Thursday August 16, 2012

Are there bits of the Bible you don’t believe? Make an appointment with one of your elders to discuss it.

 

Read Acts 1:15-22. Ephesians 2:20, Matt 16:18, Acts 2:42, Jude 3. Rev 21:14

 

Even though the word ‘apostle’ means ‘sent one’, the word is used biblically in a different sense when written in English with a capital A. Everyone sent by the church is a “sent one”, an apostle, in the generic sense of the word. But that does not imply that these people are Apostles in the sense of the authorised and sent bearers of the original gospel. The Apostles were those who witnessed the ministry, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were chosen by Him to be authorised bearers of the gospel. They were chosen by Him and sent out by Him.

 

The original Apostles were the twelve disciples Jesus surrounded Himself with. Paul was later added as an Apostle because he witnessed the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 Cor 15 he acknowledges that he was like one abnormally born.

 

The Apostles laid the foundation of the Church and gave to us the Word of God in the New Testament. It is chiefly their message that forms the New Testament. When  a church is ‘apostolic’ it means that it allows its life, its message, its conduct and so on to be ruled and constantly reformed by the New Testament.

 

When we talk about apostolicity of the church we are not talking about a succession of bishops back to the first New Testament Church. Such teaching lacks any Biblical foundation or support. Apostolic succession is properly a succession of the apostolic gospel - preaching the gospel as it was handed down to us.

 

We, as a church, are called to defend and protect the faith, the Scriptures, that were handed down to us from the Apostles.  At present there is a battle being waged against the authority of Scripture. Marriage, children’s roles and place in society and the legitimacy of creation are being attacked. We must stand up as an apostolic faith and protect that which God has given us through them, namely, the Word of God.

 

Prayer:

¨ Pray that God would uphold the sanctity of marriage and the purity of marriage as being between one man and one woman for life. Pray that churches across the world would stand and fight together for God’s Word.

Pray that the church too would stand up against the trend and attack that encourages children and teenagers to rebel against their parents and to do what they want rather than what their parents want. Pray that Christian teens and children in your own congregation would be obedient to Christ, then to their parents. Pray that the trend of the world would be reversed.