Apostles

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

The Bible is what it is, epistles and all.

Also worth mentioning is that, though the Bible continues past the gospels and into the Acts and epistles of Paul et al, it keeps going further. After the pastoral epistles is Revelation: opening with "writings to the seven churches" (Rev 1:4,11) which are, by and large, neither salutatory nor sanguine.

(And the LSM footnote that all the local churches need to be "absolutely identical", with the problems in Rev 2 & 3 arising from "differences" is a joke. If God wanted absolute identicality He would have built an assembly line of robots. Instead, God planted a farm [1 Cor 3]).

Jesus didn't use elders or apostles in Revelation 1. His right hand contained seven stars, seven messengers. Each star was capable of delivering Jesus' words to the assembly of believers in that city/region (Rev 1:20).

So yes, Paul does talk about the church having apostles. But don't fall into the trap of finding a verse which aligns with your comfort zone and settling down there. Keep going. Keep pressing on, into the land of crumbling concepts. The Shepherd and the Comforter will meet you there, and will guide you home to the Father.