Vision for Mission: Nurturing an Apostolic Heart

Append i x

125

Appendix 19 Apostleship as an Ongoing Spiritual Gift Compiled by Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis

Can we possess the gift of apostleship in our day? John Lange is willing to stretch the term beyond the first century to apply to “those men, chosen and specially endowed by the Lord, appointed to found churches, as Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans; Egede, the Apostle of Greenland, Ziegenbalg and Schwartz, the Apostles of India” (“Ephesians,” A Com mentary on the Holy Scriptures , Vol. 21, p. 149). . . . Many have chosen the option of locking several of the spiritual gifts into the first century, lest some explanation be required for their presence in the church today. I would prefer to allow the Holy Spirit the broadest latitude to produce in Christ’s body any gift in any age as He sees fit. It seems quite safe to say the office of apostles was restricted to the establishing of the New Testament church. But if Lange is right in stretching the term through missionary history, we may be justified in seeing evidence of “apostleship” not only as a gift, but as a gift which has operated throughout all the years of church history. ~ Kenneth O. Gangel. Unwrap Your Spiritual Gifts. Wheaton: Victor Books, 1983. pp. 25-27. Though Paul is not wont to make much of kindred . . . yet as the relationship which Junia and Andronicus bore to him, might avail somewhat to make them more fully known, he neglected not this commendation. . . . In the third place, he calls them Apostles : he uses not this word in its proper and common meaning, but extends it wider, even to all those who not only teach in one Church, but also spend their labor in promulgating the gospel everywhere. He then, in a general way, calls those in this place Apostles, who planted Churches by carrying here and there the doctrine of salvation . . . ~ John Calvin. “Romans,” Cavin’s Commentaries , Vol. XIX. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981. p. 546.

Andronicus and Junias are . . . of note among the apostles , i.e. outstanding apostles themselves in the wider sense of mission-preachers.

~ F. Davidson and Ralph P. Martin. “Romans,” The New Bible Commentary , Rev. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970. p. 1046.