[UntoHim]

Of course apostles prophesy. They also teach and evangelize, but does one need to be an apostle to be a "teacher" or an "evangelist" or a "prophet"? I wouldn't think so. Let's not get too far off track here guys.

Again, I think we can agree that the original apostles were apostles because they were appointed directly by the Lord Jesus. We have the biblical record. We know what they taught. We know how conducted themselves. We also have a good record of what the 2nd generation of "apostles", teachers and scholars taught. There is a very good record of what was taught by the early "church fathers". I'm not saying that any one of these 2nd generation church leaders or church fathers were apostles per se, but we need to have some sort of baseline to work with. Then we need to take this baseline and try to transfer this as best we can to the realities that we face today.

The early apostles were not dealing with Christianity (or the world for that matter) as we know it today, so can we really expect modern "apostles" to function in the Body of Christ as the early apostles did? I wouldn't think so. Yes, I would expect that they should teach and preach the same things, and minister among the wider Body of Christ at large, but in this day and age could we expect that they would carry the same authority as the early apostles? I think this is a very important thing to discuss.