are here for the first time I
ask in the wonderful way that you have
to dissolve all of that and give us
an immediate kind of entree of ease, of
spirit, heart, mind and expression that you might
draw my God from any of us and
more deeply bring forth the precious treasures of
the faith thank you my God for this
occasion, this beginning the day of small beginnings
come my God and be the alpha of
it as you shall also be the omega
we thank you, we give you the praise
in Jesus name Amen stir our hearts Lord
to a great jealousy for those two foundational
words apostolic and prophetic those inexhaustible words Lord
that are under assault and may we perceive
them freshly Lord although we will never come
to the end of the matter they are
as inexhaustible as you yourself are in fact
they are what you yourself are so we
invite my God the spirit of truth, illumination
the light of your life Lord to shine
upon our examination of these words in these
days that in such a way my God
not only to inform and to instruct but
to change us and to conform us into
their very meaning give us a jealousy my
God for the church whose foundation they represent
so we bless you Lord precious God that
you yourself call yourself by that name the
apostle of our confession and that the spirit
of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus so
you have co-joined your name with those
great words so we bless you Lord come
and speak to us my God as sons
and daughters without mincing words, without in any
way having to baby us in a word
my God perhaps that will be new to
us but as a statement of your earnestness
and how late the hour so we welcome
Lord what comes from your throne we bless
you Lord we are weak as all get
out, we are tired we are a little
banged out of shape we are in different
states of being having traveled and arrived my
God in a condition that we are in
so we pray even the spirit of refreshing
Lord a quickening by your spirit to take
the haze from our minds Lord and to
give us an ability to enter in thank
you Lord receive our gratitude for the privilege
of these days and come and fulfill them
as only you can we thank you and
give you praise in Yeshua's holy name dear
brothers at a recent leadership meeting I mentioned
a brief essay I sensed the Lord leading
me to write about the difference between the
ministries of government and an apostle here is
that paper the difference between an apostles ministry
and government is important for our team to
understand for two major reasons first as it
has tried to do in every other area
of Christianity the spirit of this age is
trying to mold even the organic nature of
apostolic ministry and leadership into another fad profession
or denominational phenomenon feel free to raise your
hand at any point you want to interrupt
the reading or something is quickened as this
goes forth since we are a revolutionary movement
we can't make the same mistake blurring the
vital distinctions between the ministries of apostle and
government is simple error to make many ministries
within the church culture of the west are
committing it but God has called us to
help change the system not reproduce it in
a different form our arrangements and language must
be spiritually precise and spiritually current so I
think he is taking up the question of
whether the word government is synonymous with the
word apostle as we always think of apostles
establishing structure government and order he is the
first one that I have encountered who wants
to make a distinction that that kind of
symmetry is not necessarily true we must understand
the nature of apostolic ministry in order to
discern God's will for our leadership in this
remember this paper is being submitted to the
headship or leadership of the revival movement of
which he is part the present topic is
a sensitive issue for our team at a
very critical time in our development so let
me state clearly that I am not trying
to assert or imply how any of us
actually fits into our team's leadership arrangement nor
do I have any ax to grind instead
I am only trying to contribute to our
foundation for future direction and growth in response
to some recent valuable comments within team discussion
the sovereign lord of the church is the
one who appoints his ministries as gifts to
his body and we submit to him and
one another simply put Paul distinguishes between an
apostle and the gift of government in 1
Corinthians 12.28 he says and God has
appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets
third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings
helps, administrations, kinds of tongues the word translated
here as administrations is the Greek word kyberesis
it originally referred to the pilot or helmsman
responsible for guiding and steering a naval ship
against this background the ancient Greek writers typically
employed that word to refer to government so
Paul used a rather striking word to describe
one with a powerful leadership ability in the
church one of the most vivid terms in
the new testament for those who lead kyberesis
refers to those with an extraordinary ability to
motivate administrate, oversee and steer community members into
the vision or plan given by God these
gifted people work out the practical logistics of
the visions seen by prophets or the architectural
plans laid out by apostles and I would
add according to his sense, but they themselves
are not apostles, they have a gift of
administration and leadership and direction that does not
constitute for them that title that raises the
question then what does the sheer fact that
Paul uses the word for government separately from
apostle clearly illustrates the distinction between these two
ministries to the church, now logically an apostle
must demonstrate at least some governmental ability I
guess I am thoroughly disqualified still Paul not
only differentiates the two he places apostles in
the first position and government seventh in a
list of eight it is not that Paul
saw governing abilities as minor compared to apostolic
ministry, surely the body suffers without each gift
operating freely, governmental grace helps plan out and
manage the physical implication of the other ministries,
without it the body members don't always know
what, when or how to move the issue
here is that Paul does not see government
as foundational, here is the word in italics
to the kind of communities he sought to
plant and nurture we cannot underestimate the importance
of this last statement there are men in
the body today who claim or receive the
title apostle based on their ability to govern
a large ministry sometimes these men even claim
or receive the title when they themselves did
not establish the ministry they oversee ironically these
men may in fact be apostles but they
are not apostles by virtue of their ability
to govern, in fact I believe that there
are some apostles in our culture who have
not yet tapped into that unique and intangible
quality that would truly make them apostles the
devil has robbed them and the church of
their powerful gift by substituting a more outwardly
impressive ability to manage and grow a big
ministry operation for the meek, subtle and outwardly
unimpressive qualities of the true apostle apostolic ministry
is not an office but neither is it
merely a function I put a question mark
after that statement, I always thought of it
as an office, it is the grace inherent
in a man that reproduces Jesus himself to
a degree sufficient to plant and nurture genuine
communities of divine habitation, love and power let
me read that one again after distinguishing between
government, now this is the first statement on
what an apostle is whose character to back
up a little bit is not some imposing
figure who arranges and directs but more likely
meek, subtle and outwardly unimpressive apostolic ministry is
not an office but neither a function, it
is the grace inherent in a man that
reproduces Jesus himself to a degree sufficient to
plant and nurture genuine communities of divine habitation,
love and power that is an extraordinarily skillful
and insightful statement I'm reading from other sources
this is C.K. Barrett a well known
New Testament theologian writing on that subject and
he says almost identically the same thing looking
at Karl Barth, my favorite theologian and his
statement on what is apostolic ties it in
always with community where community is formed by
men who bear the character and the life
of the Lord they are sent ones because
they represent Him and the Hebrew word from
which the apostolic concept was derived from men
who are familiar with that Hebrew context as
Paul himself was is Shalia, who is an
agent or representative sent by another but in
being sent he represents the one who sends
him not just in the bearing of a
missile or a document but in his character
of what he is in himself he can
be entrusted to represent someone else because he
has come to a place of such remarkable
coincidence with the sender that he can aptly
and lightly express him that's why Jesus can
say if they receive you they receive me
and he who receives me receives him who
sent me if ever there is a definition
of apostolic succession I like this one, in
fact I don't know if we'll get into
much of this tonight or if the Lord
will even continue tomorrow Karl Barth, B-A
-R-T-H one of the giants of
the 20th century very much opposes the catholic
view of apostolic succession or any kind of
pyramidal form by which men are designated as
being in a continuum with those who have
gone before them as someone who is just
elect, appointed by men and given a title
and so on and that title goes on
indefinitely through generations is different from the origin
and sense of apostolic as one sent representing
another and so the place of the Holy
Spirit in the act of sending, the reality
of the Holy Spirit in shaping the one
who is doing the representing is all together
having nothing to do with religious ordination or
designations by men according to a history of
succession, that's the whole catholic mentality and framework
but is entirely contradicted by all three sources
that I have before us tonight maybe men
would prefer some religious way of conferring titles
rather than the route that can only be
obtained by the operation of the cross if
you're going to represent Christ and on that
basis establish a community that will equally express
him, how can such a phenomenon take place
without the operation of the cross and the
deaths and the working of the redemptive, sanctifying
kind that must precede one being sent, much
easier to designate men and to give them
titles and have those others who inherit the
titles without any spirit qualification at all, so
we have two kinds of apostolic definition in
collision one is institutional, the other is organic
so I love very much what Bob says
here, it's worth dwelling on we know that
there were twelve apostles men appointed and called
and sent who had great responsibility in being
foundational to the church and we think that
there are such men now in our own
generation so not every Christian is an apostle,
although every Christian is sent according to the
great commission, go ye into all the world
and preach this gospel to every creature so
we need to distinguish between men who have
an office of a foundational kind who make
the communities that do go possible by their
own impartation and what they bring in representing
the head of the church himself we're not
going to settle this in one statement people
say give me a one sentence definition I
say well, it took five days at Lausanne,
Switzerland to first address the subject of what
is apostolic and the book on the shelf
Apostolic Foundations has its origin at those first
five days of meeting where whole messages were
spent on apostolic character, apostolic proclamation apostolic perception,
the subject of eternity, the principalities and powers
of the air, the various aspects that constitute
an apostle and we must understand them because
they are foundational to the church that is
itself to have such a mindset, such a
corresponding ability, such an expression so hold your
question that will require much discussion to begin
to assess this remarkable jewel.
We need to do our homework we've been
lazy and we like a little snap definition,
but it's too glorious a thing to be
so easily addressed.
So in this one paragraph he begins to
suggest, this is what I like about the
paper though it starts with the issue of
apostle versus government, he goes far beyond that
as you'll see as we read on, and
so I'm stopping at the first paragraph where
he begins to make these definitions.
It's not the impressive ability to manage and
grow a big ministry, but for the more
meek, subtle and outwardly unimpressive qualities of the
true apostle so the true apostle according to
his definition is not outwardly impressive in fact
if he's outwardly impressive he might well be
an object of suspicion and not one of
qualification so a man can be quiet and
unprepossessing and yet have the distinctive character and
calling and yet not have an outward administrative
ability that people would admire.
It is the grace inherent in a man
that represents Jesus himself.
Pause for respectful consideration to represent Jesus himself.
Anyone can say that it can be said
of someone but what does it in fact
mean not the word Jesus which anyone can
tack on to anything as a appellation, as
a title, but Jesus himself.
What Jesus is in himself is what the
apostle represents and depicts and you have to
assume not as some kind of put on,
not some affectation, not some external copycat imitative
thing, but something in wrought of the very
life and character of the Lord himself.
So we can assume that such men don't
grow on trees and that they are not
an overnight phenomenon and therefore we need to
be jealous because the deceitful or the false
thing is everywhere about us.
Maybe I'll take a moment to leap into
this where he talks about false apostles.
Why are they false?
Because they lack a commission from Christ himself.
They were never sent.
They sent themselves or they're sent by some
committee or what I'm learning, I don't even
want to mention names, I have to bite
my tongue each time when you think of
who I'm referring to.
Men are now validating themselves by each other.
So a prophet prophesies falsely and says, God
has called you to a much greater ministry
than ever you have known.
You're not only to be an apostle, you're
to be the chief of apostles in these
last days and it goes on like that.
And so the man takes his mandate and
commission from that prophecy and he himself validates
the prophet.
And so it's a self-validating, self-confirming,
self-congratulatory system, but it's a man never
sent by Christ.
Why?
Because he cannot represent him.
The very fact that he's ambitious and wants
so to enjoy that kind of a title
and use and would be quick to latch
onto anything that justifies it is disqualification.
Where is the quietness and the meekness and
the non-visible, unimpressive qualities that characterize a
true apostle?
This very ambition condemns him and makes him
false, although not to say that tens upon
tens of thousands are being impressed.
So they were false apostles because they lacked
the commission from Christ himself but were or
at least were acting as no more than
envoys of apostles.
They were false because they were not pioneer
missionaries but had infiltrated into churches founded by
other men.
And he's talking about the false apostles of
Paul's own time in order to propagate their
own opinions and magnify their own persons.
They were false apostles above all because neither
their message nor their behavior was Christian or
Christ-like.
They exalted themselves at the expense of their
hearers and they preached another Jesus and a
different gospel.
How do we discern the true from the
false?
It's a great question because he goes on
to say even Paul could not establish his
apostolic title by merely announcing it.
He wouldn't even attempt, I mean, though he
says, by Christ Jesus but men had to
make a decision with regard to him.
So how do we discern maybe only to
the degree that we ourselves are true and
have a history with truth and love truth
and the Lord who is the truth has
been communicated to us to the degree that
we ourselves have a measure of authentic relationship
with him so that anything that purports to
represent Christ but lacks the authentic quality of
the one whom we have come to know,
serve, admire and love will instantly give us
a check or a resistance to one making
a claim.
The fact that they make a claim is
itself probably ground for suspicion.
No man was more convinced than Paul that
he was an apostle of Jesus Christ by
the will of God.
This, however, was a proposition he could assert
but never prove.
Isn't that remarkable?
Paul himself could not prove incontrovertibly that I'm
the true thing and somehow those that he
faced had to make a decision out of
a tension of possibilities.
Maybe there were men far more impressive than
he because he himself admits that he's not
a slick speaker and that his presence is
not at all outwardly impressive but his epistles.
And so there were probably men who shone
far above Paul in address, in rhetoric, style,
knowledge, maybe impressive Jewish backgrounds and the Gentiles
newly come to the faith were having to
discern who's the real one, who's the false.
And that's a question that's with us still
so that the Church of Revelation forgot which
one is complemented because it is able to
discern those who say they are apostles but
are not.
So it's evidently not only is it an
issue to the end but it's a profound
issue at the end because we can assume
that if we give a credibility and an
adherence to a false prophet apostle or prophet
laying therefore a false foundation, what can we
expect for the superstructure that will be raised
upon it?
That's why the Lord maybe is wanting to
sound a note like this from the very
first.
Think of the humility of Paul, knowing he's
an apostle called by Jesus Christ but he
cannot prove it.
And it's not only that his pride is
at stake or his credentials or his identity,
self-esteem but he knows if he's not
received as one true and one called, there's
going to be a vacuum filled by someone
who is false.
So his jealousy for the Church must burn
in his heart over the issue of his
own acceptance and his own recognition.
But that's the suffering that is intrinsic to
being an apostle.
One of the aspects of suffering, as I
can go on to read in both places
here, that suffering is probably one of the
distinctive marks of the apostle.
Because after all if he represents Christ, how
can he not be a sufferer?
And if he represents Christ in such a
way as to depict and set him forth
how shall the powers of the air that
have crucified Christ not assail him?
So we can understand why men made a
covenant with each other neither to eat nor
drink until he was dead.
And threw dirt up in the air upon
their heads with the cry, he's not fit
to live.
Isn't that remarkable?
God's greatest gift to the nation and to
the Church is deemed by those to whom
he is sent as not fit to live.
Maybe all the more because he does depict
and set forth Christ.
And the world that is at enmity with
Christ will be at enmity with him.
So any so-called apostle who is living
it up, and most of them do, living
it up comfortably and having quite a lifestyle
of remarkable comfort and benefit in the condescensions
of men, even by that would indicate that
something is amiss in what they purport to
be.
There's something about apostolic meekness and there's something
about apostolic poverty.
I'm not talking about religious self-denial like
some ascetic who lives in a miserly way
but poverty, the Lord himself said he had
not a place to lay his head.
And Paul worked with his own hands and
probably carried what possessions he had with him,
so few as they were and also talks
about making many rich being poor but making
many rich.
There's something to be said for poverty but
if it's rightly understood and not some jaundiced,
sentimentalized falsely emulated thing.
All of the other apostles knew Christ in
his pre- crucified life, saw him in
his resurrection, were instructed by him for 40
days before his ascension on the things pertaining
to the kingdom but not Paul.
The one who becomes the chief of the
apostles and who eclipses all of those who
preceded him had not their advantage in an
actual personal knowledge of the Christ that they
are called to depict.
I've just come recently from India and was
in the very city where Thomas, doubting Thomas
began his apostolic ministry in India.
Whatever church there is that's worth that name
in that great continent today was begun by
this Jewish apostle who brought the reality of
Christ.
Remember in his doubt, I will not believe
he had a striking demonstration.
Paul had not that advantage.
He had division of the resurrected Christ to
call on the road to Damascus so it
raises this question.
How could Paul be the chief of the
apostles when in terms of actual access to
Christ prior to his crucifixion and after was
not his experience?
Where did he gain his knowledge of Christ
that he might represent him and be sent
of him to depict him to the Gentiles
if he did not have the advantage of
those who preceded him?
That is a great question.
You know why it's a great question?
Because it's not only a key to the
understanding of Paul but it's a key to
the prospect for ourselves of coming into an
apostolic reality and an apostolic character because we
also have not the advantage of a history
with Christ as was enjoyed by the initial
apostles so whatever was Paul's route to apostolicity
and the knowledge of Christ to such a
degree that he could set him forth, it's
also our possibility.
Isn't that a remarkable thing?
I think I'm repeating myself to say that
our own knowledge of Christ the truth of
our own knowledge would very much be a
key in the ability to recognize someone sent
who represents him.
There's got to be some knowledge of him
by us even before the arrival of such
a one and so what is our access?
I'm thinking about the woman who made a
remark to me in Holland who very much
was in opposition to my view of Israel's
last days, expulsion, exile, time of Jacob's trouble.
She didn't want to hear that.
It was too hard a word all the
more because she was married to an Israeli
and lived in Israel for a number of
years and didn't want to hear such a
scenario and resisted that message until she read
the holocaust book.
When she read the holocaust book which speaks
of the judgments of God in history including
the holocaust she was turned and she made
the remark to me I now agree with
you Art, I see your perspective but more
than that what God has showed me through
your book is that the God whom I
had thought to worship in the name of
Jesus was only Santa Claus upon whom I
had put the label Jesus.
Isn't that remarkable?
This is not some some carnal flimsy shallow
believer, a substantial woman whose own view and
knowledge of the Lord had to be profoundly
adjusted and corrected to the point where she
herself spoke that word.
So what is our knowledge of Christ which
is the knowledge of truth that is a
critical key in our own discernment not only
of men who are true and false but
of issues that are true or false.
Here's a quotation from a classic work on
the subject of the apostle German scholar quoted
here that the essence of the apostolic office
is based upon the certainty that one has
so appropriated Christ as to represent him in
one's own person and in the fact that
he has taken into his hands the whole
life of the office bearer.
The he who has taken into his whole
hands is Christ.
That he has the man lock, stock and
barrel and that's how an identity of such
a kind is established in one's own person.
It's not a put on, it's not a
layer of something or a clever vocabulary or
some ability to handle problems and resolve difficulties.
It's the very character and life of the
Lord in one's own person.
Because the Lord has taken that one the
whole life of that office bearer into himself.
I like that.
That the sending must be a personal sending
by Jesus of a man who has been
in personal contact with him.
That the chief work of an apostle is
the proclamation of a message and the apostle
acts with authority so that the message and
his actions are bound up with each other
that the apostle shares not only in the
authority but also in the suffering of the
Lord.
To catch those things.
It's not just what the man says, it's
what the man is.
He bears an authority of the one who
sends him and also reflects and makes himself
a candidate for the sufferings of the Lord.
Paul speaks about the sufferings that need to
be filled up in the body.
He can offer himself as a first evidence
of that process and the number of beatings,
the scars that he bears, the weight of
the church and all the various things that
constitute apostolic suffering.
The Shalia principle going back to the Hebrew
word is that a man's agent is as
the man himself and that
somehow there's an organic process and not a
series of new administrative devices.
In the personal commission of the Shalia, the
Hebrew word to act in the person of
our Lord himself conveyed afresh to individuals in
every generation acting through other individuals who have
already personally received that commission to act in
his person when they so act he himself
cannot repudiate their action for a man's representative
Shalia is as it were himself.
If you receive him you receive me.
Go back to Bob's paper on the other
hand as I said there are those called
apostles who are not apostles.
They exercise the ability to govern ministry as
tremendous administrators, motivators and organizers.
They are apostles to the world's point of
view but they are not apostles by divine
calling.
Practically they are the heads of corporations I
think that that's very insightful I kind of
agree that when I see of whiz kids
and hot shot successful men in the world
of religion who are being called apostles and
prophets they give the impression of being CEOs,
heads of corporations.
There's a business flair and ability about them
that Bob is touching here did not Jesus
promptly shut down a tendency among his apostles
that often identifies modern apostolic ministry the same
tendency exists among apostles and quasi-apostles today
but it goes unchecked because most of the
church lacks the substance maturity, discernment, authority meekness
and presence of true apostles we defer to
CEOs and men with a business kind of
flair because the church itself lacks the substance,
the maturity, the discernment, the authority or meekness
so it's a kind of a dog chasing
its tail.
We lack it to the degree that we've
never had these qualities set before us by
men who bear them and so we have
not a model of apostolic and so when
those come who have a flair and a
certain kind of slick appeal they're likely to
be received.
So here is my appeal Bob says, if
the Lord called our team to be apostolic,
to be true apostles to train others then
let's carefully discern, define and demonstrate the real
thing and help revolutionize popular structures today.
Now in view of all this, what is
an apostle?
Here I list a few essentials.
I don't want to even take up the
question whether any team can do what Bob
is hoping for that team to do or
whether it could even be a team enterprise
but the intention is understandable.
Here are his definitions in answer to a
brother of what is an apostle?
Apostles uniquely reveal Jesus Christ.
Their life and ministry first and foremost form
vessels for an extraordinary revelation of Jesus who
is himself the chief cornerstone of the church.
I like the word himself.
Jesus himself not what we think him to
be, not what we are encouraged to picture
him to be but what he is in
himself is the issue of what God is
in himself.
What is God in himself authentically?
Because a synonym for the word apostolic is
the word authentic and if we have not
an authentic sense of God and of Christ,
of what authenticity for anything will we have?
If we don't have it at the root
of reality and God and in Christ, what
then can we recognize as authentic?
Will we be authentic Christians?
Will we be authentic saints?
Will we have an authentic church?
Will we have authentic ministries?
Will we have authentic families?
Will we have authentic marriage?
Will our children be authentic?
Authentic is the thing in itself that is
unmistakably real.
So the apostle sets forth that reality in
himself of what Christ is in himself.
I can't believe that that can take place
without suffering and I know I'm not talking
about external suffering, that will come because the
man is that thing, but I'm talking about
internal suffering.
I'm talking about anguish of soul the dealings
of God the pressures of fellowship all of
the weight of things, I just got a
letter maybe I'll read it tomorrow, from Israel
Avi Mitsraki from a ministry in Tel Aviv
and the poor guy, my heart went out
to him he came back after a long
trip overseas and the moment he returned, this
was wrong, that was wrong there was the
bombing at the Jerusalem University, there were two
drunks lying in the hallway of the entrance
to their ministry place he had hardly gotten
into the building then the neighbor came down
from upstairs, the toilet had broken and was
flooding the floor and coming down on their
ministry place and whose responsibility was it to
repair and you imagine talking to an Israeli
about this in Hebrew and finally they resolved
it and got it fixed and they had
a whole day of vexation, one after another
frustration, delay, confusion, difficulty poor man was stretched
to breaking and he goes out, finally it's
time to go home and someone has jammed
his car in and he can't even get
out from the parking space I wrote him
a little note, you dear man my heart
goes out to you for your vexations but
pray for me, I'm called to New York
and I'm expecting I'll be experiencing comparable vexation
so this is not an appeal for sympathy
but an indication that the kind of character
that represents Christ as Christ is not going
to come glibly easily or shallowly it's going
to come from those vexations what gave to
Stephen the first martyr a radiant face of
an angel and being full of the spirit,
seeing an open heaven and Jesus at the
right hand of the father to such a
degree that he did not feel the stones
breaking upon his nose and head and the
blood running into his eyes and mouth but
was full of a heart of forgiveness forgive
them for they know not what they do
where did he get that?
it didn't come in the moment of a
final suffering but I'm wanting to suggest many
times that waiting on the tables of the
widows of the Jews and the Greeks was
the place where his apostolic character was formed
she got more than me you're partial to
her because she's a widow of a Jerusalem
Jew and I'm the widow of a Jew
in exile in the Hellenistic world and you're
prejudiced and you're partial I like this, I
don't like that, this is too hot, that's
too cold poor man can God shape apostolic
character in such attention in which you have
to bear the magnanimity of Christ's patience and
forbearance sweetness of spirit and wisdom with widows
we don't know anything else about Stephen but
that he was a waiter on tables to
the widows and I suspect that the radiant
face and the ability for martyrdom which he
gloriously performed the key to Saul's subsequent conversion
took place the formation for it was in
the daily vexation of having to serve table
to widows so whether it's that formula or
another I can't believe that the character that
shows forth Christ as he is himself can
come without that kind of suffering so I
would be suspicious of any hotshot who has
quickly arrived on the scene in a kind
of a commanding presence and is already setting
up and ordaining others that is the real
thing if he has not a history of
that kind what is the foundation that the
apostle and the prophet constitutes for the church
is it their knowledge coveted though that is
their ability to lay forth the principles of
God and set forth the sweeping purposes of
God precious as only they can do but
the heart of the foundation is what they
convey of God as God because if that
is not the church's foundation we can fill
our heads with all kinds of remarkable end
time notions and apocalyptic last days eschatological sweeping
vision but at the foundation vision but at
the foundation we don't know God as we
ought so they communicate God in himself as
he is and I'm saying again that's no
cheap and easy school but if we're only
looking for effect and impressiveness or superficial ability
we will be candidates for deception what happened
in the moment when a zeal a zealot
persecuting the church in all complete assurance of
rectitude and full of swaggering self-righteousness defending
the ancient faith is all of a sudden
arrested by a voice that cries out why
for persecutors thou me the suffering that takes
place in that moment is indescribable the intensity
of that suffering is beyond any ability to
assess because in one fell swoop the man
is shown his whole life however well meaning
or well intended is a lie and a
lie of such a kind as brings him
to persecute not only God's own people but
the Lord himself and if you're a zealous
Jew who thought always to regard God highly
and to learn that even with that intention
of religious righteousness you are yet a murderer
of God himself what that man experiences in
that moment you wouldn't want to experience if
it was drawn out over a course of
a dozen years maybe a hundred years could
not if the Lord was gracious to give
it in piecemeal to touch the enormous stamp
of God into a man's heart I don't
think that we can understand the ministry of
Paul except for that conversion that came to
him in that powerful way a complete turning
of his world upside down and such a
blindness in which he abided for three days
neither eating nor drinking was nothing less than
three days in the grave and what went
before his eyes in those three days everything
that he thought he understood rabbinically being the
prized student of the rabbi Gamaliel and the
instruction everything passing through contradicted by the coming
of the Lord himself in himself and speaking
to Paul by name did Paul obtain more
in that stabbing confrontation on the road to
Damascus in the knowledge of the Lord than
men who had had three and a half
years with Jesus is the thing to be
measured chronologically is it an issue of length
of time or is it an issue of
intensity of communication or the impartation of God
isn't that true in all of our lives
we can find Christians with the same length
in faith as another and yet there can
be profound difference the quality of their life,
the knowledge of God their walk, their service
what distinguishes one from the other is not
the length of years but what has been
obtained in that measure of time in a
qualitative way as to affect character and life
maybe this is a way, in the day
of my power my people will be willing
the Lord may do a last days thing
of such power and penetration that we will
see men touched by God out of sheer
atheism so devoted servants of God that will
shame us who have been around for a
number of years I'm meeting young men, 27
few years older than the Lord that have
a maturity an emotion, a sense of God
that shames me very short duration but in
the shortness of that time is a depth
of appropriation well that's a good point are
we getting not just the meat off the
bone but the marrow out of the bone
are we sucking up and appropriating the depth
of the riches that are available to us
or are we living in a kind of
a slack nondescript way one day like another
and not availing ourselves of those things that
would bring us into the intimate knowledge of
the Lord this has come up recently in
our conversations a phrase of Watchman Lee and
I think that Oswald Chambers also uses it
an utterness toward God the one who is
an apostle is one whom God whom the
Lord possesses lock, stock and barrel his mind,
his thought, his disposition, his ambition he has
the totality of the man there's an utterness
toward God in the man and then this
thought, and you'll read it in that little
book the word that the Lord speaks to
Saul on that road to Ganesha Saul, why
persecutest thou me why do you put yourself
before me even your religious zeal is before
me and if that's the heart of opposition
to God and persecution who of us is
not guilty of it I preached that once
at Youth with a Mission in Holland and
because the brother who was with me was
on his knees in intercession in a separate
room the power of God was so great
I had to arrest and stop a young
man from taking his clothing off people were
just their souls were so exposed they didn't
know what to do with themselves at the
depth of the conviction that came because we
were all guilty of putting something before the
Lord why do you put your thou before
my me and an apostle is one who
has reversed it he has put God's thou
before his me even to his death he's
gone from egocentrism to theocentrism he's a God
intoxicated man thinks, eats, drinks, breathes God the
purposes of God, the honor of God the
glory of God, he's so fused with God
and that kind of model has not been
available in our time but it's available to
as many as will when you think of
the depth of the revolutionary shift that Paul
is to make with regard to the Torah
to substitute as a basis for atonement and
reconciliation with God not Torah obedience to the
law but the acceptance of Christ so that
Gentiles who have not a Jewish history and
access to Torah can obtain a salvation that
makes them sons of Abraham as well as
Jews but now Jews also will turn from
Torah as a basis for redemption to this
Christ I don't have a word to describe
how radical a shift that is in the
theology of an apostle it is absolutely revolutionary
and that's why they said the man's not
fit to live he's contradicting in one fell
swoop what we and our fathers have believed
since time immemorial that salvation comes from obedience
to the law the commandments and the Torah
and here's this man in one fell swoop
substituting faith in Christ for Torah obedience and
taking the whole foundation out from under us
that has been our distinction as Jews that's
either got to be ultimate heresy or the
most radical revision of redemption that has ever
put before men that issued from Paul so
both the ability to see that and the
heart to communicate that knowing it's not going
to be understood knowing that it's going to
exacerbate Jews and rub them raw and bring
upon his own head their retribution and still
to proclaim it shows the depth of the
conversion that had to take place in the
revelation of the crucified resurrected Christ here's something
how quick God was to begin to establish
Paul's apostolic understanding of the church to which
he would be a servant because I'm going
to read where Bob says the whole object
of the apostle is the founding of authentic
communities of an apostolic kind where Christ the
reality of Christ is formed in that community
so the first experience that Paul has to
alleviate his blindness is the sending of an
Ananias who is a lowly and ordinary believer
to lay hands on Paul that he might
receive his sight so Paul learned something about
the genius of the body of Christ the
interdependency of its members that has not to
do with overt qualifications of the kind that
Paul would have admired and actually represented in
Judaism so right away his own sight and
word of the Lord to him of the
things he must suffer for his namesake comes
from a lowly member of the body so
Paul's instruction in the church takes place immediately
on the heels of his radical conversion so
we're having a glimpse of the anatomy of
an apostle and the master craftsman preparing the
vessel and preparing him long before his call
because when I preach about Paul's conversion I
often say there's more hope for a man
in error who's persuaded of his rectitude but
is in error but is going some place
in his error is in movement toward Damascus
in his well-meaning intention and zeal however
wrong is a greater candidate for God than
some stodgy stick-in-the-mud pew-sitter
who has the technical qualification of the faith
and can recite its credo and is a
phraseological saint but is not in motion there's
more hope for man in error in motion
than one who is correct in his categories
in the pew so Paul's, God's preparation of
Paul is long before his conversion there's an
intensity toward God even though it led to
error is something that the Lord can appropriate
and turn so if the God can work
with those things that are prior to our
conversion how much more in our conversion or
after our conversion if there's something that he
can work with and can bless and breathe
upon and cleanse, purge, sanctify and employ you
know what my greatest complaint about my Jewish
people is?
you're not serious about life I don't tell
them they're not serious about God or Christ
which of course is true but the root
of their problem is a lack of seriousness
toward life itself they do not esteem life
and its values and the issues of truth
and the issues of choice and they're sailing
along in a kind of superficial comfort zone
pseudo-reality in which they will perish would
to God that they were churned up would
to God that they were vexed would to
God that they were searching their souls scratching
their chins wondering why and wrestling with some
of the apparent contradictions of this life especially
as it's now coming to Jews there'd be
more hope for such a one than that
one who is bland and caught up at
a material sensual level or intellectual level of
life as so many Jews are he's giving
the definition of an apostle and now he's
talking about apostles establish genuine New Testament churches
they do not merely imitate and oversee ministry
organizations they have one vision to birth and
nurture authentic churches the simple qualifier authentic is
important an apostle does have the ability to
build community and release ministries but he does
so only in terms of his deep gut
insight and vision for what a real community
of Messiah is he would never compromise authenticity
for growth and extension what was true in
Paul's day is true in our day it
takes apostolic vision to build genuine communities worthy
of bearing the name in Christ apostles can't
just get people saved, organized and set in
ministry motion they must build local communities based
on their insight into the mysteries of the
kingdom the church and Israel and we'll come
back to this and Israel as a very
key factor in apostolic identification they have a
feel for the essential areas and how they
must be worked out in daily community life
these issues are too numerous to list in
a brief essay but include all matters foundational
to a church worthy of God's resident presence
so the ability in itself to initiate and
organize people into ministries is helpful and necessary
but not sufficient in itself to constitute apostolic
ministry apostles are fathers to their churches in
the truest sense of the word they are
not the CEOs of big ministry corporations they
do not merely develop good relationships with their
disciples in order to mentor them personally though
that's a part of it would anyone ever
define what an actual father is merely by
these definitions?
It goes far deeper than that spiritual fathers
have their churches in their blood they go
through the entire spectrum of raising their congregations
as their own children labor, birth, nourishing, infants
raising kids, teaching adolescents and experiencing their growing
pains and all of that while having by
divine compulsion to depart and start other communities
yet so strong is their bond that even
when painfully absent they are powerfully present during
the pioneer and nourishing stages these fathers exemplify
Christ's own life and admonish each person with
tears day and night this is spiritual fatherhood
out of that family history and bond comes
the father's insight and ability to bring the
necessary order and growth to his congregation government
is necessary but it is not foundational I
don't know that he says it but that's
painful that's an anguish that's a form of
apostolic suffering is to father and to nurture
and to bear the growing pains of children
becoming sons and all of the frustration and
misunderstandings and vexations and having often himself to
be a fall guy or an object of
instruction by his own conduct where the Lord
sets him up I don't know how to
express this there's a certain depth of instruction
for the body as the church that comes
by the demonstration of the conduct of its
leadership not in its superb ability but in
its apparent failing or allowing itself to be
seen or understood as failing or being contradictory
and yet if the issues that are born
by that kind of necessary suffering are the
things that culminate in the deepest character growth
of saints it creates crisis and the man
in leadership knows that it will create crisis
he cannot see or foresee what the resolution
will be or how long it will take
or if indeed it will come but he's
got to be in a certain sense a
fall guy I don't know how to say
that maybe the poorest illustration would be animals
pushing or birds pushing their young out of
their nest which is a violent act necessary
to have the bird stretch its own wings
there's an act of violence there's a conduct
that you would say is unbecoming to a
leader or to a father I'll give you
an example where he would avoid being overtly
affectionate or demonstrative or affirming that person's sense
of himself and allow that sense which is
idolatrous to collapse and to fail and to
allow that one to be disillusioned about the
man whom he thought was God's man of
faith and power but unless that disillusionment came
that believer would have been fixed in a
place of immaturity in the admiration for an
older man that would not serve his purposes
in order to break that power, the one
that's admired has got to fail before him
and he's willing to suffer that in order
to release that other for the maturity that
can only come in that way you guys
following me?
that is fathering the church that is apostolic
suffering that is the kind of thing that
Bob is talking here that we so rarely
see it's not glib and easy ability it's
what will promote sons at your own expense
that cannot be obtained in any other way
we know that in our history here the
bringing of a message you know it's going
to rub the body the wrong way you
know they're going to pick up on certain
expressions that you're using that could have been
alleviated if only greater pains were taken to
explain yourself than if the message had from
the beginning been good and that the one
who spoke it could easily have brought it
as a good message but the Lord has
so great a possession of the vessel and
the vessel is willing for the suffering of
humiliation and the disappointment toward others that he
can be used to bring about the crisis
that promotes the maturity and the growth that
is the church that is formed in Christ
that's what this brother is talking about this
is more than the issue of the ability
to organize or to structure or to bring
government to a direction and maybe the greatest
act of fatherhood though it would surprise us
to consider it is the abandonment by the
father of Jesus at the cross, my God,
my God why hast thou forsaken me that
in the moment of the greatest obedience of
the son to the father and of the
height of unspeakable anguish of body and soul,
the father is absent as felt presence, I
don't understand that but I know that it's
not an accident it may actually be a
paradigm a pattern that will later be revealed
as being critical, the ability yet to be
to be steadfast in faith and obedience without
the sense of God's presence and approval may
be an ultimate coming forth as a son
and I think that if the church is
to be built on the foundation of Christ
something of that reality has got to be
known and be demonstrated so that the leader
and the father has got to abandon the
sons at a time when they most covet
and crave recognition, fellowship, something like that but
he'll withhold it to serve the greater purpose
of growth that will come not by the
momentary encouragement that would have come by actively
expressing himself as father but by withdrawing his
presence can you understand that?
let me just read a little bit from
Barrett the apostolic mission plunges Paul into the
heart of the messianic affliction without which there
is no victory for the people of God
and this determines the spectacle that the apostle,
the microcosm of the church presents to the
world, what is generally visible in Paul's apostleship
is the sign of the cross thus he
becomes as an apostle a fool for Christ's
sake the same sort of fool that Christ
himself had been when he bore the burden
of sins that were not his own and
refused to prove the truth of his case
by coming down from the cross choosing rather
to die deserted, misunderstood and in despair than
to betray those whose cause he had taken
up this needs to be translated in terms
of the reality of the church of the
misunderstanding that a true father I think has
got to bear and the issue of seeming
desertion even when God appeared to abandon him,
Christ hence the pastoral responsibility that lets itself
be trampled onto the glory of God I'm
trying to put together this insight with this
insight an apostle establishes an authentic Christian community
which is to say a church that reflects
and expresses the character of the Lord himself
and it will be done not by superb
ability but by superb failing by disappointment by
things that more promote the maturity of the
church than the encouragement that it wants in
itself if encouragement is not the thing that
best serves the purpose of the son if
seeming abandonment is the better purpose the apostle,
the father will be willing to bear that
even though he's a disappointment and it's not
understood because that's the model of Jesus himself
who allowed himself to bear the burden of
sins that were not his own to be
misunderstood hence the pastoral responsibility that lets itself
be trampled on speaks to me in a
way that I'm not able to communicate and
that not many of us can understand or
appreciate it contradicts what we think a model
of a father ought to be continual encouragement
patronizing pats on the back how's it going
son, a word in season that's not to
say that there are times when that is
absolutely essential but there are critical times that
have to do with the formation of character
and maturity in which that would be defeating
and what is needed is not a pat
on the back but a withdrawal and a
seeming absence and neglect but it's painful not
only for the son who's got to bear
the disappointment with that explanation, it's painful for
the father who's got to bear the affliction
of withholding himself that's the formation of a
community of an apostolic I rest my case
it's the cross so has this been helpful
encouraging we hope to do something of this
kind with the word prophet, what is a
prophet what has distinguished all of the Hebrew
prophets what do they have in common with
the apostles in terms of character, devotion to
the Lord the ability to bear misunderstanding, rejection
of their own people so these are the
two great words that need to be resuscitated
and I'm happy for this brother's preliminary paper
started out with just a distinction between what
is an apostle, what is government but he
goes into things that become increasingly deep so
I'm blessed shall we pray for authentic church
established through authentic men formed in Christ's own
image and character in the place of hiddenness
and obscurity and sent in the moment of
the Lord's own choosing into the earth, not
just to be glib manipulators but to establish
enduring expressions of the reality of the Christ
that is in them Lord who has ever
heard of such a thing and so we
are blessed my God for Paul, for every
authentic man that has ever been sent of
you and depicts and represents you that to
see him and hear him to be in
relationship with him is to catch something of
the inflection of the Christ who is in
himself the real thing for you want a
church in the earth that's the real thing
for there are people dying for the things
that are false everywhere about us, the mental
institutions are full the saloons, the cop out
there the whole flaky world is momentarily trying
to assuage the frustration and despair at the
feet of people who are empty without reality,
without authentic truth, so my God we pray
for the restoration of true prophets and true
apostles and give us the capacity to discern
them my God who will confuse us at
the first if we have romantic models and
images that we think such men need to
fulfill they'll be unassuming and not have the
kinds of fireworks that we think ought to
accompany them but grant my God the ability
to discern and to encourage and to be
blessed by those whom you send, have a
church my God for your name in the
earth that will move Israel to jealousy, for
if they know anything even in their blindness,
it's what is real and they are instant
in detecting more quickly than we, the flaky
phonies the televangelists, the performers, they see right
through it they have a sense, even in
their darkness of what is true and authentic
so my God, raise up such a church
in the earth by sent men we pray,
and may there be people travailing my God
for the bringing forth of this exquisite phenomenon
which is nothing less nor other than what
you are in yourself thank you my God,
help us to break into dimensions of the
knowledge of you where we have been slothful
and neglectful and that we might have a
sense of yourself that you communicate Lord in
the privacy of our prayer chambers, in the
early morning hours in the times of communion,
times of prayer the times of our own
affliction that we have a sense of what
you in fact are and when we meet
one whom you sent you'll know it, there's
a sense of the truth so we bless
you Lord, bring us of age we pray
thank you for beginning as you have tonight
Friday night, Shabbat night my God may you
somehow be the beneficiary of this night in
some future time, because you have chosen to
begin us with this continue on Lord we
pray, your servants are hearing receive our gratitude
and our praise for our privilege in these
days in Jesus