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

Next we see the Church in Antioch. This Church also was not planted by apostles. It was planted by ordinary believers. Acts 11:19 - 22 states, “ Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Then news of these things came to the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch .” The Antioch Church was also within the pattern that we are seeing. The Church was planted, the apostles took note and showed a concern for the work which was planted. In this case a prophet was sent from Jerusalem under the authority of the apostles. His name was Barnabas. After assessing the needs in the Antioch Church he in turn went to Tarsus for Paul, who was at this time functioning primarily as a teacher. In the Antioch Church the apostles had no direct involvement in the planting, and only indirectly at first with the establishing of the Church. The Church, in fact, under instructions of the Holy Spirit, commissioned Barnabas and Paul as apostles and sent them out from the Church. Now it is clear in scripture that the apostle Paul did go on to both plant and establish numerous Churches. But was the planting of Churches an apostolic sign for Paul, but not for Philip and others? One scripture which seems to give credence to the "apostles plant Churches" doctrine is 1 Corinthians 3:6, “ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase .” This has to be speaking in a general sense as with the Church in Ephesus, Apollos planted it and Paul established it, and it is the Holy Spirit who worked in all to accomplish the will of the Father. In this situation the apostle Paul was writing to the Church in Corinth which he did plant along with others. But he also continued the relationship to see that they were established in Christ. The Church in Ephesus is considered by nearly every Bible and history scholar as Paul's greatest achievement. Yet had he written the same line to the Church in Ephesus it would have to read " Apollos planted, I watered, but God gave the increase. " It was Apollos, not Paul, who planted the

1