FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

The seal of apostleship to which Paul is referring is that of establishing Churches, which is significantly different 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 scriptural. Scripture should, of course, be our basis of understanding true apostleship. Consider that the seal of apostleship is not planting a Church, or Churches, at all, but that the seal of apostleship to which Paul is referring is that of establishing Churches, which is significantly different. This is an important distinction which we need to understand. Consider the terms as they are used biblically for clarification. Planting a Church is the actual sowing of the seed which may become a Church. Establishing a Church is the release of spiritual gifting to lay the foundation that the Church will be built upon, or will build upon. While the planting of a Church should only occur once in the life of a Church, establishing a Church will need to be done at each phase of its growth. It may safely be said that the first Church in the book of Acts, the Jerusalem Church, was planted by the Lord Jesus Himself. He ascended on high, and left his Church behind under the care of the apostles who were responsible to lead and care for that Church and the new believers that were added. It was entrusted to them by the Lord to raise up, equip and send out the saints in accordance with the Lord's personal instructions. This process is not simply a planting process, but an establishing process. The Apostle Paul functioned as both a planter and an establisher of Churches, but other referenced apostles in the scriptures did not. What is the answer here? The second Church which was planted was the Church in Samaria. It is very clear in Acts 8 that " Philip went down to Samaria ." Philip was not an apostle at all, but was an evangelist. And he evangelized the city, bringing the good news, casting out demons, working miracles and baptizing in the name of Jesus. In short, Philip clearly planted the work in Samaria. The apostles were brought in to minister the Holy Spirit, and take care of other issues and Philip went on to other things. Very evidently from the scripture Philip planted the Church and the apostles established the Church.

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