The Ongoing Role of Apostles in Missions: The Forgotten Foundation

By Don Dent

Numerous trends are presently converging in ways that make this moment in mission history significant. These include the growth of short-term service, the multiplication of mission organizations, local churches sending missionaries without an agency, and the internationalization of missions. It is crucial in the midst of such change that we not lose connection with the New Testament model of the missionary apostles. Apostles, now commonly called missionaries, are God's gift for the initial planting phase of the church among every people, to the end of the age. This unique church-planting role is the forgotten foundation of the church. Much of the ineffectiveness in missions is due to our attempts to build Christ's church on a different foundation.

This book will examine five critical questions from the perspective of biblical scholarship, history, and contemporary experience:

Why are missions-minded Evangelicals reluctant to identify missionaries as apostles, considering that the two words have the same root meaning?

How is apostolos used in the New Testament, and specifically, is it sometimes used as a designation for missionaries?

How should we conceptualize an ongoing role for missionary apostles that does not detract from the crucial, unique role of the original Apostles?

What ministry pattern does the New Testament record from the lives of the early missionary apostles?

How should an awareness of missionary apostles guide our mission efforts today?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973651864

Don Dent

Don Dent served as an international missionary for 30 years in Asia, including as a front-liner, field leader, and trainer. He served as mission program director and world mission professor at Gateway Seminary for 11 years after returning to the US. He now resides in Mississippi and continues to teach as Senior Professor of World Missions at Gateway Seminary. He is the author of The Ongoing Role of Apostles in Missions (2019).

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Copyright © 2019 Don Dent.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB),

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,

1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-5185-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-5184-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-5186-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019900821

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/14/2019

Contents

Introduction

Thesis Statement

Personal Background

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 Confusion Regarding the Use of the Word Apostle

Background of the Apostle Concept

Near Synonyms on Diverging Paths

Apostolos in Its Cultural Context

Disagreement Among Scholars Over Origins

The Task - Authority Continuum in Historical Usage

Task and Authority in the Apostles’ Commission

Early Church Missionaries as Apostles

The Slow Divorce of Task and Authority

Apostles in the Eyes of the Reformers

Contemporary Use of Apostle

The Evangelical Focus on Scriptural Authority

New Apostolic Reformation

Emerging and Missionary Church Advocates

Apostle as the Holy Cow of Western Theology

Chapter 2 The Use of Apostolos in the New Testament

The Broader Use of the Word Group in the New Testament

Examples of the Use of Apostellō

The Use of Apostolē

Exceptional Uses of Apostolos

Persons Identified as Apostles

The Twelve

Other Commissioned Eyewitnesses

Missionary Apostles

Apostles of the Churches

Paul’s Images of Apostles

Pseudo-apostles

Gift to the Church

Foundation Builders

Summary of Findings and Reflections

Conclusions From New Testament Evidence

Reflections

Summary Statement

Chapter 3 The Apostle Phase for Every People Group

The Apostle Phase Described

The Apostle Phase and Established Church Phase Compared

Signs – Suffering – Sacrifice – Struggle

Apostles in Modern Mission Literature

Apostles in the Modern Mission Movement

Connecting Missionaries to Apostles in Early FMB Publications

Missionaries as Apostles in Recent Sources

The Apostle Phase in Person

Missionary Apostles in Christian History

Current Examples of Apostles

Chapter 4 Paul’s Model Mission Methodology

Issues Related to Paul’s Strategy

Paul as Missionary Model

Jesus as Missionary Model

Foundations of Paul’s Strategy

Paul’s Team and Strategy

Elements of Paul’s Mission Methodology

A Herald Proclaiming the Gospel

A Teacher Making Disciples

An Apostle Planting Churches

Chapter 5 Missionary Apostles and Missions Today

Implications of This Study for Contemporary Issues

Missionary Identity

Church and Missions

Missionary Methodology

Leading Missions

The Ongoing Challenge to Maintain an Apostolic Focus

Appendix 1 Miracle Survey of Missionaries and Results

Appendix 2 The Commission

Appendix 3 Ronald Hill’s Paper on Missionary Apostles

Appendix 4 Don Kammerdeiner’s Paper Who is a Missionary?

Selected Bibliography

For Anne - my love and partner, who has shared the troubles and triumphs of this calling for 40 years. I can never fully express my thankfulness to God for every day with you.

Kingdom advancement suffers for lack of understanding. Much confusion exists as to the definition and primary function of missionaries. We have come to define such workers and work with unhealthy cultural expectations and non-biblical nomenclature. Don Dent has rightly called the Church to return to biblical exegesis in order to understand the apostolic task she has been assigned. This is the definitive work to date on this subject, one that I will consult in the future. Some of you may raise an eyebrow about the ongoing work of apostles, but I assure you, Dent maintains a solid biblical, theological, and missiological foundation. You will not find kooky-stuff here or someone who repeats the theological mess that others waded into in the late twentieth-early twenty-first century in the United States. Scholarly! Practical! Incredibly valuable! A breath of fresh air that will challenge you to rethink what you mean when you say, ‘missionary.’

J. D. Payne, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Christian Ministry, Samford University

Author Apostolic Church Planting

________________________

Missionaries are still the primary means God uses to communicate the gospel to people and take it places it has never been heard. In this important book, Don Dent shows how New Testament apostles were the forerunners of today’s missionaries. The apostolic functions of sharing the gospel, making disciples, and starting churches are the core functions of missionaries. While differing in important ways from biblical Apostles, missionaries today carry on their heritage and are vital to fulfilling Jesus’ mandate to take the gospel to the whole world. Besides the careful academic treatment of this issue, Don Dent writes with conviction born from field experience as an apostolic missionary for three decades. Reading this book will not only help you understand a biblical perspective on missionary service, but will ignite your passion for it as well.

Jeff Iorg

President, Gateway Seminary

________________________

I’m delighted that Don Dent’s book will be published and become generally accessible. The role of the original apostles and the continuation of their apostolic ministry have been sorely neglected in recent years. Don Dent is correct in his contention that the missionaries of today are the successors to the Apostles of the New Testament. Of course, missionaries of today do not possess the authority of the original Apostles, but they do continue the ministry of kingdom expansion. I recommend this book to all who long to see a return to missionary work guided by the New Testament.

John Mark Terry, Ph.D.

Veteran Missionary

Emeritus Professor of Missions, Mid-America Baptist Seminary

________________________

The modern mission movement is under fire, albeit friendly fire. Christians who love missions have been pointing out some serious problems. Missionaries, church leaders and even scholars have been scrambling to define who is a missionary. Unfortunately, the common answer today seems to be every Christian is a missionary. Besides being pious dribble, it turns Christian and missionary into synonyms, rendering the label missionary meaningless. Don Dent correctly points the way forward by pointing us back, back to the New Testament. Missionary comes from the Latin to send just as apostle comes from the Greek to send. Clearly, every Christian in the New Testament wasn’t an apostle. Dent cuts through the modern quarreling over who or what is a modern apostle by carefully delineating who was an apostle in early Christianity. His answer may well provide the model for who is a missionary today.

E. Randolph Richards, Ph.D.

Provost and Chief Academic Officer

Professor of Biblical Studies

Palm Beach Atlantic University

________________________

"Don Dent has been a seminal missiologist and leader of missions whom I have followed for more than 30 years. In The Ongoing Role of Apostles in Missions Dent makes a well-reasoned, biblically solid case for reclaiming the apostolic role of the missionary. I highly recommend this book!"

David Garrison

Executive Director, Global Gates

Missionary author, A Wind in the House of Islam

Introduction

MANY CONSERVATIVE, EVANGELICAL, MISSIONS-MINDED Christians, who affirm the New Testament as true and authoritative, do not follow the model of pioneer church planting found within it. This may be due to a lack of understanding of the apostolic mission model, to the relative ease we have in following patterns of ministry from our established church background, or to the belief that the method used by the apostles was unique to an era long past. The result is a lack of connection between biblical authority and our mission methodology. In practice, the Bible often provides our motivation for missions, but unfortunately not our methodology.

The disconnection between our admiration for the apostles and our failure to use their methodology today is evident even in our terminology. Ironically, many who admire the original missionaries sent out to fulfill the Great Commission rarely use the term apostle for the missionaries they send out to continue that work. The irony arises because, on the one hand, our churches aspire to represent the faith of the New Testament apostles, while on the other hand, they recognize their responsibility to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission given to the apostles. In spite of this focus on the New Testament apostles in our church life, we are uncomfortable identifying our missionaries as apostles. We know the apostles as historical figures, but not as a part of our personal experience or our mission efforts. For most Christians today, the apostles are the forgotten foundation for establishing Christ’s church in new places.

Thesis Statement

IN THIS BOOK, I argue that apostles, now commonly called missionaries, are God’s on-going gift for the initial planting phase of the church among every people, to the end of the age. They are called, sent, and empowered by God for the specific task of spreading the gospel and planting multiple, reproducing churches where He is not known. Missionaries should, therefore, intentionally model their character and ministry after the example of Paul and the apostles found in the New Testament.

The study will be structured around five critical questions:

1. Why are missions-minded Evangelicals reluctant to identify missionaries as apostles, considering that the two words have the same root meaning?

2. How is apostolos used in the New Testament, and, specifically, is it sometimes used as a designation for missionaries?

3. How should we conceptualize an on-going role for missionary apostles that does not detract from the crucial, unique role of the original Apostles?

4. What ministry pattern does the New Testament record from the lives of the early missionary apostles?

5. How should an awareness of missionary apostles guide our mission efforts today?

Personal Background

FROM THE MOMENT GOD called me to be a missionary in July 1975, I have pursued no other purpose in my life. So, this work comes out of a long personal pilgrimage. God’s specific call to me was to take the gospel to those who have never heard in Asia. Anne and I had the privilege to serve with the FMB/IMB, SBC for 30 years. We spent almost 5 years assigned as urban church planters in Singapore. I worked as a primary/pastoral church planter to start new churches in new housing estates. The strategy was to start flat churches that would grow and split as they out-grew their space. During that time I became aware of the importance of mission strategy, because the methods we were using were not resulting in the multiplying house churches that we expected.

As we saw churches growing rapidly under solid Singaporean leadership, I remembered my call to those who have never heard. So, God led us to Indonesia to worked with an unreached people group. My church-planting role changed completely, because I could not lead in evangelizing and discipling and preaching as I had done as a pastoral church planter in Singapore. During those years the FMB asked me to help evaluate mission strategy in several countries in Southeast Asia. I was learning that good strategy followed the model of the apostles, could be seen in mission history, and was practical and effective. I often wondered why we so easily strayed from that model.

From 1994 to 2008, I served as a leader of hundreds of missionaries, including setting priorities for their deployment, training them for greater effectiveness, and evaluating their ministry. I am awed at God’s grace to me to see the character and methods of missionaries who are present-day apostles. I saw God working in pioneer locations in ways that are dramatically different from what happens where the church is well-established. I also noted a wide gap between appointing a promising candidate from an established church and developing that person into an effective missionary who plants reproducing churches.

The challenge of leading other missionaries prompted me to constantly study the Scripture and reflect on what I was learning from my colleagues. For several years I studied each New Testament passage where apostolos is used. In order to deepen my own understandings and hone my ability to communicate them, I began to look for a post-graduate study program. The DMiss program at Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary fit my need perfectly. Although the foundations of my research took place overseas, I was privileged to be at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2009 for the final stage of research and writing. Anne and I then returned to Asia for several years, and my convictions were further reinforced by other young apostles in that part of the world. This book was first published in 2011 as a slight revision of my dissertation; I have chosen to keep many academic footnotes so that those who want to study more deeply have easy access to other materials. This book is now slightly updated from that first edition. In 2012, God surprisingly led us to return to Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (now Gateway Seminary) where I have become more aware of missions thinking in the US.

Numerous mission trends are presently converging in ways that make this moment in history significant. These trends include the growth of volunteers as a primary factor in missions, the multiplication of new mission agencies, local churches sending out missionaries without an agency, and the internationalization of the missions movement. Brave new ventures and rapid changes are taking place, often without adequate reflection on New Testament models. It is crucial that we not lose connection with the New Testament model of the missionary apostles. I believe that the role of church-planting apostle is the forgotten foundation of the church. Much of the ineffectiveness in missions today is due to the fact that we are trying to build Christ’s church on a different foundation.

Chapter Summaries

THIS BOOK IS BUILT primarily on the study of Scripture, the observation and evaluation of hundreds of mission teams, extensive reading and library research, and a survey of field missionaries.

The first chapter will explore confusion and controversy that has arisen from the way that various Christians have used the word apostle. This confusion has resulted in an aversion to identifying missionaries as apostles, which has further distanced our missions thinking and practice from the New Testament. The very term apostle seems foreign to us because the term missionary has replaced apostle in our common usage, though this may reflect more than a shift in terminology. In fact, many do not expect mission work to mirror the ministry patterns of New Testament apostles.

Throughout history different groups have generally placed more emphasis on either the apostles’ mission task or their ecclesiastical authority. We will see that the word apostle was used in the early church for missionaries, but the word eventually was reserved to designate the Twelve and a few special additions. Over time, apostle became synonymous with authority in the Roman Catholic tradition. The Reformers rejected the Catholic understanding of apostolic succession, but thought of apostles primarily in terms of writers of Scripture. In both cases, the church largely lost the understanding of the apostles as ones sent to accomplish the mission of Jesus. The situation remains a bit confused today because a number of contemporary schools of thought, including the Third Wave and missional church advocates, use the term apostle to mean very different things.

The second chapter will explore the biblical basis for understanding the role of apostle. The New Testament uses the term apostolos to describe several related groups of God’s servants. In this dissertation, a distinction will be made between the twelve Apostles of Christ and the other church-planting apostles. Though these two groups had much in common, there is one major difference between them. The twelve Apostles of Christ who walked with Jesus and preserved His teachings were a unique, one-time gift of God to the church. I will show that there is no scriptural basis for believing that missionary apostles were God’s gift for just one generation.

This chapter will include a categorization of every appearance of the word apostolos in the New Testament. There are four different usages of apostolos; two of which were types of eyewitnesses and two were not eyewitnesses. Many scholars have assumed that apostolos always refers to an eyewitness of the Lord’s resurrection, but we will also explore a number of occasions where that is not true. We will also examine passages that describe apostles as a gift to the church and as foundation builders. The chapter will conclude with a brief critique of common misunderstandings in light of the New Testament’s teachings on apostles.

Chapter three provides a conceptual framework that acknowledges the unique role of the Twelve in the Apostolic Age while also affirming the on-going role of missionary apostles in an apostolic phase within every people group. This framework will be developed with insights from both Scripture and missionary experience. In summary, God still works among the unreached peoples of the world in a way that is analogous to The Acts of the Apostles. Where we see results in biblical proportions, we also see men and women who exhibit an apostolic calling, character, and methodology. This is how God intended the church to be planted among every people group. This apostolic phase is often accompanied by miracles, spiritual breakthroughs, and persecution. The chapter will explore how the apostle concept was rediscovered during the modern mission movement, especially in the nineteenth century. We will also explore the probability that there have been missionary apostles ever since the first century A.D., although they often function in places and ways that historians miss.

Chapter four describes the missions methodology of the first church planting apostles as it is found in the New Testament. The apostles, especially Paul, understood their role as foundation builders in pioneer settings. They declared the good news of Jesus, discipled those who believed, established churches, and developed local leaders. They deployed a growing apostolic team to expand a growing ministry. This pattern of ministry should be our guiding model in missions today.

In chapter five I explore a number of implications and applications from this biblical understanding of missionary apostles and their methodology. Although there are major differences between their world and ours, most important factors are the same. A number of issues will be discussed related to missionary calling, relationships with churches, authority to fulfill the Great Commission, the appropriate balance between long-term missionaries and volunteers, team structure and leadership, and an on-going focus on the foundational task of church planting.

In summary, identifying modern missionaries as the functional equivalents of church planting apostles in the New Testament is absolutely critical for planting the church of Christ among all peoples.

Chapter 1

Confusion Regarding the Use of the Word Apostle

ACCORDING TO THE NEW Testament, apostles played a special role in leading the early church in reaching out to the nations. All Christians were called to witness and evangelize, but the apostles were specifically chosen and empowered to lead out in taking the gospel to those who had not heard. Their example inspires us to take on the same mission task today. However, Protestant theologians rarely talk about the apostles, especially the Twelve, in a way that emphasizes their mission, nor do we often use the word apostle when we talk in church about our contemporary mission activities.

In this chapter, we will consider why Evangelicals are uncomfortable in identifying their missionaries as apostles. We will look at the use of the word apostle in various Christian circles and explore how this usage has separated the concept of apostle from missions. This confusion has had serious consequences, including a loss of awareness of the unique calling of missionaries, and a failure to look to the New Testament for guidance on how to carry out missions today.

Background of the Apostle Concept

To begin this study, it is helpful to look at several aspects of the background of the concept of apostle. These include the etymological background of the English words apostle and missionary, the meaning of apostolos in its cultural setting, and a theological debate among scholars regarding the development of the Christian usage.

Near Synonyms on Diverging Paths

In light of the root meanings of the words apostle and missionary, it is sad that many Evangelicals do not acknowledge a close connection between them. The English word apostle comes from the Greek apostolos, which always denotes a man who is sent, and sent with full authority.¹ The verb form, apostellō, was fairly common in secular Greek, but the frequent Christian use of the rarer noun apostolos to describe an agent sent on a mission reflects the missionary focus of the early church.² Apostolos evolved into Latin as apostolus and into French as apostle and eventually found its way into English in its present form as early as A.D. 1200.³

The words mission and missionary developed later from the Latin word mitto (send), used to translate the Greek apostellō. This word group, including missio and missiones, described the sending of Augustine as a missionary to the British Isles in 596.⁴ At one time missio was primarily a theological term used to describe the sending of the Son by the Father and of the Holy Spirit by Father and Son.⁵ Like the original Greek meaning of apostellō, that usage of missio included both the task shared by the Trinity as well as the authority to accomplish it. This word group became more popular during the colonial period when it described the state’s and church’s sending of envoys to accomplish diplomatic, military, commercial, and religious assignments. The Roman Catholic Church began highlighting the mission word group when Ignatius of Loyola used it to describe the sending of Jesuit missionaries around the world.⁶ English adopted this group of words through the French word mission by 1598. The word missionary appeared in English to describe a person sent on a religious mission as early as 1656.⁷

Due to a quirk of linguistic history, the adoption of these two words into English resulted in our having both apostle and missionary, etymologically similar words originally used to translate each other. However, in common usage today neither carries the full meaning of the original concept. The common use of apostle emphasizes authority, while the common use of missionary emphasizes task; however, both words originally described someone who had both an assigned task and the authority to accomplish