THESIS 67: THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH AND THE SPREAD OF POWER

Apostles (or "elders"[241]), and their appointees[242] worked to complete the pouring out of the Holy Spirit,[243] bear miraculous witness to the authority of the Apostolic Word,[244] and guard against the great apostasy of the transitional period between the Old and New Ages.[245] It was expected that all believer-priests would take over the task of dominion (#2) on their own after the complete destruction of the age that was.[246] "Deacons" and others who were not "ordained elders" were not prohibited from "authoritative preaching.[247]

Exposition

Implications

What this Thesis means; how it should affect your life; how our lives should affect the world.

Clarifications

What this Thesis does NOT mean; how it should NOT affect your life; how the Old World distorted the truth.

Confirmations

How "mainstream" evangelical or orthodox commentators have confirmed this Thesis (without accepting the overall paradigm)

Deliberations

Readers' questions, complaints, allegations, flames, threats

         -- answered, adjusted, denied, blessed, filed.

Prooftexts

241. 1 Peter 5:1; 1 Timothy 4:14 + 2 Timothy 1:6

242. e.g., Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6; cp. Titus 1:5)

243. Acts 8:14-17; 19:1-6

244. 1 Timothy 4:12,14; Mark 16:20; Hebrews 1:1; 2:4; Acts 6:8; etc.

245. Acts 15:2,4,6; 16:4; cf. 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 1 John 2:18-26; #54

246. Acts 15:22,23; 1 Corinthians 4:8; 5:3; #94

247. Acts 6:10; 7; 8:1,4; 8:5,12

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