Are There Modern-Day Apostles and Prophets?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Ephesians 4:11, Acts 20, 1 Peter 5, Titus 1, Acts 15, Acts 12, Acts 16, Galatians 2, Acts 13, Ephesians 4:12

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--are-there-modern-day-apostles-and-prophets
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

------------------------------------------------------------
yes i do believe the fivefold ministry exists in the church today and for background i would refer you to my book spiritual leadership in the 21st century also the upci in its manual which is distributed to ministers has a position paper on church government which briefly mentions the fivefold ministry so let's talk about a little bit more if you look at ephesians chapter four these ministries are god's gift to the church so yes i do believe they exist and they are ministerial positions or offices or callings that are designed to equip the saints that is the believers for the work of ministry or service for the building up of the body of christ so to put this in perspective god gives these leaders and so i would say their job collectively they are the preachers teachers leaders of the church these are the people to whom the upci would give ministerial credentials so these preachers slash teachers slash leaders train the whole body of believers the saints and that enables the whole body when all the saints are working together then the body of christ is built up so from that perspective i do believe in the five-fold ministry as you've mentioned it's very common for us to identify someone as a pastor as a teacher or as an evangelist and so let me focus on those the pastor which there i do believe every local church has a senior leader that we would call the pastor sometimes you'd say the senior pastor lead pastor in the new testament the word pastor is is using the plural it's also used equivalently with the word elders and also equivalent with the word bishops bishop means overseer pastor means shepherd so i think there are two different ways of describing the same office bishop is referring to the role of oversight or the authority that's involved in pastors referring to the function of feeding the flock taking care of the flock protecting the flock and so that speaks of the responsibility and i might just make an aside sometimes we use the term bishop for for other types of leaders leaders of leaders but i'm just speaking in the new testament if you want to look at acts chapter 20 if you look at first peter chapter 5 then you will see also titus chapter 1 you will see that the titles of elder and bishop and pastor are used interchangeably and so my point simply there is we understand this would be the senior leader and others who assist like a leadership team of pastors or maybe the collective in the new testament they were usually small house churches they didn't have one central place to assemble in most cases and so we would look at the pastors of a city as the the leadership team of that local church or maybe the collective group of house church pastors and then teachers and often that can overlap because typically a pastor is also a teacher but some people have a teaching ministry even though they're not in a pastoral position then evangelist we often use that for itinerant preacher but actually it means someone whose ministry focuses on the lost so it could be what we think of as a preacher who comes and preaches and many people repent and receive the holy spirit or maybe it could even refer more to a soul winner who's a a proficient bible study teacher and and to win souls that way somebody that's operating in the local church yes someone who's operating in the local church so those three are are fairly easy to understand apostle and prophet we don't often just go out and label someone and we usually don't uh respond very well if someone self-labels and the reason is throughout church history and even in the new testament we find many false apostles and false prophets where people will claim these as titles of authority to go in and try to take over a local church or go against the pastor of that church and so let me simply say whatever an apostle or a prophet is it's not designed to usurp church government so in the local church we have a structure of government authority which would include the pastor and other senior leaders deacons and so forth and in the body at large the group of collective churches as in acts 15 there was a council at jerusalem of apostles and elders that made decisions for the larger body and sent letters to all the churches to follow so there is a church government structure beyond the local church so whatever an apostle or prophet may be it doesn't grant authority to overturn the church governance of a local church or the church governance of the body at large but if you just look at the words apostle means someone who has sent someone with a commission of course the 12 apostles that jesus chose are unique because they were eyewitnesses of jesus christ his ministry he used them to establish the church so no one can can have that role today no one could write scripture no one can establish the universal church that's already been done and that's why the book of revelation talks about the new jerusalem it has 12 foundations which are the 12 the names of the 12 apostles so obviously there can be no other and you even see this while the early church did replace judas but after the day of pentecost they didn't replace any other so when the apostle james was executed in acts 12 they didn't replace him so in that sense the 12 apostles are irreplaceable now the apostle paul was specially chosen out of due season as apostle to the gentiles so he he's equal to the 12 but no one can take their place however in the new testament other people are also given the title of apostles such as silas barnabas apollos james the brother of the lord not one of the twelve but the leader of the church in jerusalem and so the uh andronicus and junia male and female acts 16 apparently a husband and wife team so in what sense are all these other people apostles well i think they're specially sent by god for a purpose typically we might think of him as a pioneer missionary opening up a new area of the gospel or a key uh ethnic or regional leader so the book of galatians chapter 2 talks about peter the apostle to the jews paul the apostles the gentiles and then james again not one of the twelve but the brother of jesus as the leader in jerusalem and so those were all considered apostles so it seems that apostle is designated for those key leaders who open up regions or ethnicities to the gospel so do those exist today certainly do we recognize them yes we we might usually call them missionary or leader simply because we don't want the confusion of claiming an authority that's not proper now the term profit literally means a spokesman for god so in one sense every preacher would be a prophet but there are some who seem to have this special office or calling of a prophet where they are preachers to the preachers or they give direction to the church now we often think of prophecies for telling the future and that sometimes that's part of it but more generally prophecy is not about foretelling the future but it's about a giving direction and we do find the book of acts prophets so some prophets uh prophesied that a family would come to jerusalem and so they gave guidance and warning to the church of how to prepare what to do so do those types of ministries exist yes so we think of them as preachers to the preachers uh leaders of the leaders but we don't necessarily use the titles again because we're not trying to imply something non-biblical which has origin or risen over the centuries and as i said even in the new testament like the book of revelation they're false apostles fossil prophets so this is not a new thing some people claiming to be apostles and prophets and they're really not and so rather than try having to define the term every time we simply recognize leaders and use them and you know they exercise their ministry and i think as we talk about this more and more we will become more and more accustomed to using these terms but again we would be reluctant for someone who self-proclaims that i'm an apostle i'm a prophet because we question what do they mean and what kind of authority are they trying to uh exert which they don't have because really authority can only be given by god and recognized by the church and the collective body of believers and we do have structures for how we recognize leadership and how we select leadership in the local church and in the body at large to summarize we do believe in the fivefold ministry but a mature understanding of this the various leaders and preachers work together as a team so rather than trying to focus on each person there can be overlap there can be change over time the main thing is for each minister to fulfill the calling that god has given and for the church to recognize the calling so in acts 13 when paul and barnabas were sent out as missionaries so we could say they were sent out as apostles there was a witness of the holy spirit it said the holy spirit said so there apparently some kind of whether it was tongues or prophecy or tongues interpretation or some other means there was a supernatural impartation and calling but the church recognized and the church laid hands on them and the church sent them out so whatever calling someone has even if god has given it it needs to be jointly recognized and endorsed by god and the church that provides a safeguard when ministers are sent by god and the church and that's why i believe every person that feels some kind of ministerial calling those fi that five-fold ministry collectively they should work to get minister credentials with the upci and we we have a system of local general inordination if they feel called to the preaching teaching leadership ministry they should get local licensed in general and they should not stop until they get ordination because ordination it's more than an organizational thing it's more than checking a box it's a spiritual thing where they fulfill the ministry and they have the endorsement of the elders according to the teaching of scripture and so i believe that's the key that whatever ministry god has given it must be recognized by the church and it must work in harmony with the other ministers and with the church governance structure so that the goal the end goal ephesians 4 12 is that the body of christ might be built up