A while back I set out what I believe the new apostolic reformation would look like and how it will be different to what many of us have experienced before. I believe understanding around this is evolving, so am pleased to add what I believe is a a new piece in the picture about how the apostolic should operate.
One of the problems in the past has been that apostles have operated somehow out of a form of hierarchical order, whilst all the time distancing themselves from the idea of hierarchy by emphasising their ministries' relational context. Well, while it was true to a degree that this was relational not positional, they never really got away from the underlying hierarchical nature of the relationship. This was often exercised in the form of doctrinal control over what was allowed to be taught in the churches, and the right to remove or appoint people within the network to "represent" him (and it always was a him). The apostle was in many ways like the MD of the organisation ,and largely set the direction and made the key decisions. Certainly you couldn't do anything that he wasn't in agreement with. The others were taught to have to submit to the authority of the apostle, even if it meant in practice - when at its best - that this was within the context of service and love. At its worst, it could become somewhat controlling.
The way this worked was essentially a hierarchy. The justification for this seemed to come from Ephesians 4 says that Jesus gave the church gifts "first apostles, then prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors".
This verse translated into apostle is top dog, then the prophet, then the evangelist and then the others. At the top of the network was always the apostle.
It was Paul Manwaring who I believe said that "God's government is family". This is crucial. What he was saying is that God's governmental order operated through the relationship between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each one submitting and honouring each other is perfect unity and love.
The expression of this heavenly family is our model for earthly apostolic government. After all you can't have an apostolic government seeking to bring heaven to earth which does not look like the government of heaven can you! I believe that true apostolic relationships will build governmental relationships on heaven's model of family as illustrated by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It is worth pondering for a second on the meaning of the name "apostle" itself. The word was selected by Jesus from Roman culture. It has no old testament antecedents. The word "apostle" means "sent one," but in the society of the day this had a particualr context, and it probably shocked Jewish people to hear Jesus use it like this. The apostle was a roman word for a general who the emperor sent into territories to conquor and then romanize it. In other words, the mission of the apostle was to take territory and make the people into a reflection of roman society, to spread the culture and civilisation of Rome to these new regions. Therefore the real mandate of an apostle is to bring the culture and reality of heaven to the earth.
So what about the "first apostles" bit then...?
Recently, in the unlikely setting of a small church in the Cévennes in Alès I heard a message courtesy of Pete Carter that really became to unpack a whole new way of understanding the way that the Ephesians 4 ministry gifts operate.
Key points are as follows:
1) The truly apostolic is represented by Jesus - not Paul. Jesus is the apostle of our faith and the model of the apostolic. The true mark of an apostle was thus that he did what Jesus did - bring in the kingdom on earth. Check my last couple of posts to see what this means.
2) Apostles are called to equip the body of Christ for works of service. Therefore the key test of the ministry of a true apostle is whether it equip the saints to do the work that Jesus did in bringing in the dominion of heaven on earth. This means that the role of an apostle is to make an apostolic people - who bring heaven to earth - living in the supernatural. The role of a prophet is to make us prophetic people and an evangelist, evangelistic people.
In practice this means that apostles are people who carry a dimension of heaven, have the gift of imparting that to the church, and opening up heaven in a church or region and can equip a church to break through and bring heaven to earth. This takes gifting that carries revelatory anointing into the things of the spirit and can open up portals or realms in the heavens. Something of Todd Bentley's ministry was breaking into this before he fell away during the Lakeland revival. I believe that he was starting to carry an apostolic mantle, but never carried it through. There are men emerging as apostles like this. I believe that Bill Johnson is one.
3) The apostle is not the top of some hierarchical structure, he or she is the foundation stone of the church. That means that the apostle is the thing on which the rest of the building is built. So when the bible says "first apostles, then prophets...." it is talking about function not position. This means that unless you have in place a proper apostolic foundation in the church the other ministry gifts can't function properly.
So in practice this means that unless the apostolic foundation of a church has been laid (i.e. that it is centred on and equipped to bring in the kingdom), the other ministry gifts won't be functioning correctly. They will be dysfunctional.
Let me give an example of this. Many churches have laid down evangelistic foundations without apolstolic ones. There are "successful" large churches which have honed this down as a technique. What this consists of is a strategy of enticing non Christians into the church service through cool marketing and various evangelistic strategie, and out reachess. Once in the church the meeting is carefully crafted to avoid any particular activity that put the non Christian off God. So in order to be "seeker sensitive" the church will restrict what the Holy Spirit is allowed to do, it will not let the Holy Spirit touch people freely, it avoids overt manifestations of the Spirit, and controls the meeting quite closely. It aims to be very professional, but very few supernatural expressions of God are allowed or take place. It reaches people with a modern appeal to the gospel message.
Well, fine, but people will not have an encounter with God in an environment like that. They are effectively managing God out of the meeting. The non Christian may be enticed by the environment, but it won't be a God encounter. The thing is though, if you want a big church, these tactics have been proven to work - as they are taken from the American mega churches.
The result though is potentially a church with little presence of God, where people live quite dry Christian lives, and where Christians grow ever more frustrated with the shallowness of the life there as they follow human programmes and strategies. There are indications that many members of the American mega churches are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the life inside their church.
If you had an apostolic foundation in place then the thing that the church would first seek to do would be to build the kingdom in their midst - bring heaven to earth, signs, wonders, healings, restoring lives, building loving community and family, joy and pace, right living. Then, secondly the prophetic foundation would teach the people to hear from God and speak forth from God with all the power and impact that the revelatory realm brings (words of knowledge, wisdom, prophecy etc). With both foundations in place the Holy Spirit would be at the centre of the meeting and would be building a community where heaven encounters earth tand brings transformation. What might happen in such a church is that a non Christian comes into a meeting and - as Paul says - hearing the secrets of his heart revealed, proclaims "indeed God is amongst you". How often does that happen these days?
Then the evangelist would start to function, and build the evangelistic into the church. How much easier would this be? They would take the people out to train them how to bring words on the street, to heal the sick and cast out demons and demonstrate the power of God before then proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The kingdom becomes a lifestyle that operates outside the church. Now we are starting to see a church that resembles Jesus ministry.... But it starts with getting the true apostolic in place first, then the prophetic and then the evangelistic.
All these roles - apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher pastor - are expressions of Jesus ministry. He wasn't at war with himself in how these were outworked, and neither should the church be.
One of the problems in the past has been that apostles have operated somehow out of a form of hierarchical order, whilst all the time distancing themselves from the idea of hierarchy by emphasising their ministries' relational context. Well, while it was true to a degree that this was relational not positional, they never really got away from the underlying hierarchical nature of the relationship. This was often exercised in the form of doctrinal control over what was allowed to be taught in the churches, and the right to remove or appoint people within the network to "represent" him (and it always was a him). The apostle was in many ways like the MD of the organisation ,and largely set the direction and made the key decisions. Certainly you couldn't do anything that he wasn't in agreement with. The others were taught to have to submit to the authority of the apostle, even if it meant in practice - when at its best - that this was within the context of service and love. At its worst, it could become somewhat controlling.
The way this worked was essentially a hierarchy. The justification for this seemed to come from Ephesians 4 says that Jesus gave the church gifts "first apostles, then prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors".
This verse translated into apostle is top dog, then the prophet, then the evangelist and then the others. At the top of the network was always the apostle.
It was Paul Manwaring who I believe said that "God's government is family". This is crucial. What he was saying is that God's governmental order operated through the relationship between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each one submitting and honouring each other is perfect unity and love.
The expression of this heavenly family is our model for earthly apostolic government. After all you can't have an apostolic government seeking to bring heaven to earth which does not look like the government of heaven can you! I believe that true apostolic relationships will build governmental relationships on heaven's model of family as illustrated by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It is worth pondering for a second on the meaning of the name "apostle" itself. The word was selected by Jesus from Roman culture. It has no old testament antecedents. The word "apostle" means "sent one," but in the society of the day this had a particualr context, and it probably shocked Jewish people to hear Jesus use it like this. The apostle was a roman word for a general who the emperor sent into territories to conquor and then romanize it. In other words, the mission of the apostle was to take territory and make the people into a reflection of roman society, to spread the culture and civilisation of Rome to these new regions. Therefore the real mandate of an apostle is to bring the culture and reality of heaven to the earth.
So what about the "first apostles" bit then...?
Recently, in the unlikely setting of a small church in the Cévennes in Alès I heard a message courtesy of Pete Carter that really became to unpack a whole new way of understanding the way that the Ephesians 4 ministry gifts operate.
Key points are as follows:
1) The truly apostolic is represented by Jesus - not Paul. Jesus is the apostle of our faith and the model of the apostolic. The true mark of an apostle was thus that he did what Jesus did - bring in the kingdom on earth. Check my last couple of posts to see what this means.
2) Apostles are called to equip the body of Christ for works of service. Therefore the key test of the ministry of a true apostle is whether it equip the saints to do the work that Jesus did in bringing in the dominion of heaven on earth. This means that the role of an apostle is to make an apostolic people - who bring heaven to earth - living in the supernatural. The role of a prophet is to make us prophetic people and an evangelist, evangelistic people.
In practice this means that apostles are people who carry a dimension of heaven, have the gift of imparting that to the church, and opening up heaven in a church or region and can equip a church to break through and bring heaven to earth. This takes gifting that carries revelatory anointing into the things of the spirit and can open up portals or realms in the heavens. Something of Todd Bentley's ministry was breaking into this before he fell away during the Lakeland revival. I believe that he was starting to carry an apostolic mantle, but never carried it through. There are men emerging as apostles like this. I believe that Bill Johnson is one.
3) The apostle is not the top of some hierarchical structure, he or she is the foundation stone of the church. That means that the apostle is the thing on which the rest of the building is built. So when the bible says "first apostles, then prophets...." it is talking about function not position. This means that unless you have in place a proper apostolic foundation in the church the other ministry gifts can't function properly.
So in practice this means that unless the apostolic foundation of a church has been laid (i.e. that it is centred on and equipped to bring in the kingdom), the other ministry gifts won't be functioning correctly. They will be dysfunctional.
Let me give an example of this. Many churches have laid down evangelistic foundations without apolstolic ones. There are "successful" large churches which have honed this down as a technique. What this consists of is a strategy of enticing non Christians into the church service through cool marketing and various evangelistic strategie, and out reachess. Once in the church the meeting is carefully crafted to avoid any particular activity that put the non Christian off God. So in order to be "seeker sensitive" the church will restrict what the Holy Spirit is allowed to do, it will not let the Holy Spirit touch people freely, it avoids overt manifestations of the Spirit, and controls the meeting quite closely. It aims to be very professional, but very few supernatural expressions of God are allowed or take place. It reaches people with a modern appeal to the gospel message.
Well, fine, but people will not have an encounter with God in an environment like that. They are effectively managing God out of the meeting. The non Christian may be enticed by the environment, but it won't be a God encounter. The thing is though, if you want a big church, these tactics have been proven to work - as they are taken from the American mega churches.
The result though is potentially a church with little presence of God, where people live quite dry Christian lives, and where Christians grow ever more frustrated with the shallowness of the life there as they follow human programmes and strategies. There are indications that many members of the American mega churches are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the life inside their church.
If you had an apostolic foundation in place then the thing that the church would first seek to do would be to build the kingdom in their midst - bring heaven to earth, signs, wonders, healings, restoring lives, building loving community and family, joy and pace, right living. Then, secondly the prophetic foundation would teach the people to hear from God and speak forth from God with all the power and impact that the revelatory realm brings (words of knowledge, wisdom, prophecy etc). With both foundations in place the Holy Spirit would be at the centre of the meeting and would be building a community where heaven encounters earth tand brings transformation. What might happen in such a church is that a non Christian comes into a meeting and - as Paul says - hearing the secrets of his heart revealed, proclaims "indeed God is amongst you". How often does that happen these days?
Then the evangelist would start to function, and build the evangelistic into the church. How much easier would this be? They would take the people out to train them how to bring words on the street, to heal the sick and cast out demons and demonstrate the power of God before then proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The kingdom becomes a lifestyle that operates outside the church. Now we are starting to see a church that resembles Jesus ministry.... But it starts with getting the true apostolic in place first, then the prophetic and then the evangelistic.
All these roles - apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher pastor - are expressions of Jesus ministry. He wasn't at war with himself in how these were outworked, and neither should the church be.
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