In a previous section I suggested that the concept of New Testament apostleship begins with Jesus’ sense of his own mission, with his sending of the Spirit, and His sending of the disciples, particularly the Twelve and the Seventy (or Seventy-Two). G.E. Ladd has shown that the Kingdom of God is a future reality as well as a past event. In the future it is ‘a mighty irruption into history inaugurating the perfect order of the age to come.’ [1] As regards the past, ‘God’s Kingdom, his reign, has already come into history in the person and mission of Jesus.’ [2] I would like to suggest that apostles can be seen as missionary pioneers of the Kingdom.
Various kinds of missionary pioneer
Apostles are entrusted with various tasks and this means that their apostleship is expressed in various ways - but in each case they are extending the Kingdom of God in a new way.
The Twelve
The Twelve are Kingdom pioneers in the sense that they were the first to be entrusted with the task of proclaiming the Kingdom. The Twelve are also primary in being entrusted with the task of bearing testimony to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in an authoritative way. In this sense, they lay the foundations of the church in all ages. Some - if not all - of the Twelve had a particular mission to Israel and this explains the fact that they were less mobile than Paul. [3]
Paul, missionary pioneer of the Kingdom
Paul is a Kingdom pioneer in his role as apostle to the Gentiles. [4] The missions of Son and Spirit were being expressed in a new way – much to the amazement of those in Jerusalem. [5] As a church planting pioneer, it is natural that Paul should have a paternal role (1 Corinthians 4:15). Similarly, it is natural that Paul should have an ongoing role of oversight because of his primary role in founding the churches. This is why Paul reminds the churches about his message and his way of life (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Corinthians 11:2). In reminding the churches of his own life and message, Paul is calling them back to the primary, foundational values he nurtured. As a pioneer, however, Paul cannot be content to exercise oversight of the churches and this is not his primary focus. Rather, the Apostle Paul’s ambition is ‘to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation’ (Romans 15:20). After Jesus, Paul is the fullest portrait of apostleship in the New Testament. As a founding father of churches, he had an intense concern for them (2 Corinthians 11:28). However, Paul saw the church, the community of the Kingdom, [6] within an eschatological context. Paul saw the church not just as it was but as it was destined to be. This vision included ‘all the Gentiles’ (Romans 1:5) and that is why, as a primary agent of the Kingdom, his emphasis was always on pioneering.
Other pioneers known to Paul
As regards the other apostles acknowledged by Paul, I think we can also see them as Kingdom pioneers. In the case of 2 Corinthians 8:23 and Philippians 2:25, I would like to follow Kirk in affirming that ‘apostles of the churches’ are no less apostolic. [7] Would we really want to affirm that church envoys had less to do with the missio dei because they are sent by the church? Rather, we need to acknowledge these envoys as sent by the Body of Christ with divine authority. Indeed, Paul exhorts the Philippians to honour such people as Epaphroditus, emphasising the cost of his ministry and the close link with his own (Philippians 2:29-30). As for the messengers of the church in 2 Corinthians 8, Paul says they are the ‘glory of Christ,’ pointing to their part in the divine plan. In both passages, Paul seems to take it for granted that these apostles’ ministry is in continuity with his own. This is not to say that the degree of apostleship is always the same. The 'apostles of the churches' were entrusted with unique tasks, and so can be considered missionary pioneers without implying that their deployment was as significant as Paul's. The fact that Andronicus and Junia were imprisoned with Paul suggests that theirs was no ‘behind-the-scenes’ ministry. Paul is clearly a senior apostle but this does not prevent him from describing others as apostles and clearly linking their ministry with his own. This is because the apostles were all involved in pioneer mission and no essential distinctions were necessary.
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