The One Absolutely ESSENTIAL Characteristic of an Apostle

The English word apostle is nothing more than the Greek word apostolos spelled out in English form.

The Greek word apostolos comes from the Greek verb apostello, which appears many, many times in the Gospels. The word means, to send out, or, to dispatch.

It's in Matthew 10:16 when Jesus says to the twelve, where they are first called apostles (v. 2), "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves..."

By definition...by the very word selected to describe them by Jesus...an apostle is a person who is sent, a person who is dispatched...a person who is on the go.

Jesus apostellos apostoloses. He sends the sent ones.

The, these days, oft quoted, in The CHURCH ADVOCATE and the CGGC eNews, Ephesians 4:11, if quoted literally, might say, "And He gave the sent ones, the prophets..."

From the moment Jesus coined the word apostle to describe those 12 people and throughout the whole New Testament, apostles were restless people, people uncomfortable staying in one place for a long time, people only at ease with life when they were on the move.

Jesus made them to be that way. He makes them that way.

I have three thoughts about apostleship for today.

1. The one individual I've known personally who is most obviously gifted to be an apostle is a guy who was a Churches of God minister in the past.

He had several short, but successful, ministries in our body, left to minister elsewhere and, eventually abandoned pastoral ministry in frustration.

He was profoundly gifted but, very simply, couldn't stay in one place for a long time.

This was long before any of us heard the word APEST.

He, and the churches he served, and I'd guess CGGC bureaucrats, were all frustrated.

And, clearly, the cause of the Kingdom suffered because this guy was empowered by Jesus to do what apostles do but the organized and institutional church couldn't and wouldn't facilitate the way Jesus gifted this man.

His case is far too much the norm for people like him.

2. The CGGC is designed to chew apostles up and to spit them out.

The CGGC is all about, as the ERC has recently articulated it, pastors functioning as parish priests and denominational bureaucrats developing healthy churches.

Imagine a man or a woman with the characteristics displayed by New Testament apostles, and living in the Spirit, attempting to be an apostle in the midst of the values that guide current CGGC leaders.

We've had apostles in the CGGC but one of three things thwart them when they live in the Spirit in the CGGC. Either they are domesticated by the Shepherd Mafia, they leave us in frustration or they are made too uncomfortable to stay among us by the mountaintoppers atop the institution.

As of this moment, as far as I know, they are all gone from the CGGC.

3. No one in CGGC leadership today, based on the fruit they produce, is an apostle.

I intend no insult in saying that.

However, the essential characteristic of an apostle,...

...the characteristic Jesus Himself used to define the calling,...

...the sentness, the restlessness, the need to be on the go...

...is entirely absent...based on fruit...from everyone whose name is on a plaque outside an office in the CGGC headquarters building in Findlay.

The household of God has been built, first and foremost, on the foundation of the apostles. (Eph. 2:20).

And, the CGGC will not walk in the blessing of the Spirit until we welcome and embrace apostles...and empower their restless sentness.

We talk APEST.

We must change our ways and walk our talk. We must practice what we preach.

We must repent.