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NASB | Romans 16:7 Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 16:7 Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and [once] my fellow prisoners, who are held in high esteem in the estimation of the apostles, and who were [believers] in Christ before me. |
Subject: Gifts of prophecy and tongues passed? |
Bible Note: There are several qualifications missing from your list and a misunderstanding of what is meant by the original founding work of the inception of the Church in first century and the continuation of the established church after the first century through out the whole world. Qualification one; Paul's first and most important claim to apostleship is that He personaly met the risen Christ on the Damascus Road. This leaves out everyone who did not meet Christ after He had risen and or asceneded, that is everyone after the first century, none of whom can honestly claim they met Christ in the flesh or like Paul did. If they do run around claiming it they would have a very hard time proving it, Paul had proof, there were people there who saw the light and heard a voice, there was his eyes and Ananias. The rest of the 11 apostles met the risen Christ in the flesh and saw Him ascend into heaven. Qualification two; is that Jesus personally chose the 12, from the original 11 to Paul, He directly commissioned them face to face to be His personal witnesses. No one past the first century can make the claim that Christ came to them face to face, if they are making that claim it will be hard to prove it. Qualification three; is that each apostle went and began the church, not continued the church growth, they began the church were before it did not exist on earth, not in a place or two, on the earth itself. It started at Pentecost and then 4 groups of people were brought into the church by the apostles that represent the whole world then and now, the Jews to whom it was promised, the Samaritans who worshipped the right God the wrong way, the Gentiles who were unbelievers or God fearers, those who had received the repentance of John and the baptism of John who had not yet heard the gospel. No one after the first century brought a new type of group in, they were all either pagans, in which case they were Gentiles, or they were people who repented of sin but did not yet hear the gospel, or they worshipped the right God the wrong way, or they were Jews, there are no other groups waiting to get in that don't fit inside one of these groups. Anyone who goes around claiming that they are doing church founding haven't got the correct conception of what the apostles were exactly doing. Any one can establish a new church somewhere and grow a membership, that does not make you an apostle because the apostles brought the church itself as a new creation into being, not a new continuation of work that has gone on before in various other places for centuries. The end of God signifying that He was providing for the church by having apostles is that thier work is finished, they brought the church into being on the face of the earth itself as a living body of Christ. The church is here and growing it doesn't need to be founded all over, just continued. Another proof is that Jesus has not come back as the risen Christ to anyone and told them to go be His witnesses. It is one thing to say that we are all commissioned to be His witnesses to go make disciples it is another to have Him appear to you like to Paul, or like to the 11 and be told to go bring a group that has never been brought in, like the Gentiles, the Jews, the Samaritans, the repenters and baptized of John. No one can make that claim any more. If you look closely at the qualifications you will see that the 500 don't qualify because Jesus did not personaly commission them or give them a group to go bring in and that applies to anyone today who claims to have had a divine revelation of Christ telling them they are an apostle today too. There is a definite demarcation between the initial founding of the church as I have described and its continuance past the first century, historicaly and in scripture because the qualifications are in the scripture and history shows it was finished being founded by the end of the first century. Your answer was more than reasonable, I will have to search for if you answered about the other two gifts somewhere... By the way Romans 16:7 says that these people were notable amongst the apostles as in they were associated with the apostles, it does not say they were apostles. One more important point before I forget, a trouble passage; Acts 1:25, 26 where the aposltes drew lots to chose a new apostle to replace Judas. Theologians take this seriously stating that this man is in fact qualified as a apostle the aformentioned above not forgoing because Peter is said to be speaking with authority as head of the apostles and only he would know if this man had met the risen Christ and the use of lots goes way back to the OT from the priesthood. But the intersting thing is you never hear of this man again one way or the other and he is said to be an acception in being qualified by Peter and the Lord and not the norm by which to judge qualifications by. Say, next time why don't you share what the Spirit dropped on you? Wew, God Bless, Tamara |