The Offices of Apostle and Prophet

The New Testament offices of Apostle and Prophet are not the same, they are distinct.

I am a Continuationist, the Spiritual Gifts are for today, one of those is Prophecy.

An Apostle is something more specific.  Chris White has a good video on Apostolic Succession directed at Catholic Doctrine.

Thing is other versions of that doctrine have been utilized by non Catholic denominations.  I already did a post once on the Baptist version of it some Baptists believe.

This post is partly about a problem I've noticed of some Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian Leaders calling themselves Apostle.  Paul defined himself as the Last Apostle (1 Corinthians 15:8-9), and made clear you had to be an eye witness to the Resurrection to be an Apostle in the verses leading up to that.  Acts 1 agrees that being an eye witness was a requirement for being an Apostle.

Critics of Continuationism sometimes assert that the Canon isn't closed if there is still Prophecy, and some Contuionationists seem to effectively teach that.  But prophecy has to be tested against Scripture, and I believe only Apostles could add to Scripture.  In order for something to be Scripture it had to be written by an Apostle or approved by one.

I've seen some Ceasationists use Apostle and Prophet as if they are the same.  But The New Testament clearly treats them as distinct.  There are some passages where you can cite that verse alone and say maybe they're being used as synonyms there.  And in a sense I think every Apostle was a Prophet.   But verses like 1 Corinthians 12:28 clearly define them as distinct.

I can't currently think of a Hebrew word that might equate to what Apostle means in the New Testament.  But in concept I can point to Numbers 12 which distinguishes between the authority of Moses and that of other Prophets.  Jesus was the Prophet like Moses and He gave His Mosaic authority to the Apostles.

Some of the people who want to reject Paul act like Paul's claim to Apostolic status makes him a 13th Apostle, or in some way the only one additional to the 12.  But that's clearly not what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, placing James the Half-Brother of Jesus and many others between the 12 and himself as the last.  Acts 14:14 says Paul and Barnabas were both Apostles.  In Romans 16 Paul identifies as an Apostle a woman seemingly not named anywhere else in Scripture named Junia (though there's a theory she's the same woman as Joanna in Luke's Gospel).

Peter calls Paul's writings Scripture at the end of 2 Peter.  People try to argue around this fact, but it's undeniable.

I bring this up because the Anti-Paul people often desire to limit the title of Apostle only to the 12 (with Matthias taking Judas's spot).  Yet they try to get around the full implication that that would remove canonical status from at least 2 of the Gospels.  And that they may have to throw out James and Jude too if you believe the tradition that they were written by Half-Brothers of Jesus not the James son of Alpheius and Jude "Not Iscariot" of the 12.  And they frequently use James in their attacks on Paul.

Ironically for all this James vs Paul theorizing nonsense, it is only Paul who tells us James the Brother of Jesus qualified as an Apostle. Without him, we'd have no direct Biblical basis for believing that James ever became a Believer at all.  The James of the Acts 15 council I believe was the surviving James of the 12, not Jesus' brother.