I had a major browser crash, losing hours of work the devil did not want posted, and the 5 replies are from backup data which may not be complete or may contain parts from another post and odd (’) formatting. Plus the preview function is not working nor can i tell if the posts are being posted, while CF complains about too many characters so some will not post, and so i will try to split some into two parts.
I am not going to repeat hours of work with my stiff fingers here or spend even more time with this now. Sorry for the mess and for missing anything. CF apparently does not save drafts past restarts.
Acts 1:21-22 are the qualifications to be counted among the 12 whose names will be on the twelves foundations (Rev 21:14), not a limitation to be an apostle. Paul does not meet these qualifications, but Scripture is quite clear that he is an apostle (Acts 14:14, Romans 1:1, 11:13).
1 Cor 9:1 – Paul did not witness the resurrection but he did have an \nencounter with the risen Lord after His ascension. But he does not \nmeet the criteria outlined in Acts 1:21-22 because to be counted among \nthe twelve not only was it necessary to be a witness to the resurrection, it was also necessary to be “ one of the men who have \naccompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out \namong us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was \ntaken up from us†and Paul does not meet this criteria. .
Your latest response is a series of error after error, as will be shown, by the grace of God. Paul certainly did meet the qualification of an apostles, which that of personal discipleship by the risen Christ, seeing the resurrected Lord in person, which Paul also had and did, if privately, yet whose actual rising from the dead none of them actually saw, but all had encounters with the risen Lord after His ascension, as did Paul.
Gal 1:12 “12 For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.â€.
Which testifies to Paul's personal discipleship/teaching by the Lord.
This is why Paul tells Timothy in 2 Tim 3:14 -- “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned itâ€. Timothy knew he had been taught by a true apostle which is why he can be assured he is passing on authentic apostolic teaching to others, which he is instructed to do (2 Tim 2:2).
The claim of the Lord to be the Messiah, and thus apostle's veracity was based upon the Lord being the fulfillment of Scripture and its promises of what the Messiah would be and do, which the Lord schooled the apostles and other disciples in, and enabled them to preach, (Luke 24:44,45) and which is what the apostles and NT church did preach, as Apollos: [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.\" (Acts 18:28; cf. Acts 9:22) [/COLOR]
Is was upon this Scriptural that the claim to be an apostle had weight, and who, and the writers of the NT, appealed to Scripture as the supreme established authoritative word of God, and which their complementary preaching could not truly be contrary to. Thus in ruling on the case of Gentile conversions and responsibilities, he invoked Scripture as foretelling this expansion, while the restrictions on them were also right from Scripture.
And thus the Lord calls the Truth-seeking Bereans \"noble\" who subjected the \nveracity of the oral preaching of the apostles to Scripture, not vice \nversa, and not on the premise of ensured infallibility of office, as per\n Catholicism.
Therefore pastor Timothy \"knowing from whom you learned it†refers to the manner of man Paul was, one who, as with His Lord, [COLOR=\"#000066\"] \"as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,\" (Acts 17:2)[/COLOR] as well as manifesting Scriptural supernatural attestation.
That you do not see the kind of men described in 2 Cor 6 testifies more to the reality that you receive your news of such men from secular news sources than a true knowledge of them.
Please! Are you serious? If you think today's leaders, much less your pope and those of Rome, are like those in 2 Cor 6, in all things approving themselves as the ministers of God, in purity, power and probity, then you are fantasizing, and not even reading news from secular news sources, which would be telling of and targeting such.
Paul also doesn’t describe Peter with such kind words in Galatians 2:11-14.
For fear, and thus being a respecter of persons, as a exception to the apostolic and Peter's norm, and is the only apostle to be publicly rebuked.
Yes they may have human failings. That doesn’t prevent God from working through them because it is the Holy Spirit that guarantees their work, not their own personhood, just as the Holy Spirit enabled fallible and sinful men to pen Sacred Scripture.
It was holy men who penned Scripture, (2 Peter 1:21) if not sinless, and while God can use even wicked men, there is a correlation btwn character and how much God can use a person, (2 Peter 1:20, 21), and the apostles were not merely some Caiaphas-types, but supremely manifest men of God, as Moses was, whom as group we do not see today.
But I can assure you that the great majority of our Catholic bishops and priests go about quietly and faithfully serving the people of God and that isn’t altered by the fact that a few stinkers make the news.
We are not talking about stinkers, but leadership that can say of themselves what 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 says. In addition, in the NT church there was no ordained separate sacerdotal class of believers
for whom the distinctive word for this sacerdotal class was used. Nor did presbuteros and episkopos refer to two different offices.
The only verse really worthy of consideration you provide is 2 Cor 12:12 “the signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty worksâ€. That passage does indeed pose a question, and if it stood alone could be significant. But it doesn’t stand alone. When we get to Paul’s letters to Timothy where he outlines all the authority that has been entrusted to Paul will now be Timothy’s by virtue of the laying on of hands (governing the church, maintaining purity of the doctrine he has received, preaching, teaching, passing his authority to others), he never once mentions he is to perform signs as proof of his apostleship. Yet he charges him to maintain the truth of the Gospel and to pass that truth on to others who will succeed him (1 Tim 1:3-7, 1:18-19, 4:1, 4:11-16, 5:7, 5:20-22, 6:2-4, 6:11, 6:17, 6:20-21, 2 Tim 1:6-7, 1:13-14, 2:2-7, 2:14-15, 3:10-17, 4:1-5).
As your premise is specious, so is your definite conclusion. Nowhere does Scripture say Timothy is being ordained as an apostle, which reading into Scripture that which at best you may see as an inference, supposing that [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery,\" (1 Timothy 4:14) [/COLOR]which included Paul, (2 Timothy 1:6) somehow means Timothy was ordained an apostle, but which is presumption, and also wrongly presumes that the Holy Spirit would not state this important status.
But whatever gift was conveyed to Timothy was something he needed to \"stir up,\" (2 Timothy 1:6) and \"keep\" (2 Timothy 1:14) and while Paul refers to himself as an apostle, he nowhere refers to Timothy as one, but instructs him as a pastor, one for whom prophecies were made, (1 Timothy 1:18) and told that [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.\" [/COLOR](1 Timothy 3:1) and who as regards a gift besides that office is to [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.\"[/COLOR] (2 Timothy 4:5)
Thus what is clear is that Timothy is ordained as a pastor, albeit a lead pastor who would ordain others, as Titus also was to do, (Titus 1:5-7) though there is no distinction in titles.
In addition, you simply cannot invoke the teaching on the pastoral duties and character given to Timothy, who is never called an apostle, as interpretive of the clear statement on the credentials of apostles, including [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.\" (2 Corinthians 12:12)[/COLOR] The apostles were in a class by themselves as regards an office, and had distinct qualifications that disqualify men who fail of these from claiming they are apostles.
We also know that Christ is not really impressed with those who were constantly seeking after signs (Matt 12:38), and that those who believe without them are even more blessed (John 20:29). Given that Paul indicates these signs in reality were necessary for the Jews, not the Gentiles (1 Cor 1:22) and since they refuse to hear the Gospel is it then delivered to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46, 28:28) it seems the Church receives the opportunity to take leave of that generation which demanded signs to believe to become even more blessed and to actually grow more deeply in faith as it turns its focus to the Gentile world. To truly “walk by faith and not by sight†(2 Cor 5:7).
Which is overall a load of sophistry. From the top, if the Lord was disparaging the use of supernatural attestation in Matthew12:38,39 then He would be inconsistent with Himself in working thereby and calling souls to faith in the light of them, (John 14:10,11) and stating that \"the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me,\" (John 5:36) and doing the same with his disciples, (Mark 16:20) of whom He said would do greater works, (John 14:12) which were a special mark of the office of apostles.
While souls should believe based upon the wisdom and holiness of men of God, yet instead of generally disparaging any use of supernatural attestation in Matthew 12:38.39 provided in God's condescending grace to man, Christ is responding to [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees,\"[/COLOR] who were not sincere, \"And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven,\" (Luke 11:16) and who were already given signs whereby they should have believed, and therefore this [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"evil and adulterous generation\" [/COLOR]who were basically as mere ambulance chasers, the sign that would be given to such was the sign of the prophet Jonas, (Matthew 12:39) condemning them as being impenitent despite the greater grace given them, in contrast to the men of Nineveh.
Thus the gracious signs which the Lord did which provided warrant for humble contrite seekers to believe, were to the judgment of those who remained impenitent. [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not.\" (Matthew 11:20)[/COLOR]
In addition, while in general, [COLOR=\"#000066\"]\"the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom,\" (1 Corinthians 1:22)[/COLOR] the appeal to the Jews was largely on the basis of appeal to Scripture as to Christ being the promises Messiah, though this included the supernatural, while to those ignorant of Scripture then it was the power of God in Scriptural supernatural attestation,[COLOR=\"#000066\"] For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. (Romans 15:18-19)[/COLOR]
Thus, rather than supernatural attestation becoming less prevalent as Paul turned to the Gentiles, it continued.
- [COLOR=\"#000066\"]Acts 14:3 – “Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.â€[/COLOR]
- [COLOR=\"#000066\"]Acts 16:16-18 – Spirit of Divination cast out: 18 “And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.â€[/COLOR]
- [COLOR=\"#000066\"]Acts 19:11 – “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:â€[/COLOR]
- [COLOR=\"#000066\"]Acts 28:8,9 “And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him. So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed:â€[/COLOR]