Ecclesiology 101 Part 4

We are in our second topic when it comes to understanding what is a Biblical church. At first, we looked at who makes up the church and last week we began our look into who is the authority inside the church. While Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority for the church, there are also individuals who have been placed in authority by God. Before we get into who has authority in churches today, it is important to understand the foundation that they would be building upon.

As I have already mentioned, Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority for born-again believers and those inside the church. If a church declares anything other than this, they are not a Biblical church. Apart from this, in the early church God placed two groups of people to play a unique foundational role. These are the apostles and the prophets. Paul points out in Ephesians that Jesus is the cornerstone of the church, the point that everything else is built around; while the apostles and prophets are the foundation for the church. “19 So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone,” Ephesians 2:19-20. Meaning that Christ is the head of the church, and the apostles and prophets are the foundation that churches today are built on.

Let’s break these two groups down further to understand their importance inside the church today. To be an apostle means to be someone who is sent, like an ambassador, representative, or messenger. They have the authority of the individual who sent them, in this case the authority of God. We see from scripture that there are three characteristics that identify an apostle. One, they were chosen by Jesus (Mark 3:14; Luke 6:13; Acts 1:2, 24; Gal. 1:1). We see in scripture that Jesus Christ personally selected the men who would be His apostles, including Matthias who replaced Judas (Acts 1:26) and Paul. Two, they were able to perform the signs of an apostle (2 Cor. 12:12; Acts 1:5-8; Heb. 2:3-4) Three, they were witnesses of the resurrected Christ (Acts 1:21-25; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:7-8). This final point is a key one when examining churches today. There are those who claim to be an apostle now but as seen from Scripture they cannot be.

An apostle’s role was a unique one. From Scripture we see that Christ promised to reveal His truth through the Holy Spirit even after He was no longer with them (John 14:26; 15:26-27; 16:12-15). As mentioned before, the apostles created a foundation for the Church Age, their teaching was inspired by the Holy Spirit and so was given the same authority as the Old Testament (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 14:37; 1 Thessalonians 2:13)

Next week we will look at the other half of this foundation for the church, their teaching was prophets.

Seek the truth and encourage one another,

Alex