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Apostle(s), 12 Apostles
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a-pos'-l (one sent forth)
RELATED: Andrew, Bartholomew (Nathanael), James, John, Judas Iscariot, Matthew, Matthias, Peter, Philip,
Simon, Thaddaeus (Jude), Thomas |
| SEE ALSO: Disciple(s),
Jesus,
Paul,
Sermon
on the Mount
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Easton's Bible Dictionary
A person sent by another; a messenger; envoy. This word is once used as a descriptive
designation of Jesus Christ, the Sent of the Father ( Hebrews 3:1 ; John 20:21
). It is, however, generally used as designating the body of disciples to whom
he intrusted the organization of his church and the dissemination of his gospel,
"the twelve," as they are called ( Matthew 10:1 - 5 ; Mark 3:14 ; 6:7 ; Luke 6:13
; 9:1 ). We have four lists of the apostles, one by each of the synoptic evangelists
( Matthew 10:2 - 4 ; Mark 3:16 ; Luke 6:14 ), and one in the ( Acts 1:13 ). No
two of these lists, however, perfectly coincide.
Our Lord gave them the "keys of the kingdom," and by the gift of his Spirit fitted
them to be the founders and governors of his church ( John 14:16 , 14:17 , 14:26
; 15:26 , 15:27 ; 16:7 - 15 ). To them, as representing his church, he gave the
commission to "preach the gospel to every creature" ( Matthew 28:18 - 20 ). After
his ascension he communicated to them, according to his promise, supernatural
gifts to qualify them for the discharge of their duties ( Acts 2:4 ; 1 Corinthians
2:16 ; 2:7 , 2:10 , 2:13 ; 2 Corinthians 5:20 ; 1 Corinthians 11:2 ). Judas Iscariot,
one of "the twelve," fell by transgression, and Matthias was substituted in his
place ( Acts 1:21 ). Saul of Tarsus was afterwards added to their number ( Acts
9:3 - 20 ; 20:4 ; 26:15 - 18 ; 1 Timothy 1:12 ; 2:7 ; 2 Timothy 1:11 ).
Luke has given some account of Peter, John, and the two Jameses ( Acts 12:2 ,
12:17 ; 15:13 ; 21:18 ), but beyond this we know nothing from authentic history
of the rest of the original twelve. After the martyrdom of James the Greater (
Acts 12:2 ), James the Less usually resided at Jerusalem, while Paul, "the apostle
of the uncircumcision," usually travelled as a missionary among the Gentiles (
Galatians 2:8 ). It was characteristic of the apostles and necessary (1) that
they should have seen the Lord, and been able to testify of him and of his resurrection
from personal knowledge ( John 15:27 ; Acts 1:21 , 1:22 ; 1 Corinthians 9:1 ;
Acts 22:14 , 22:15 ).
They must have been immediately called to that office by Christ ( Luke 6:13 ;
Galatians 1:1 ). It was essential that they should be infallibly inspired, and
thus secured against all error and mistake in their public teaching, whether by
word or by writing ( John 14:26 ; 16:13 ; 1 Thessalonians 2:13 ).
Another qualification was the power of working miracles ( Mark 16:20 ; Acts 2:43
; 1 Corinthians 12:8 - 11 ). The apostles therefore could have had no successors.
They are the only authoritative teachers of the Christian doctrines. The office
of an apostle ceased with its first holders. In 2 Corinthians 8:23 and Philippians
2:25 the word "messenger" is the rendering of the same Greek word, elsewhere rendered
"apostle."
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
(no entry)
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(one sent forth) In the New Testament originally the official name of those twelve
of the disciples whom Jesus chose to send forth first to preach the gospel and
to be with him during the course of his ministry on earth. The word also appears
to have been used in a non-official sense to designate a much wider circle of
Christian messengers and teachers See ( 2 Corinthians 8:23 ; Philemon 2:25 ) It
is only of those who were officially designated apostles that we treat in the
article. Their names are given in ( Matthew 10:2 - 4 ) and Christs charge to them
in the rest of the chapter.
Their office. --
(1) The original qualification of
an apostle, as stated by St. Peter on the occasion of electing a successor to
the traitor Judas, was that he should have been personally acquainted with the
whole ministerial course of our Lord from his baptism by John till the day when
he was taken up into heaven.
(2) They were chosen by Christ himself
(3) They had the power of working miracles.
(4) They were inspired. ( John 16:13 )
(5) Their world seems to have been pre-eminently that of founding the churches
and upholding them by supernatural power specially bestowed for that purpose.
(6) The office ceased, a matter of course, with its first holders-all continuation
of it, from the very condition of its existence ( 1 Corinthians 9:1 ), being impossible.
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Early history and training .--
The apostles were from the lower ranks of life, simple and uneducated; some of
them were related to Jesus according to the flesh; some had previously been disciples
of John the Baptist. Our Lord chose them early in his public career They seem
to have been all on an equality, both during and after the ministry of Christ
on earth. Early in our Lords ministry he sent them out two and two to preach repentance
and to perform miracles in his name Matthew 10 ; Luke 9. They accompanied him
in his journey, saw his wonderful works, heard his discourses addressed to the
people, and made inquiries of him on religious matters. They recognized him as
the Christ of God, ( Matthew 16:16 ; Luke 9:20 ) and described to him supernatural
power ( Luke 9:54 ) but in the recognition of the spiritual teaching and mission
of Christ they made very low progress, held back as they were by weakness of apprehension
and by national prejudices. Even at the removal of our Lord from the earth they
were yet weak in their knowledge, ( Luke 24:21 ; John 16:12 ) though he had for
so long been carefully preparing and instructing them. On the feast of Pentecost,
ten days after our Lords ascension, the Holy Spirit came down on the assembled
church, Acts 2; and from that time the apostles became altogether different men,
giving witness with power of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, as
he had declared they should. ( Luke 24:48 ; Acts 1:8 , 1:22 ; 2:32 ; 3:15 ; 5:32
; 13:31 )
Later labors and history. --
First of all the mother-church at Jerusalem grew up under their hands, Acts 3
- 7, and their superior dignity and power were universally acknowledged by the
rulers and the people. ( Acts 5:12 ) ff. Their first mission out of Jerusalem
was to Samaria ( Acts 8:5 - 25 ) where the Lord himself had, during his ministry,
sown the seed of the gospel. Here ends the first period of the apostles agency,
during which its centre is Jerusalem and the prominent figure is that of St. Peter.
The centre of the second period of the apostolic agency is Antioch, where a church
soon was built up, consisting of Jews and Gentiles; and the central figure of
this and of the subsequent period is St. Paul. The third apostolic period is marked
by the almost entire disappearance of the twelve from the sacred narrative and
the exclusive agency of St. Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles. Of the missionary
work of the rest of the twelve we know absolutely nothing from the sacred narrative.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
a-pos'-l (apostolos, literally, "one sent forth," an envoy, missionary):
For the meaning of this name as it meets us in the New Testament, reference is
sometimes made to classical and Jewish parallels. In earlier classical Greek there
was a distinction between an aggelos or messenger and an apostolos, who was not
a mere messenger, but a delegate or representative of the person who sent him.
In the later Judaism, again, apostoloi were envoys sent out by the patriarchate
in Jerusalem to collect the sacred tribute from the Jews of the Dispersion. It
seems unlikely, however, that either of these uses bears upon the Christian origin
of a term which, in any case, came to have its own distinctive Christian meaning.
To understand the word as we find it in the New Testament it is not necessary
to go beyond the New Testament itself. To discover the source of its Christian
use it is sufficient to refer to its immediate and natural signification. The
term used by Jesus, it must be remembered, would be Aramaic, not Greek, and apostolos
would be its literal equivalent.
1. The Twelve:
In the New Testament history we first hear of the term as applied by Jesus to
the Twelve in connection with that evangelical mission among the villages on which
He dispatched them at an early stage of His public ministry (Matthew 10:1 ; Mark
3:14 ; 6:30 ; Luke 6:13 ; 9:1). From a comparison of the Synoptics it would seem
that the name as thus used was not a general designation for the Twelve, but had
reference only to this particular mission, which was typical and prophetic, however,
of the wider mission that was to come (compare Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 23-29).
Luke, it is true, uses the word as a title for the Twelve apart from reference
to the mission among the villages. But the explanation probably is, as Dr. Hort
suggests, that since the Third Gospel and the Book of Acts formed two sections
of what was really one work, the author in the Gospel employs the term in that
wider sense which it came to have after the Ascension.
When we pass to Acts, "apostles" has become an ordinary name for the Eleven (Acts
1:2 , 26), and after the election of Matthias in place of Judas, for the Twelve
(Acts 2:37 , 42 , 43, etc.). But even so it does not denote a particular and restricted
office, but rather that function of a world-wide missionary service to which the
Twelve were especially called. In His last charge, just before He ascended, Jesus
had commissioned them to go forth into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature (Matthew 28:19 , 20 ; Mark 16:15). He had said that they were to
be His witnesses not only in Jerusalem and Judea, but in Samaria (contrast Matthew
10:5), and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8). They were apostles,
therefore, qua missionaries--not merely because they were the Twelve, but because
they were now sent forth by their Lord on a universal mission for the propagation
of the gospel.
2. Paul:
The very fact that the name "apostle" means what it does would point to the impossibility
of confining it within the limits of the Twelve. (The "twelve apostles" of Revelation
21:14 is evidently symbolic; compare in Revelation 7:3 the restriction of God's
sealed servants to the twelve tribes.) Yet there might be a tendency at first
to do so, and to restrict it as a badge of honor and privilege peculiar to that
inner circle (compare Acts 1:25). If any such tendency existed, Paul effectually
broke it down by vindicating for himself the right to the name. His claim appears
in his assumption of the apostolic title in the opening words of most of his epistles.
And when his right to it was challenged, he defended that right with passion,
and especially on these grounds: that he had seen Jesus, and so was qualified
to bear witness to His resurrection (1 Corinthians 9:1 ; compare Acts 22:6); that
he had received a call to the work of an apostle (Romans 1:1 ; 1 Corinthians 1:1
, etc.; Galatians 2:7 ; compare Acts 13:2 ; 22:21); but, above all, that he could
point to the signs and seals of his apostleship furnished by his missionary labors
and their fruits (1 Corinthians 9:2 ; 2 Corinthians 12:12 ; Galatians 2:8). It
was by this last ground of appeal that Paul convinced the original apostles of
the justice of his claim. He had not been a disciple of Jesus in the days of His
flesh; his claim to have seen the risen Lord and from Him to have received a personal
commission was not one that could be proved to others; but there could be no possibility
of doubt as to the seals of his apostleship. It was abundantly clear that "he
that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for (Paul)
also unto the Gentiles" (Galatians 2:8). And so perceiving the grace that was
given unto him, Peter and John, together with James of Jerusalem, recognized Paul
as apostle to the Gentiles and gave him the right hand of fellowship (Galatians
2:9).
3. The Wider Circle:
It is sometimes said by those who recognize that there were other apostles besides
the Twelve and Paul that the latter (to whom some, on the ground of 1 Corinthians
15:7 ; Galatians 1:19, would add James the Lord's brother) were the apostles par
excellence, while the other apostles mentioned in the New Testament were apostles
in some inferior sense. It is hardly possible, however, to make out such a distinction
on the ground of New Testament usage. There were great differences, no doubt,
among the apostles of the primitive church, as there were among the Twelve themselves--differences
due to natural talents, to personal acquirements and experience, to spiritual
gifts. Paul was greater than Barnabas or Silvanus, just as Peter and John were
greater than Thaddaeus or Simon the Cananean.
But Thaddaeus and Simon were disciples of Jesus in the very same sense as Peter
and John; and the Twelve and Paul were not more truly apostles than others who
are mentioned in the New Testament. If apostleship denotes missionary service,
and if its reality, as Paul suggests, is to be measured by its seals, it would
be difficult to maintain that Matthias was an apostle par excellence, while Barnabas
was not. Paul sets Barnabas as an apostle side by side with himself (1 Corinthians
9:5 ; Galatians 2:9 ; compare Acts 13:2 ; 14:4 , 14); he speaks of Andronicus
and Junias as "of note among the apostles" (Romans 16:7); he appears to include
Apollos along with himself among the apostles who are made a spectacle unto the
world and to angels and to men (1 Corinthians 4:6 , 9); the natural inference
from a comparison of 1 Thessalonians 1:1 with 2:6 is that he describes Silvanus
and Timothy as "apostles of Christ"; to the Philippians he mentions Epaphroditus
as "your apostle" (Philippians 2:25 the Revised Version, margin), and to the Corinthians
commends certain unknown brethren as "the apostles of the churches" and "the glory
of Christ" (2 Corinthians 8:23 the Revised Version, margin). And the very fact
that he found it necessary to denounce certain persons as "false apostles, deceitful
workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:13)
shows that there was no thought in the primitive church of restricting the apostleship
to a body of 12 or 13 men. "Had the number been definitely restricted, the claims
of these interlopers would have been self-condemned" (Lightfoot, Galatians, 97).
4. Apostles in Didache:
When we come to the Didache, which probably lies beyond the boundary-line of New
Testament history, we find the name "apostles" applied to a whole class of nameless
missionaries--men who settled in no church, but moved about from place to place
as messengers of the gospel (chapter 11). This makes it difficult to accept the
view, urged by Lightfoot (op. cit., 98) and Gwatkin (HDB, I, 126) on the ground
Of Luke 24:48 ; Acts 1:8 , 22 ; 1 Corinthians 9:1, that to have seen the Lord
was always the primary qualification of an apostle--a view on the strength of
which they reject the apostleship of Apollos and Timothy, as being late converts
to Christianity who lived far from the scenes of our Lord's ministry. Gwatkin
remarks that we have no reason to suppose that this condition was ever waived
unless we throw forward the Didache into the 2nd century. But it seems very unlikely
that even toward the end of the 1st century there would be a whole class of men,
not only still alive, but still braving in the exercise of their missionary functions
all the hardships of a wandering and homeless existence (compare Didache 11:4-6),
who were yet able to bear the personal testimony of eye-witnesses to the ministry
and resurrection of Jesus. In Luke 24:48 and Acts 18:22 it is the chosen company
of the Twelve who are in view. In 1 Corinthians 9:1 Paul is meeting his Judaizing
opponents on their own ground, and answering their insistence upon personal intercourse
with Jesus by a claim to have seen the Lord. But apart from these passages there
is no evidence that the apostles of the early church were necessarily men who
had known Jesus in the flesh or had been witnesses of His resurrection--much less
that this was the primary qualification on which their apostleship was made to
rest.
5. The Apostleship:
We are led then to the conclusion that the true differentia of the New Testament
apostleship lay in the missionary calling implied in the name, and that all whose
lives were devoted to this vocation, and who could prove by the issues of their
labors that God's Spirit was working through them for the conversion of Jew or
Gentile, were regarded and described as apostles. The apostolate was not a limited
circle of officials holding a well-defined position of authority in the church,
but a large class of men who discharged one--and that the highest--of the functions
of the prophetic ministry (1 Corinthians 12:28 ; Ephesians 4:11). It was on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets that the Christian church was built, with
Jesus Christ Himself as the chief corner-stone (Ephesians 2:20). The distinction
between the two classes was that while the prophet was God's spokesman to the
believing church (1 Corinthians 14:4 , 22 , 25 , 30 , 31), the apostle was His
envoy to the unbelieving world (Galatians 2:7 , 9)
The call of the apostle to his task might come in a variety of ways. The Twelve
were called personally by Jesus to an apostolic task at the commencement of His
earthly ministry (Matthew 10:1 parallel), and after His resurrection this call
was repeated, made permanent, and given a universal scope (Matthew 28:19 , 20
; Acts 1:8). Matthias was called first by the voice of the general body of the
brethren and thereafter by the decision of the lot (Acts 1:15 , 23 , 26). Paul's
call came to him in a heavenly vision (Acts 26:17 - 19); and though this call
was subsequently ratified by the church at Antioch, which sent him forth at the
bidding of the Holy Ghost (Acts 13:1), he firmly maintained that he was an apostle
not from men neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father
who raised Him from the dead (Galatians 1:1). Barnabas was sent forth (exapostello
is the verb used) by the church at Jerusalem (Acts 11:22) and later, along with
Paul, by the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1); and soon after this we find the two
men described as apostles (Acts 14:4). It was the mission on which they were sent
that explains the title. And when this particular mission was completed and they
returned to Antioch to rehearse before the assembled church "all things that God
had done with them, and that he had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles"
(Acts 14:27), they thereby justified their claim to be the apostles not only of
the church, but of the Holy Spirit.
The authority of the apostolate was of a spiritual, ethical and personal kind.
It was not official, and in the nature of the case could not be transmitted to
others. Paul claimed for himself complete independence of the opinion of the whole
body of the earlier apostles (Galatians 2:6 , 11), and in seeking to influence
his own converts endeavored by manifestation of the truth to commend himself to
every man's conscience in the sight of God (2 Corinthians 4:2). There is no sign
that the apostles collectively exercised a separate and autocratic authority.
When the question of the observance of the Mosaic ritual by GentileChristians
arose at Antioch and was referred to Jerusalem, it was "the apostles and elders"
who met to discuss it (Acts 15:2 , 6 , 22), and the letter returned to Antioch
was written in the name of "the apostles and the elders, brethren" (Acts 15:23).
In founding a church Paul naturally appointed the first local officials (Acts
14:23), but he does not seem to have interfered with the ordinary administration
of affairs in the churches he had planted. In those cases in which he was appealed
to or was compelled by some grave scandal to interpose, he rested an authoritative
command on some express word of the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:10), and when he had
no such word to rest on, was careful to distinguish his own judgment and counsel
from a Divine commandment (1 Corinthians 12:25 , 30). His appeals in the latter
case are grounded upon fundamental principles of morality common to heathen and
Christian alike (1 Corinthians 5:1), or are addressed to the spiritual judgment
(1 Corinthians 10:15), or are reinforced by the weight of a personal influence
gained by unselfish service and by the fact that he was the spiritual father of
his converts as having begotten them in Christ Jesus through the gospel (1 Corinthians
4:15). It may be added here that the expressly missionary character of the apostleship
seems to debar James, the Lord's brother, from any claim to the title. James was
a prophet and teacher, but not an apostle. As the head of the church at Jerusalem,
he exercised a ministry of a purely local nature. The passages on which it has
been sought to establish his right to be included in the apostolate do not furnish
any satisfactory evidence. In 1 Corinthians 15:7 James is contrasted with "all
the apostles" rather than included in their number (compare 1 Corinthians 9:5).
And in Galatians 1:19 the meaning may quite well be that with the exception of
Peter, none of the apostles was seen by Paul in Jerusalem, but only James the
Lord's brother (compare the Revised Version, margin).
LITERATURE
Lightfoot, Galatians, 92-101; Hort, Christian Ecclesia, Lect II; Weizsacker, The
Apostolic Age, II, 291-99; Lindsay, The Church and the Ministry, 73-90.
J. C. Lambert
Tags:
12 apostles, andrew, apostle, bartholomew (nathanael), bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, define, james, jesus, john, judas iscariot, matthew, matthias, messenger, one sent forth, paul, peter, philip, qualifications for being an apostle, simon, thaddaeus (Jude), sermon on the mount, thomas
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