[Editor’s Note: This is Part Three of a Four Part Series addressing the nature of Apostolic Christianity. You can read the previous posts here and here.]
One of the key misunderstandings I think most people will have with the term “apostolic Christianity” is that their mind will immediately jump to those people who consider themselves apostles. Now, I not only believe this gift operates in the body of Christ, I have a high value for people who are legitimate apostles. They are a necessary part of seeing apostolic Christianity lived out on the planet. But when I describe apostolic Christianity, instead of describing one segment of the body of Christ’s gifting, I’m actually describing something I believe God will allow the whole church to walk in.
At this point, if you’re following along closely, you’re probably ready to accuse me of forcing a specific gifting on the wider body of Christ. But my goal is not to make everyone in the church an apostle, but for us to embody the same spirit of surrender to Christ’s leading that the early church experienced. The bishops of the church in the third century expressed it this way: “We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”
You see, the whole church (that’s what that whole catholic thing means, universal) was meant to live together in a way that was handed down from the apostles themselves. Why the apostles? They were the ones Jesus himself charged with taking the Gospel all over the Earth. They were believed to have the most accurate testimony of His life and the most capable of understanding His Kingdom. And these guys gave their lives for the message of the Kingdom in the same way that Jesus had. They were good examples to follow.
So what does it mean for the whole church (not just those gifted as apostles) to embrace the lifestyle of apostolic Christianity? I’m so glad you asked! Let me give you a couple of high-level benchmarks of apostolic Christianity, fleshed out in the life of the church:
- Jesus is Lord: This could easily be described as the Church’s earliest doctrinal statement, but it is so much more than a mere doctrine. For those who are living out apostolic Christianity, this is a way of life. This starts at a very personalized, individual level. We all have to come to value Jesus as the pearl of great price, worth losing our lives over. This reality changes everything about us and we begin to live a new life, the life of Jesus. The realities of the Sermon on the Mount become the code of ethic for the individual. As we come to this recognition individually, it changes how we relate to one another. Jesus becomes what brings us together and we as a family respond to His leadership. (Romans 10:9)
- The Power of the Lord is Manifested: The constant dependence on Jesus showing up and healing, leading through dreams and visions, and casting out of demons was the norm for the early church, beyond the completion of the New Testament. It’s also a common sign whenever the true apostolic church begins to emerge through various renewal movements. More and more churches are shifting and becoming more open to the power of the Holy Spirit, but more so in theory than in actual practice. They believe Jesus does miraculous things today through people, but they don’t seek to move in the spiritual gifts. Paul strongly encouraged believers to seek these gifts out, especially prophesy, because he knew it was essential to living out the lordship of Jesus. The church that is living out apostolic Christianity not only seeks the miraculous power of Jesus, but sees it happen in its midst. (1 Corinthians 14)
- The Harvest is Plentiful: Jesus clearly intended us to believe there was an abundant harvest waiting for the church. He taught that the harvest was so abundant that it’s only limiting factor was the number of workers. Paul actually believed Jesus in this regard and was constantly moving from one place to the next, training up workers who would train other workers. Wherever we see apostolic Christianity emerging, we see the church focused on reaching this plentiful harvest. It causes the church to move out of buildings (and even homes!) into the streets. The Gospel begins to touch people who have never heard it or those who have been apathetic to it in the past. When the church embraces this apostolic lifestyle, the whole church engages with Christ’s mission to reach a vast harvest field and how they spend their time and energy reflect these commitments. (Matthew 9:37-38)
- The Oppression is Real: Jesus was clear, if they hate me, they are going to hate you. Wherever the church is truly operating as an apostolic reality following the ways of Jesus, it will be persecuted. The level of persecution will vary from culture to culture, from threat of physical death like we see in China and Middle Eastern nations to mild ridicule like we’ve seen in more open Western countries. Society doesn’t like change, no matter how much they use it as a slogan. Living out “Jesus as lord” threatens the grip of governors and makes us people who “turn the whole world upside down.” This will cause everyone from governments to social groups to feel threatened and persecute us in some way. But this will cause ample opportunity for the Gospel to go forth. In places like the first century church and China, it has amplified the church’s message, not drowned it out. This will only increase as the return of the Lord draws nearer. (Acts 17:2-8, 1 Peter 4:12-14)
- The Church is simple: Because the harvest is great, because the workers are few, because oppression is real, and because Jesus is Lord, the church typically becomes simpler and less programed. Regardless of what you believe about church structure, you are hard-pressed to find highly organized structures in the book of Acts. Simpler churches allowed the early church to start churches wherever the harvest was being gathered. I’ll say more on this in my next post “Why House Churches are Apostolic.” But for now, let me just mention that when Paul spoke of the church, he spoke of a church that was relational, connected, met primarily in homes, enabled every believer present to function in their gifts, and was able to effectively care for one another. In my view, this required simpler, more reproducible forms of organizing themselves. (Ephesians 4:11-16, Romans 16:1-16, 1 Corinthians 14)
- The Return of the Lord is Clear: Followers of Jesus function best when they believe that Jesus is coming back soon. Now, we’ve all met the guy that lives in a bunker and is storing food and guns away to resist the Anti-Christ. But this is not the kind of end-time view I’m advocating. The church that Jesus started believed He was coming back quickly. It didn’t cause them to hoard stuff, it caused them to give themselves to spreading the gospel to the darkest places on the planet. When we believe that Jesus is returning and that return will have real and irreversible consequences for the planet, we live differently. We actually begin to live in the way Jesus intended: with urgency. (Acts 1:6-11, Revelation 22:12)
Friends, if these things are true, they have tremendous implications for what we’re doing now. Business as usual has to change if we want to embrace the kind of life described here. If you are already doing this, awesome! Pray for us and pray that we all can go deeper in the grace you’re touching. If this isn’t you, then let’s together contend for God to release this type of Christianity in the Earth. I believe He will and it will change everything.
Touching the Bones of the Apostolic Church
Christianity in the Earth is at a crossroads. Some want us to be more conservative. Others want us to surf the winds of change that are sweeping the Earth. But I believe that Jesus is calling us to embrace apostolic Christianity, which is to say, embrace a kind of Christianity that would be recognizable by the apostles that Jesus left to serve the church.
In my last post, I tried to give some definition to what I mean when I speak of this apostolic Christianity. I had a number of people ask me to flesh out what this looks like. One thing I realized though, was that it’s a very Western thing to want a definition, but it’s an apostolic thing to point to examples. Jesus and Paul were constantly telling stories and pointing to people who embodied what they were teaching. There is profit in looking at examples.
Prophet Elisha
Here’s why: Elisha was a prophet and the successor to the great prophet Elijah. Elisha asked for a double-portion of the anointing that rested on Elijah, and when Elisha died, he had performed 13 miracles. But he died not performing twice the miracles of Elijah. However, 2 Kings 13 tells us this story: “So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. And as a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.” (2 Kings 13:20, 21 ESV) Now Elisha had his 14th miracle, but more importantly, a dead man came back to life.
What does the story of Elisha tell us? Sometimes when we touch the “bones” of something that is dead and gone, there is something of life that can be communicated to us. God has raised up different movements within Christianity over the past 2000 years that have embodied different aspects of true apostolic Christianity. Even though those movements are dead and gone every time we go back and “touch the bones” of one of these movements, we get a picture of the apostolic church. We see apostolic Christianity lived out in them and it causes us to want to see it again in our day.
So, when I read about the apostolic fathers and the churches of their day and how they lived as a marginalized people who welcomed the poor, healed the sick, cared for abandoned babies and moved in the power of the Spirit, I touch the bones of the apostolic church and I gain faith for God to do that again in our generation.
You can go and read the story of Patrick of Ireland and his almost instinctive ability to reach a totally pagan people and train them up as church planters that would carry the Gospel back into Europe. When I do, I touch the bones of the apostolic church and gain faith for totally pagan men and women to become missionaries and plant thousands of churches.
Or when I read about the First and Second Great Awakenings and the proclamation of the Gospel that was accompanied with signs and wonders, I touch the bones of the apostolic Church. The stories of men and women like George Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and William and Catherine Booth keep reminding me that God can take broken men and women use them to change the course of nations. As I hear these stories, I gain faith for the Gospel to pierce hearts and change men (and nations) in the same way it did with them.
Or when I read about the early Pentecostal movement and how the Holy Spirit moved among a people who abandoned themselves to seeking God and carrying the Gospel to the end of the Earth, I touch the bones of the apostolic church. When I do, I open my heart for a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I ask Jesus to give me more than tongues or a “word from God” and become jealous for God to unleash a new move of the Holy Spirit in our day.
I touch the bones of the apostolic church when I hear stories about the underground house church movement of China. Here are believers who are giving themselves radically for Jesus and multiplying simple communities of Jesus followers. This stirs my heart for a whole church captured by God’s apostolic purposes and I begin to ask God, “Why can’t this happen here?”
It’s not like the apostolic church has completely disappeared throughout history. Whenever and wherever a group of men and women submit themselves to Jesus and fully living out what they find in the Bible, apostolic Christianity begins to emerge. And we gain insight into what it looks like when we look back at history and discover that God has been breathing fresh life into his church throughout the centuries. Apostolic Christianity looks like the best elements of all of these testimonies that I’ve highlighted, fleshed out in real life.
Now certain aspects of apostolic Christianity emerge in different movements throughout history. The church that was marginalized and moving in the power of the Spirit during the days of the apostolic fathers looks different than the Gospel preaching that turned a generation during Wesley and Whitefield’s day. The early Pentecostal movement undoubtedly looked different than the underground church movement of China. Each movement had one or more manifestations of the apostolic church, but not the whole picture.
But before the end of the age, I’m believing Jesus for a full manifestation of apostolic Christianity in the Earth. One that combines the marginalized people of God moving in the power of the Spirit, proclaiming the Gospel and mobilizing witnesses that plant numerous churches that are simple and reproducible. I call it apostolic Christianity and I’m excited for the day when it emerges on the planet.
Apostolic Christianity
The church in the West is at a crossroads. Beset on every side by dangers from the outside (political and social pressure) and dangers on the inside (immorality, legalism, heresy, etc.), it’s become increasingly clear that we cannot remain where we are and be faithful to Jesus, let alone be effective. If you’re the person arguing that the church in the West needs to stay the same, you are in a small minority.
But how do we change? And what kind of change are we looking for? The discussion typically focuses on two alternatives: A return to more conservative, evangelical Christianity typified by Billy Graham (but possibly with a more Charismatic element) or a move to liberal Christianity typified by Rob Bell or Jim Wallis that is often more acceptable to society as a whole. Frank Viola and others have argued that there is a third way, focused solely on the person of Jesus that leaves the left and right debate behind.
And while I think there is a trap in some of the left vs. right thinking, I would like to argue that there is actually another way available to us. Instead of going left, right, or beyond, we have the option of going back. Going back, you ask? Go back to what? The answer is to go back to the original design Jesus has for His church. The design is not complicated, it is not hidden, but it is often neglected. When we return to Christ and His original design for His church, powerful things begin to happen, both in our lives and the lives of those around us.
The good news is this design isn’t lost to history or buried in some Roman catacomb beneath a thousand years worth of rubble- It’s found on the pages of a book in nearly everyone’s home and latent within the hearts of those who believe in Jesus. The answer God has for us is to go back to the movement Jesus started when He was raised from dead. This design for God’s church is what I call “apostolic Christianity.” Apostolic Christianity is Christianity lived out on the earth in the same spirit as the first century church.
This is the goal- to live out a kind of Christianity the apostles Peter and Paul would recognize where they to meet us. We can never completely return to the first century, but we can be captured by the same Spirit that captured the first followers of Jesus. The culture of our churches should reflect the same vision and values that the church in the book of Acts held.
You should note that apostolic Christianity is not about a person or even a spiritual gift. It’s about a people radically set apart as belonging to God, living sent lives under the power of the Holy Spirit. The goal of apostolic Christianity is to become a church “attain[ing] to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). It’s the church becoming a bride who has “made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7) and presented to Christ “without spot or wrinkle” (Ephesians 5:27). It’s this type of Christianity that Jude references when he says to his readers “I found it necessary to…appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 