Apostles: An End Time Ministry

By Howard Durfee

This book represents an almost fifty-year period of both study and practical training in Christian ministry. For the author, Dr. Howard W. Durfee, it has been his life’s work. Howard’s quest for Christian truth began shortly after he was saved by the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. During his study at three of the leading seminaries of the world—Harvard Divinity School, The University of Edinburgh, and Fuller Theological Seminary—Howard was taught that the gifts and ministries of the New Testament had for the most part passed away after the New Testament era. There seemed to be a general confusion about why they had passed away. Regardless of all the theories, the important thing to Howard was that he could find no one in theological schools able to operate in the apostolic or prophetic ministries as described in the New Testament.

The biggest shock to Howard was when he found less educated, nonseminary-trained ministers who claimed to be apostles and prophets. The problem was that these less scholarly ministers appeared to have both the gifts and ministries operating with the power of the Holy Spirit. In a search for truth, Howard determined to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that there could be no modern apostles or prophets. The only problem was that Howard could not disprove the existence of modern apostles or prophets based on the New Testament or on church history.

What follows in this book is the result of a lifetime of study on the apostolic ministry. After an introduction by Dr. Chuck Flynn, Howard defends the necessity of modern apostles. He then defines and describes what a New Testament apostle is. Next, Howard describes apostles as leaders to the church. Finally, Howard describes the three major historical functions of the apostolic ministry—to found churches, to govern churches, and to train the other New Testament ministries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781546269526

Howard Durfee

Howard is a man who has the rare combination of having elite education and having been humbled by the Lord to be taught how to be His servant. Having been trained at Harvard, Edinburgh and Fuller theological seminaries Howard met a faithful servant of God who challenged him to come and learn how to listen to the Lord. This servant had Biblical understanding but also operated in the Holy Spirit in a way that Howard had never encountered. This led Howard to a forty plus year journey of serving and learning to hear the Holy Spirit and follow His leading so that he might become who the Spirit intends him to be. What follows in this book is Howard’s lifetime study on the apostolic ministry. Howard’s calling and passion is to restore the church to the divine order that the New Testament lays out so that believers may attain to their full calling in Christ.

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© 2019 Howard Durfee. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse    05/16/2019

ISBN: 978-1-5462-6951-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-6950-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-6952-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018913850

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Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

Preface: Afterthoughts…Forty Years Later

Foreword By Chuck Flynn

Introduction: The Truth About Apostles

Chapter One: Restoration Ministries

Chapter Two: A Last Days’ Ministry

Chapter Three: The Need For Apostles

Chapter Four: Apostles Are For Today

Chapter Five: Overseeing Objections To Modern Apostles

Chapter Six: Why Apostles Disappeared During The Early Church Age

Chapter Seven: Defining The New Testament Apostles

Chapter Eight: The Two Types Of Apostles

Chapter Nine: The Broadness Of The New Testament Apostolic Ministry

Chapter Ten: Apostles: Leaders To The Church

Chapter Eleven: Laying The Foundation

Chapter Twelve: Building Upon The Foundation

Chapter Thirteen: The Apostle’s Role In Church Government

Chapter Fourteen: Why We Need Church Government

Chapter Fifteen: Discipline

Chapter Sixteen: The Training Of Other Ministries

Chapter Seventeen: Restoring The Apostolic Ministry

Chapter Eighteen: Recognizing True Apostles

Chapter Nineteen: What This Means For Us

Endnotes

PREFACE: AFTERTHOUGHTS…FORTY YEARS LATER

IT HAS NOW been more than 40 years since I began to study and to write this book about apostles. Looking back over a lifetime of ministry and study, I feel that the Introduction which I wrote in my mid-thirties needs a small addendum to it to make the book more understandable and acceptable to the modern Christian Church.

I and a few of my friends-both young men and young women-actually lived what is in this book. Many teachers write about things which they have never experienced. They study the Scriptures to find their message. There is nothing wrong with this approach. However, my friends and I did not get our knowledge just from Bibles and commentaries, as valuable as they are. We went to church, worshipped, and sought the miraculous power and guidance of the Holy Spirit for ourselves. I actually saw many of the signs and wonders recorded in the Book of Acts done in our church. I have seen apostles ministering to the body of Christ, and I have noted how their ministry differs from the other office ministries of prophet, teacher, pastor, and evangelist. Everything I write about is in agreement with the Bible. There is nothing I am aware of that contradicts the Scriptures.

We ministered under the authority of Dr. William L. Smith and his wife Nadine Smith, the founders of Christ as Life Ministries. Jesus had appeared to this apostle twice and asked him, Who will go for us? Dr. Smith had apostolic authority and operated in all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit. From 1969 to 2009, God told me to help this apostolic ministry, and I was faithful to God’s command. At his final church convention, shortly before he died, Dr. Smith asked me to begin mentoring or training pastors and church leaders, a task which he had done for about 50 years. My wife and I have been faithful to his request.

For reasons I cannot fully understand, some went quickly into Christian ministry, while others took a longer time to mature. I, for example, took probably the longest time for two reasons. First, I had been raised in a predominantly humanistic culture where I was taught facts about Jesus, but did not actually know Jesus until I was about twenty years of age. I was essentially an adult, since my thought processes had been formed in humanism. Thank God for the evangelistic ministry of Doug Reed and Dick Purnell of Campus Crusade for Christ. When I was a college student (at about twenty years of age), they helped me find the living Christ.

In addition, I was educated at the oldest boys’ boarding school (the Governor’s Academy) and at the oldest university in the United States (Harvard), where I received the finest of scholarship. I also studied church history at Harvard Divinity School under Professor George Williams, the Hollis Professor of Ecclesiastical History. I studied a year at the University of Edinburgh’s New College and attended classes under the noted professor, Dr. T. F. Torrance. I then completed a Master’s Degree from Fuller Theological Seminary. Moreover, I could read and write five languages (English, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew). My intellect had been so well-developed that I kept on for years and years trying to understand God with my mere human intellect. Farmers and blue-collar workers used to joke around and say that I was educated beyond my intelligence! Thus, it took over twenty years for me to get to the point where I could separate the voice of the Holy Spirit from my mind’s operations

A second reason for my delay was that God wanted me to be humbled and to suffer before allowing me to minister. The Holy Spirit made me do almost all the ministries in the New Testament. Before working as an evangelist, pastor, teacher, prophet, or apostle, I spent about ten years cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming the rugs, managing the church lawn and preparing the church for Sunday services. The Holy Spirit required me to do the ministry of helps and that of a deacon before He would allow me to carry authority over men. At the time, I did not totally enjoy this, but the fruit of servitude and suffering developed my character. We in ministry should appreciate more carefully the need of suffering and servitude before being exalted. Even the Son of God, on this earth, learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

Because this book was originally written as a doctoral thesis, I reviewed it with several Doctors of Theology. I was blessed one evening when Dr. Buddy Harrison of Rhema Bible Institute called me to review the thesis. He said it had greater revelation on the subject of apostles than any other work which he had read, but that it was missing one key ingredient—love. Dr. Harrison said that without love the truth contained in these chapters would not work!

I have to agree with Dr. Buddy Harrison. The modern saying that people do not care how much you know…until they know how much you care…is true. As the apostle Paul wrote:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding bronze or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.

For all the gifting and all the authority from God that true apostles have, without love even apostles can accomplish nothing. Always remember that the spiritual gifts work only by faith, and faith can work only by love. Only love, therefore, can provide a channel through which the gifts of the Holy Spirit can flow to the Body of Christ. Only love can keep leaders from becoming vain and self-centered. Only love can keep workers going on at the more menial tasks of ministry. Thus, this addendum is written to respond to Dr. Buddy Harrison’s request.

It is probably appropriate at this time…to mention some of the major assumptions underlying all of this book. I believe that God Almighty entered human history in the fullness of time about two thousand years ago, through the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that this same Jesus Christ called, instructed, and commissioned the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Jesus later ordered the eleven remaining apostles not to try to minister until they were filled with power from on high through the Holy Spirit. I believe that Jesus Christ also called the apostle Paul, filled Paul with the Holy Spirit, took Paul into the third heaven, and then revealed to Paul His plan for the church age. I believe that the Holy Spirit then guided these great apostles to write the books of the New Testament when Greek was the accepted universal language of the Roman Empire. This ensured that the New Testament epistles would be written in one of the most precise languages ever known to man. I believe that the church fathers recognized the inspiration of the books which we now call the New Testament. This does not mean that they created the authority of the New Testament, but only that they recognized its anointing and its power to change lives. Lastly, I believe that we shall all someday be judged by the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, many of which are contained in the New Testament books of the Bible. One final note, this work consists of my studies for my doctoral dissertation, however, it is not meant to be a work for the academic world. This writing is intended for all members of the body of Christ to use so that the New Testament order is restored to the church today.

Many will say of this book that it is impossible in the 21st century to change the church back to what the Bible describes. To that comment, I would say that, if we do not do our best to follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance in the New Testament, God will still be God. In Isaiah 61:4 the Scriptures seem to imply that God Himself will, as He restores Israel to its original beauty, also restore the church to its original beauty in the end times: And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolation of many generations. What is at stake if we don’t seek to implement the New Testament order is that we won’t attain to the full measure of the stature of Christ as believers.

There is another possibility for the New Testament order to be restored. There is a power of the Holy Spirit that will come upon end times Christians that will exceed that which came before the end times. This will go beyond seeing Christians born again, as wonderful as that experience is. The power of the Holy Spirit, with supernatural manifestations of prophecy, dreams and visions, shall be poured out upon all flesh, from the greatest to the least: As the prophet Joel prophesied (Joel 2:28-29): And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and the handmaidens in those days will I pour out my Spirit. It could be that God knows His church will fail to do this, so He mentions to us that He will do it, regardless of what we do. As for myself and my house, we want to be on God’s side when this happens.

Finally, I must give credit to Dr. Chuck Flynn who prophesied to me that this work must go out into the church world. He commanded me in the Spirit to publish this work, and his words went right through me. I shall never forget Dr. Flynn’s words, nor shall I ever forget Dr. Flynn.

Dr. Howard Wilson Durfee

Bachelors of Arts in English Literature cum laude – Harvard University 1966

Diploma of Theology – University of Edinburgh 1967

Masters of Arts in Theology – Fuller Seminary 1973

State of Texas License CPA, LLC – 1984

Master’s in Business Administration – University of Texas Dallas – 1999

Doctorate in Philosophy in Religion/Theology – Honolulu University – 2000

Masters in Accounting and Informational Management - University of Texas Dallas - 2007

FOREWORD BY CHUCK FLYNN

BECAUSE OF THE many facets of organizational divisions within the church, the Holy Spirit is moving upon His people to recognize spiritual leadership. God is raising up apostles to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit and to fulfill the principle of admonition, upon whom the ends of the world [closing ages] are come (1 Corinthians 10:11). This book recognizes the importance of apostles for the last days.

Apostles are God’s spearheads in spiritual battle. They are at the forefront, following the Holy Spirit’s leadership in church founding, church supervision, and the training of elders. Jesus is building upon this rock [his] church, and he is in a battle, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). He builds his body with the fruits of the Spirit, and he battles with satanic forces with the gifts of the Spirit.

Apostolic authority is the foundation for the restoration of the church. The Holy Spirit wants to position each member of the Body of Christ in his place for victory. Apostles are uniquely equipped by the Spirit to help each member of the body find his or her place.

The whole body will be like an army, each one in its proper location. Apostles will be there to be sure that we don’t pierce each other through (Joel 2:7- 8).