Lesson for June 4, 2025

Paul the Apostle

Lesson 2

Paul’s Spiritual Gift of Apostleship

(I Corinthians 15:1-10)

Once the Church Age began, the eleven disciples of Christ (excluding Judas Iscariot) became apostles to the Church. These apostles took it upon themselves to take a vote and replace Judas Iscariot with Matthias. But Matthias was not appointed by God to replace Judas and did not have the spiritual gift of apostleship. (Acts 1:15-27) The twelfth apostle was to be Paul.

One of the requirements for the spiritual gift of apostleship was that the apostle had to have seen the resurrected Christ. Paul saw the resurrected Christ on four different occasions. Paul saw the resurrected Christ on the Damascus Road, according to Acts 9:3-6, 22:6-11, 26:13-18. Next, He appeared to Paul again in Arabia, according to Galatians 1:17. Then, He appeared to Paul in the Temple, according to Acts 9:26-30, 22:17-21. Finally, He appeared to Paul in prison in Acts 23:11. Paul became an apostle as a result of the will of God, according to Ephesians 1:1.

The spiritual gift of apostleship was bestowed on only a few men in the Church Age and carried the highest authority God has ever delegated in the Church Age. This authority from God was restricted to the pre-Canon period of the Church Age, from 30 to 96 A.D. The gift was given for two purposes: 1) the establishment of local churches through evangelism and the teaching of the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, until the Canon of Scripture was completed. The mystery doctrine, according to Colossians 1:27, is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” and entails all the doctrine related to the permanent indwelling of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and much more, all of which are unique to the Church Age. 2) the writing of the New Testament. Establishing churches meant identifying and training pastors, sending out missionaries, and establishing church policies prior to the completion of the New Testament. Once the Canon of Scripture was completed in 96 A.D., when the Apostle John finished writing the book of Revelation, the spiritual gift of apostleship was no longer needed and was withdrawn.

Apostles had authority over all local churches, in contrast to pastors today, whose authority is over only one local church. In I Corinthians 12:28, the gift of apostleship was the first spiritual gift given in the Church Age, in order to establish churches, and identify and train pastors. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to permanently indwell believers, as prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 16:13-20. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ gave the first spiritual gifts on the Day of Pentecost; after that they were sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 4:8-13)

When Paul became a believer and was sent into the Arabian desert to be taught by Jesus Christ, he returned with a new revelation from God (the mystery doctrine). He immediately began to teach this doctrine as he evangelized and established churches, primarily among the Gentiles. He also taught the others this newly revealed doctrine, including the other apostles. His teaching quickly spread throughout the regions, as he wrote letters to local churches, which became part of the Canon of Scriptures. Paul also had a travelling seminary, as other men who became pastors, travelled with him on his missionary journeys and learned under his mentorship. (Colossians 1:23-29; Acts 21:17-21; Galatians 2:11-21II Peter 3:14-16)

Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles

Paul was the only apostle who was a Roman citizen and therefore he was appointed by God as the apostle to the Gentiles. But it took Paul four years of imprisonment to finally discover that his primary ministry was not to the Jews. Having been a famous Jewish unbeliever, Paul had a great desire to see the Jews come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior (Messiah). He always had a burden for the Jews, but they were not the primary object of his ministry from God. The Jewish unbelievers hated Paul even more than they had loved him before he became a Christian. They followed him everywhere and tried to destroy him and his ministry. But God protected Paul and his ministry from the Jews, even when he failed to stay in fellowship with God. Paul became the greatest believer in the Church Age and accomplished the greatest thing that would ever be done in all the Church Age, by writing the prison epistles under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. They contain all the details of the Protocol Plan of God, all the mechanics of the Christian life, the mystery doctrine of the Church Age, Soteriology, and Christology. Paul was the greatest communicator of Bible doctrine in our age.

Paul’s Imprisonments

While Paul was a great oral teacher, his writing, under the ministry and guidance of the Spirit, became the majority of the books in the New Testament. He wrote the New Testament epistles as a prisoner, after going on three great missionary journeys. He was detained in prison in Jerusalem during an assassination plot to kill him. More than forty assassins had taken an oath not to eat or drink until they killed Paul. He was retained in the prison barracks of the Roman soldiers to protect him and then He was moved and imprisoned two years in Caesarea, the Roman capital of the Province of Judea. While imprisoned in Rome, he wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, which we call the prison epistles. (Acts 23:12-24)

During his three imprisonments in Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Rome, God provided Paul the opportunity to sort out once and for all the priorities for his life. In doing so, from this time on, Paul had the most phenomenal ministry anyone has ever had. Not that it wasn’t great before, but now it moved into a higher sphere. It became the basis for the Roman Empire becoming the first Gentile client nation to God because of a pivot of advancing believers who Paul was responsible for leading to Christ and teaching the mystery doctrine.

Imprisonment gave Paul the opportunity to re-evaluate his ministry on the basis of biblical and doctrinal priorities. Paul confirmed his ministry to the Gentiles when he said, “I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry” in Romans 11:13 and again in Romans 15:15-16, “I have written very boldly to you on some points, so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given to me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the Gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”

Although Paul understood the issue of his ministry to the Gentiles, it was never fully realized until his imprisonment, when he had plenty of time to reflect on it. I Timothy 2:7 was written after Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment, “For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle as a teacher of the Gentiles in doctrine and in truth.” Notice how very clear he was about his ministry when He called himself “a teacher of the Gentiles in doctrine and in truth.” (Ephesians 3:1,8; Galatians 2:2,8; Colossians 1:27; II Timothy 1:11, 4:17)

Pastor R.B. Thieme, Jr. says, “Imprisonment gave Paul a chance to express the greatest genius anyone has ever had in a language. Paul actually invented a new Greek language that took the best from Koine, Hellenistic, and Attic Greek. He included Atticisms, Latinisms, Semitisms, and put it all together in the language of his epistles. The Pauline epistles are the quintessence of greatness in expression of language and absolute clarity. In the language of the Pauline epistles, the Bible cannot be interpreted in different ways. It has only one interpretation, for it is just as precise as any system of mathematics. There is nothing more precise and lucid in its interpretation and application than the language Paul used.”