Apostolic Foundation
Are There Apostles Today? What the New Testament Says
Are there apostles today? Examine what apostle means, the qualifications and authority of Christ's apostles, Paul, Ephesians 2, miraculous signs, and the church's foundation.
Start With the Word
What does “apostle” mean?
The Greek word apostolos carries the idea of someone who is sent, a messenger or commissioned representative. That broad meaning matters because not every occurrence of messenger language automatically identifies someone as one of Christ's foundational apostles.
The New Testament nevertheless uses apostle in a particularly significant way for men commissioned by Christ as authoritative witnesses. The Twelve occupy an obvious place in that group, and Paul repeatedly defends his own apostolic commission.
So the question 'Are there apostles today?' first requires another question: do we mean missionaries and messengers who are sent, or do we mean apostles possessing the foundational authority and revelatory commission seen in the New Testament?
The Twelve
Jesus personally selected a distinctive group of apostles.
Luke records Jesus choosing twelve disciples whom he also named apostles. Their number carried obvious significance, and after Judas's death the remaining apostles treated the vacancy seriously.
Acts 1 records qualifications in the search for Judas's replacement. The candidate had to have accompanied the disciples through Jesus' ministry from John's baptism until the ascension and become a witness with them of the resurrection.
That episode does not look like the establishment of an office to be routinely inherited by later church leaders. The qualifications are tied to the historical ministry and resurrection of Jesus.
The replacement for Judas is selected from men who accompanied Jesus' followers through his earthly ministry and could serve as a witness of the resurrection.
Jesus calls his disciples and chooses twelve from them, whom he names apostles.
Paul
Paul's apostleship was extraordinary, but he still grounds it in Christ's appearance and commission.
Paul did not accompany Jesus throughout the earthly ministry in the way required of Matthias, yet he insists that he is genuinely an apostle. His explanation does not appeal to ordination by a later bishop or inheritance of an institutional office.
Instead, Paul points to having seen Jesus the Lord and to the risen Christ's appearance to him. First Corinthians 15 places Paul's encounter after the resurrection appearances to Cephas, the Twelve, and others.
Paul's unusual case therefore broadens the story beyond the Twelve without turning apostleship into an ordinary office available through later promotion.
Paul defends his apostleship by asking whether he has seen Jesus the Lord.
Paul describes the risen Christ appearing to him and immediately connects that appearance with his identity as an apostle.
Apostolic Signs
The New Testament connects apostolic authority with extraordinary confirmation.
Paul refers to the signs of a true apostle being performed among the Corinthians with signs, wonders, and mighty works. Acts likewise repeatedly associates extraordinary signs with the apostolic mission.
That does not mean miracles were performed only by apostles. Stephen and Philip are obvious counterexamples. But Acts 8 makes an important distinction: Philip performs signs in Samaria, while Peter and John arrive and lay hands on believers so that they receive manifestations of the Spirit.
Who Changed the Church? uses that distinction in arguing that apostles occupied a unique position in the transmission of miraculous gifts during the church's foundational period.
Paul appeals to signs, wonders, and mighty works as signs associated with a true apostle.
The Samaritan account specifically associates the giving of the Spirit through laying on of hands with the apostles Peter and John.
The Foundation
A foundation is laid; it is not rebuilt on every floor.
Ephesians gives the apostles and prophets a foundational place in the church. Christians are described as members of God's household built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone.
The same letter says the mystery of Christ was revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. Apostolic authority is therefore tied not merely to administration but to the revelation upon which the church was built.
This architectural language drives a major argument in Who Changed the Church? If the apostles and prophets belong to the foundation, later Christians build upon what they delivered rather than repeatedly laying a new apostolic foundation.
The household of God is described as built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.
Paul says the mystery of Christ was revealed by the Spirit to the holy apostles and prophets.
What About Ephesians 4?
Does the list of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers require apostles forever?
Ephesians 4 says Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers for equipping the saints and building up the body. Some readers understand this as evidence that every listed ministry must remain continuously present in the same form.
Wood reads the passage together with Ephesians 2 and 3. Apostles and prophets provide revealed truth during the foundational period, while the resulting body is brought toward unity, maturity, and full knowledge.
The debate therefore turns on whether the purpose of a gift requires the permanent continuation of the original office or whether foundational ministries can continue serving later generations through the revelation they left behind.
Succession Is a Different Claim
Passing on apostolic teaching is not automatically the same as becoming an apostle.
The New Testament unquestionably expects apostolic teaching to be transmitted. Paul tells Timothy to entrust what he heard to faithful people who will be able to teach others.
But teaching succession and apostolic-office succession are different propositions. A Christian can faithfully preserve an apostle's teaching without thereby becoming another eyewitness commissioned by the risen Christ.
That distinction becomes increasingly important when later Christian writers appeal to succession, bishops, and institutional continuity. Who Changed the Church? follows those claims chronologically rather than assuming that preserving apostolic teaching and inheriting apostolic authority mean the same thing.
Timothy is commanded to entrust Paul's teaching to faithful people capable of teaching others.
The earliest Jerusalem believers devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, making the apostolic message the continuing standard.
The Historical Question
If the apostles were foundational, what authority remained after they died?
That question sits near the center of Who Changed the Church? If new apostles with equivalent authority were not expected indefinitely, the death of the apostolic generation did not leave Christianity without a foundation. It made the content of that foundation critically important.
The historical investigation then changes. Instead of asking who inherited the right to create new apostolic teaching, the question becomes whether later leaders remained faithful to what the apostles had already delivered.
That is where the book moves from the New Testament into Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, later church structures, and competing claims of continuing authority.
Why It Matters
The New Testament distinguishes the foundational apostles of Christ from the broader idea of a messenger who is sent. The Twelve were selected as witnesses, Paul grounded his apostleship in the risen Christ's appearance and commission, apostolic ministry was accompanied by extraordinary confirmation, and Ephesians places apostles and prophets in the church's foundation. Who Changed the Church? argues that the church was meant to remain apostolic by remaining faithful to the apostles' completed teaching—not by manufacturing a new generation of foundational apostles. That distinction opens the much larger historical question the book investigates: after the apostles died, who changed what they left behind?