Apostle

Of the five gifts of people to assist in bodily growth, that of "Apostle" is the most under-developed in the Protestant Church. Perhaps it is this fact which accounts for some to the problems being encountered by that segment of society in North America today.

The term comes from a transliteration of a Greek compound-word meaning

• "apo" - to push away from (when used in compound words)
• "stolos" - to be stalled (when one is otherwise configured for action)

Because it was used by Christ (or some Hebrew term of which this is a translation into Greek) to refer to a sub group of his "Disciples", and became tied up with the "great commission" in Matthew 28:19-20, the sub-meaning of "sent ones" came to the fore. The Latin translation of "apostle" , when used in this sense is "Missionary", and that is the sense in which the term has most frequently used up until today.

Certainly the original apostles were sent men, but when one considers the other meaning of the word, a new perspective emerges: having been pushed off "top-dead-center" in their lives, they were sent to push others out off their stalled condition in life, and so forth. It is a central task in body-life, and one which is desperately in demand in the Protestant Church today as it flounders amidst the upheaval caused by the rapid social change in the North American culture.

There are many people in the Protestant Church today working with variations of this interpretation in order to raise up folks to do the task of "ditch pushing" whether formally or more informally. There have always been "ditch-pushers" in the Church life through the ages. What is happening now is recognition of the widespread need of such people in order for group life to flourish, and a need to support hem in their work.

The key-words "apostolic ministry" in a Google search puts one into the center of the activity in this aspect of current Church Life.