5 Smooth Stones

Chapter Twelve

THE SEAL OF APOSTLESHIP—PLANTING CHURCHES?

T here is a lot of interest and discussion being brought up on the current apostolic movement. It appears to be a healthy and needed, part of being wise and learning during the transitional stages which the Church is now going through. Certainly we are all interested in watching for false ministries in order to avoid problems and the associated hurt to people. What may be most needed currently is a clear understanding of what a true apostle is so that we can have a plumb-line to measure any who are being titled as apostles and all who are called to function as apostles. The best thing that we can do to be discerning of the false apostolic movement would be to have a clear familiarity with the true apostolic. When federal agents are being trained to look for counterfeit bills, most of their training is spent in learning what the genuine money looks like. We can agree that scripture is and ought to be our standard for measuring what an apostle is and does. While a twenty fi rst century apostle will not be functioning in the same fashion as a fi rst century apostle did, they will still be working to meet the same goal; they will be striving toward the end goal of laboring until Christ is formed in the Church. How that is accomplished in this time and season will require the apostolic ministers of today to manifest Christ to the Church through their lives and acts until the Church is mature in Him. One issue which is continually promoted as proof of apostleship is that of “church planting.” Often the evidence presented for this belief is 1 Corinthians 9:1- 2 as the proof text, “Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” The seal of apostleship to which Paul is referring is that of establishing churches, which is signi fi cantly di ff erent than planting churches. Understanding what the seal of true apostleship is will be a key issue, and the belief that church planting is the seal is not strongly

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