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Originally Posted by OBW
You are welcome.
I was not compaining in any way. I was giving this subject the separate discussion it deserves. We'll see how far gets.
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Well, there ain't a whole lot of denominations out there with active working concepts of "apostleship," which does make this something of a particular LC thing. And if we're going to debunk "deputy authority" it probably behooves us to study what the Bible actually says about what is presumably the "highest ranking" of the "deputy authority" which, as I believe is taught, is the "office" of "apostle."
Digging into Kittel has already led me to realize at least a couple of errors Lee made along these lines. I'm also fellowshipping these points elsewhere with a couple of other brothers and I intend to bring forward whatever light the study yields.
One of the most interesting points so far is that the word \apostolos\ is basically a New Testament coinage. Almost entirely unheard of in the classical world in the New Testament sense. So to know what it means, you absolutely must study it's use in the New Testament. (There is an interesting usage where it seems like it might refer to "letters of authority" but I need to look into that further; seeing as how we are "letters of Christ" it might be relevant.)
Another point is that in the usage in the Gospels, the "authority" the apostles bore was over demons and disease. You couldn't find there where they had "authority" over anything or anyone else if you only had the Gospels to define the term. And the term in the Gospels means "special disciple" more than anything else. The terms "disciple" and "apostle" are used almost completely interchangably at some points.
Also, there is rare NT usage of \apostolos\ outside of Luke's gospel, Acts, and Paul's epistles. Once in Matthew. Once in John. Once, maybe twice, in Mark. Which basically means you've got two perspectives on what that word meant back in that day. I believe Acts may eventually yield the most light.