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Originally Posted by Igzy
Because the primary job of the early apostles was to establish the faith.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
Great, now we are getting somewhere. What are the verse references?
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Matt 28:16-20 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee . . . . Then Jesus came to them and said, “. . . . go and make disciples . . . baptizing . . . and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Acts 6:2-4 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” (BTW, very off-topic, but did anyone notice that there was a "Nicolas" among the seven chosen. Just doubting that he was named "bully.")
Acts 13:2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
I do not find specific verses (at least not quickly) where it says "the apostles are supposed to establish the faith" but it seems that these, and probably a lot more, pretty well set them as the source of the teachings that were recorded in the scripture. It was the 11 — not every follower at the time — that got the word to go and disciple in Matthew. It was their teaching that was the thing further contemplated in Acts 2. Deacons were sought to fulfill some of the service roles so that the 12 could be devoted to prayer and ministry of the word. And Paul was set apart for a work that God called him to.
When I consider scripture, I see the gospels that provide the core. And the Acts that give us a historical perspective of the spread. Then the various epistles that comment on the practice of the gospel — the living-out of the gospel.
I note that we so often look to Paul for our doctrine. But the core of our doctrine should come from Christ. Paul commented. He observed the ways that the church, and especially the Gentile churches that did not have an OT background, could miss the righteousness required by the gospel. Fighting among each other due to social status, or which teacher they liked best. And a lot of other things. From what I can tell, Paul didn't teach such new things, but instead came back through his letters to correct wanderings from the correct following (disciples) and obeying.
We seem to think that Paul wrote Galatians to tell us to be crucified with Christ. But he actually told us that we have been. And that since we have, we should not be doing the things he is hearing about. Seems the solution was not to get more crucified, but to obey. Sound familiar?
Well it should. Jesus taught a lot. It is recorded in the gospels. We are to become followers of that. And obey it. And when Paul said for others to take his life as a pattern, he wasn't talking about being spiritual, "being crucified," or any of the imagery that he used to spur them on, but about the things that he was spurring them on in — obedience.
And now it is written down for our benefit. Though at times it seems that maybe we could actually need an apostle to come tell us that we have been too focused on the imagery of Paul and less on the command to follow and obey given by Jesus and repeated over and over by Paul, Peter, John, and even James, Jude, and whoever actually wrote Hebrews.
Now for those who have truly been living under a rock, or in a remote rain forest, and have never even heard of Christ or the Bible, they need someone sent to them. And it may take more than a lot of words, even words dictated by the true God, to convince them. They may need to see something that demonstrates that it is more than good words from mortal men. It may take a miracle. And I believe that on occasion that happens today. But not very often in what we call the civilized world. But the seeming reduction or near disappearance of miracles and signs does not say anything about God, but about the need for signs and miracles. Their time may not be over, but it could be close to true. Same for apostles of the kind that we read of in the NT. I can't find evidence that they simply are no more. But I don't really see them either.
We don't know when, but there are things that will pass away. We can presume that it is upon the return of Christ. But that is not stated. Just presumed. Observe the history. Miracles led the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the good land. And there were miracles surrounding the winning of several battles. But then the miracles began to be limited to the fact that the words of the prophets came true. And then even prophetic silence. Yet during that silence, in some ways Israel was in better shape than ever. They had finally gotten the idolatry out of their midst. That was the one thing that God seemed to care about the most.
Now the NT. The church. It gets established. The core teachings of the faith are given and recorded. And we continue on from that. Just like Israel, we have some different camps. But we are still following. There were the Sadducees and Pharisees (not looking at their leadership issues, but at them as representatives of major schools of thought). There were the two major rabbis teaching about many things. (And Jesus took sides on the issue of divorce.) Looks like Christianity. Lee would fault it all because there was not just one rabbi (him) and everyone in the same school of thought. But Jesus really didn't say as much about that as the hypocrisy in many of their teachings.