Can We Make a Case for Modern-Day Apostles and Prophets?

Let’s get past the titles and look at the functions. Let’s see what Jesus had in mind when “He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers….” (Ephesians 4:11). A fascinating 49-minute dive into this passage of the Bible and what it means for us today.

Editor’s Note: A transcript follows the embedded video; it was automatically generated and lightly edited, so please be aware there could be typos or other small errors. The Stream is working toward a transcription service that does fast, accurate, and reliable work; thank you in advance for your patience!

00;01;05;00 – 00;01;34;00
Hello, everyone. This is Wanda Alger, and today is Monday, March 10th, 2025. Today I would like to make a biblical case for modern day apostles and prophets. Yes, I am going to take you through Scripture and give you a brief overview of why I believe that there are apostles and prophets today, along with pastors, teachers, and evangelists. You know, we’re in a leadership crisis in more ways than one with all of these exposures.

00;01;34;03 – 00;01;56;05
There’s a lot of scrutiny on leaders, and especially in the prophetic movement regarding apostles and prophets, they seem to get the most heat. Unfortunately, because they’re the ones that are being found to be, corrupted and immoral. And so I see, comments on my YouTube channel and even on other social media posts, there are no such thing as modern day apostles and prophets.

00;01;56;07 – 00;02;20;04
Well, that argument has been around for years, for decades. And, we’re going to be talking about it more in the days ahead. But, oftentimes, you know, and there’s other channels and, and a lot of people that talk about this. But I find personally that when I go and listen to someone’s argument against apostles and prophets, the majority of their argument is based upon bad examples.

00;02;20;06 – 00;02;43;14
Well, there’s no question we’ve got bad examples. I mean, that’s what we’re finding. Yeah. You can find a bad example. Prophet, I mean, a false prophet. Yeah. That’s what we’re dealing with. And false apostles. Yes. Well, what about false teachers? Those pastors, you know, we’ve got a lot of bad leaders that are being, exposed. Doesn’t mean that they’re not the real thing.

00;02;43;15 – 00;03;03;03
Doesn’t mean that we don’t need leaders. But I felt it was time to revisit it, given, the kinds of things that we are having to walk through and give you a an overview of this now. Let me say I am not a theologian. I’m not a Bible scholar. I am not going to go deep into the weeds in this.

00;03;03;10 – 00;03;26;22
There are other channels that do much better at that than than what I do. Okay? I’m not going to pretend we’re not going to go into the deep Greek and all the church fathers and, you know, all the background, because this is a huge topic. What I simply want to do is to give you the most persuasive points that for me, settle the issue, because in the end, I would love for you to be able to know how to articulate it yourself.

00;03;26;25 – 00;03;49;18
When someone asks you, you know, why do you believe in apostles and prophets? Or what does Scripture say about this? Because what I am going to do, after laying a foundation, in this case, I’m going to follow it up in subsequent videos and talking about the New Apostolic Reformation, what some refer to as the Nar. This whole thing.

00;03;49;24 – 00;04;06;04
Again, I did a video about this two years ago. And I’m, I’m even going to be inviting some other guest on here to talk about this, because there are a lot of things that need to be reformed, no question. But I believe that there are some good things that we need to keep, so we’re going to explore that.

00;04;06;06 – 00;04;26;29
But that’s why I wanted to come today and just lay a groundwork for why I do believe that God is still using apostles and prophets today, just like he is using pastors, teachers, and evangelists. Okay, so I’m going to do this a couple of ways. First, I’m just going to give you, address the question. Well, what about spiritual gifts at all?

00;04;26;29 – 00;04;47;29
Because they usually go together, I find that those who have a hard time believing in apostles and prophets, oftentimes they’re secessionist, meaning they believe the gifts. Gifts have ceased. All the spiritual gifts. There are no more signs and wonders and miracles. There’s no more prophecy. You know, that’s kind of the extreme, you know, case, in terms of belief.

00;04;48;02 – 00;05;12;05
So I’m just going to give you a few, things that are fairly obvious to me in Scripture in terms of the spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are spoken of in Corinthians, in first Corinthians, 12 and 13, those are the chapters that describe them. And for example, in first Corinthians 13 eight and ten, the Scripture says love never ends.

00;05;12;07 – 00;05;34;27
As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. Now for some they claim that they can refer to this as saying, see, prophecies have ceased, tongues have ceased. Well, the problem with that is, has knowledge ceased because you can’t just pick out those, you know, the two that you don’t like.

00;05;35;00 – 00;05;58;23
You have to look at the whole, package together. And so this also would be the case for even the, in 1 Corinthians 1:2-11, where it lists all the gifts of the spirit. You know, some would like to pull out gifts of healing, tongues, interpretation of tongues, the words of knowledge, you know, let’s pull those out, because those are those of.

00;05;58;25 – 00;06;27;08
But what about gifts of wisdom? And again, you know, or words of knowledge. You can’t just pick out the ones that you don’t like or that are troublesome or the ones that have been abused and manipulated or faked. It’s a package deal. And Paul exhorts, believers that we’re supposed to continue, okay, in these gifts. And that’s that’s why some people would call themselves continuations, because they believe that the gifts have continued.

00;06;27;11 – 00;06;53;04
In 1Corinthians 14 one, Paul says, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. This was not just given to that church at that time. This was given to believers. Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. See, the gifts are the expression of Holy Spirit. Holy spirit is a person. He has a language.

00;06;53;09 – 00;07;22;03
He wants to speak to us, interact with us to reveal more of who Jesus is, to reveal more of who the father is, and because we are limited in our human capacity to do that. That’s why the father, you know, release the Holy Spirit to teach us and to help us to know him. That’s what the spiritual gifts are for a revealing of who God is, of who Jesus is, not only to ourselves, but specifically to others.

00;07;22;05 – 00;07;43;07
And some would say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were really given not for us, but for others. I mean, you know, we could list all of those and say how, show how all of these are used in evangelism, used to, you know, bring others to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ because they’re all for the purpose of revealing who Jesus is.

00;07;43;10 – 00;08;08;19
Ultimately, that’s that’s what they should be. And so, again, Paul says we should earnestly desire to prophesy. For me, to prophesy simply means to share, to speak the heart of God, the Word of God. Certainly the see, the Word of God. The Word of God should reveal his heart, his nature, his character, who he is as a person.

00;08;08;21 – 00;08;32;00
That’s what I deem as prophecy. When I think of prophecy, I want to reveal to you who he is, okay? And that’s why in the New Testament it says that these words should be given to edify, to exhort, to build up. Because when you know who God is, it, it’s going to enlarge our capacity, you know, to to live a full life, you know, with joy in it all the fruit of the spirit.

00;08;32;02 – 00;08;58;21
So prophecy has not ceased. Okay. Now some would probably say, okay. Yeah, the gifts, the gifts are there, whatever. But to to label someone a prophet or apostle, I don’t believe in that. Again, we’re going to look at that here. Another scripture that is used as First Corinthians 1310 says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when a perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

00;08;58;23 – 00;09;25;02
So this is another scripture that says Satanists would, claim that because the perfect the Word of God, they they believe that what that means when the perfect comes, it means the canon. Because the Bible, the written word, has been finalized. It’s a closed book now. It’s all there. We don’t need anything else. It’s all there. But that’s not.

00;09;25;07 – 00;09;51;10
That’s not what this is saying. Jesus, even just back up and consider, can God be limited to a written book? I don’t think so. The word is a person. It’s not a book. Jesus is the living word. Does he continue to speak today? Does God continue to speak today? I would hope so. Have they said? Has God said everything he’s going to say?

00;09;51;10 – 00;10;09;04
It’s just in the book. That’s it. Come on now God continues to reveal himself because he, he’s incomprehensible as it is, you know. Well, we’ll spend all eternity and still not know the fullness of who God is. No, God wants to speak to us. What do we do every day when we come in prayer? It’s a conversation.

00;10;09;04 – 00;10;28;14
Hopefully it’s not just one way we’re hearing from him. When you read the word, what are you getting? When you read the written word, why do you why do you read it? Is it just for rules? I go there for a relationship. I want to know who this God is. So what? I read scripture, he is revealing himself to me all the time.

00;10;28;16 – 00;11;06;07
This is why revelation has continued. Okay, it did not cease when the written word was complete. So I believe in revelation because I believe that God still speaks thus the living word is still speaking. Thus the Holy Spirit is still speaking and manifesting, who God is to us. Okay, so those are just a couple of scriptures in terms of, you know, the whole package of the gifts, and why I believe the gifts, the expressions of the Holy Spirit, the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, they still continue because they are for others to reveal who God is.

00;11;06;07 – 00;11;27;00
I think it’s an awesome thing. Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know that my latest I released, Wanda’s Notebook on Deliverance and Freedom is now available in print. It is an 8.5x 11 spiral-bound notebook, 100 pages of notes. I’ve been providing this as a PDF download which anyone, anywhere can get, and it’s available globally.

00;11;27;00 – 00;11;50;02
You can download it. But if you don’t want to take the time to print it out within the United States, I’m offering this notebook, in print so you can go to one to me. I’ll put the links below and you can get a hard copy. These include all of my study guides, my prayer notes, my different teachings and articles that I put out through the years on various aspects of deliverance.

00;11;50;04 – 00;12;20;22
Also, if you have not yet subscribed to WandaAlger.me and my latest updates. If you go to my home page and you subscribe, you will get a 20% discount, basically on the entire cart so you can get anything from my bookstore and get 20% off of everything. When you sign up to WandaAlger.me, you’ll get an email with my latest updates usually about once a week, and I include all of my recent posts, both video and written, as well as special offers, and resources for subscribers only.

00;12;20;24 – 00;12;45;05
So check it out at Wanda Eldridge me now let’s look at then. Okay. The the people, the you know, if we can say, okay, the gifts are still active, but what about the apostles and prophets? This whole thing. Ephesians 411 to 14. This is where it is very clear Jesus came to give us gifts. Actually, the father gave us gifts.

00;12;45;05 – 00;13;05;02
And Romans 12 and I’ve done a whole teaching on this before, to anybody, as soon as you’re born, God the Father has gifted us, with these gifts listed in Romans 12, because they’re they’re parts of his, his character, they’re attributes of God the Father that he just wanted to put in us, you know, to bless us.

00;13;05;05 – 00;13;29;08
And then we have gifts of the spirit that I just talked about. Those are gifts of the Holy Spirit. Well, guess what? Jesus also gave us gifts. And this this is what’s in Ephesians four. And it says, and he, Jesus gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds. That’s the pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

00;13;29;10 – 00;13;58;11
They’re building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Jesus gave. And then they list five different kinds of leaders. That’s what these these roles are. They’re leaders. They’re leaders in the body of Christ, given to equip.

00;13;58;13 – 00;14;32;17
That’s that’s the whole point of why Jesus gave us evangelists, pastors, teachers, which is a little bit easier, perhaps for the majority of us to relate to. But this same is true for apostles and prophets. These are gifts. It’s the people. If God Himself has has called us many times from birth. And this is what Jesus gave because Jesus Himself and I believe the reason that Jesus gave these gifts is because when He walked on the earth, He was all of these.

00;14;32;19 – 00;15;14;26
He was the apostle. He was the prophet, the evangelist, the shepherd, the teacher. He demonstrated all of these qualities of leadership that he demonstrated and taught. His disciples, mentored them in. And thus when he left, that’s why he said, I’m, you know, I’m going to give you the Holy Spirit, and then I’m going to give you now other leaders who are going to have these same qualities that I’ve demonstrated to you so that this work can continue of building up the body until, and see, this is this is the thing, you know, for those that would say, well, they stopped, why would it stop?

00;15;14;28 – 00;15;35;20
Did did they then when when the last apostle died, had they attained the unity of the faith and then the knowledge of the Son of God, were they mature to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ? No. This has been what we’ve been doing ever since Jesus came is that we are attaining to this.

00;15;35;26 – 00;16;02;01
This is, you know, the work, the challenge as the body of Christ, of coming together, that we can be one, adequate representation of who God the father is, of who Jesus is. This is why we need leaders. This is why we need equip those who can empower us to come together, that we can exhibit to the world adequate representation, who Jesus is.

00;16;02;05 – 00;16;26;15
Okay, so with that, I point to those who don’t believe in apostles and prophets because to me, there’s there’s clear scriptural precedent for these leadership roles to continue. You don’t find in any of of the Book of Acts or in the New Testament any indication that that these gifts were supposed to stop. And we’re going to look at that.

00;16;26;15 – 00;16;54;28
Okay. Especially Paul, because he wrote a lot of the New Testament of this apostolic work. There is a prophetic work, there is a pastoral ministry, there’s an evangelistic call. We get hung up on titles. And so this is my challenge to you as we continue to look at. And we’re going to specifically look at the apostle get rid of the title for now, because what we’re talking about is, is a function, it’s a gifting for a purpose.

00;16;55;01 – 00;17;28;05
And we have we have focused so much on titles, we’ve forgotten why Jesus even gave these gifts. Okay. And like I said, we’ve had a lot of bad examples, but there are good examples. If we if we look. So another scripture here, the apostle Paul in Romans one five, he says, through him Jesus and for his name’s sake we have received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.

00;17;28;08 – 00;17;51;05
So here’s Paul is talking about the apostolic ministry, the work of the apostle continuing. Why? What is it for is to call people from being lost to being saved, to coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That’s the purpose. Okay, now it’s very interesting. If you would know where that word apostle comes from. It’s not a word that Jesus coined.

00;17;51;05 – 00;18;15;03
And I’m sure, I’m sure some of you have already heard this, but I actually found, I went even deeper and I found this definition from Rick Renner. He’s, a known author, biblical scholar. I haven’t followed him necessarily, but I know he’s written a lot about this, and he had some good research on this. The word apostle, you know, the person coined it was Alexander the Great, in Rome.

00;18;15;05 – 00;18;50;21
And the word apostle means one that sent forth. And this is the beauty of it, that when Jesus used this word, the people in that day knew where that term came from. It was not a church term at all. No, it actually came from Roman culture. And so Rick, describes it this way during the time of the ancient, well, in Greece, the word apostolos, that’s the original Greek was a naval term that described an admiral, the fleet of ships that traveled with him, and the specialized crew who accompanied and assisted the admiral.

00;18;50;23 – 00;19;24;21
Interesting that fleet would be sent out to sea on a mission to locate territories where civilization was non-existent, was an uncivilized region, was identified. The admiral called the Apostolos, along with his specialized crew and all their cargo and belongings, would disembark, settle down, and work as a team to establish a new community. Then they would begin the process of transforming a strange land into a replica of life, as they believed it should be.

00;19;24;23 – 00;20;03;24
Their purpose was total colonization of the uncivilized territory. So it goes on to say with, you know, this special fleet, both the personnel and the cargo, their mission was to establish a new culture and new life, a new community. And basically once they did that, they would pull up stakes, and then they would go to the next uncivilized place to establish basically another Rome, because they were sent by Rome to go to these places, to then take that same culture, the beliefs, the mindsets, everything, and to establish it elsewhere.

00;20;03;26 – 00;20;26;17
So that was the term apostle. It was understood in Jesus’s time. So when he calls the 12 together as his apostles, it would be interesting to know what their reaction was, but they knew exactly what it meant that they were supposed to take what he had demonstrated to them about the kingdom of God. So that was the culture.

00;20;26;20 – 00;20;51;15
It wasn’t just, you know, life in Jerusalem. No, it was it was this unseen kingdom, this unseen, reality, spiritual reality of who we are as a people of God, knowing Jesus as Lord. This is what he commissioned them to do. I want you to go. When Jesus used this term, they knew what that meant to go, to be sent, because that’s what the word apostle means to be sent.

00;20;51;18 – 00;21;24;07
Because that’s what, Roman culture knew. So that was Jesus’s whole goal in sending out the disciples and sending them out as apostles. Go and share the gospel of the kingdom, not just gospel of salvation, and establish my kingdom wherever you go. That was the essence of it. And so as that stopped, I would hope not. If we look at that function and understand why Jesus sent that out, that’s what we’ve been doing ever since.

00;21;24;10 – 00;21;57;22
But in a lot of cultures or denominations, don’t use the word apostle, your missionary, your church planter, and we can use other terms. But if you look at the function of what an apostle did, what they were for, we’re still continuing that work today. And this is one of the points that I want to make in this whole thing, is that we focus again, so much on title and and if we go back to what it’s for, I think the arguments are going to really change and they’re really going to be lessened because we’re going to realize, no, this is still going on.

00;21;57;24 – 00;22;30;09
Now, another scripture that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 12:27 to 31. And here again, he’s he’s talking about these gifts of Jesus and recognizing that it is a call that not everyone is called to this. He says, now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. And God has placed in the church, first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.

00;22;30;12 – 00;22;58;09
That’s quite a list. Are all apostles are all prophets or all teachers? This is if the answer would be no. Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? I mean, the answer is no. Not everyone’s going to do this now. Eagerly desire the greater gifts. And then he goes into chapter 13, which is love.

00;22;58;11 – 00;23;24;16
If we look at the context of this, this is not to say, okay, now we just love one another and everything else doesn’t work anymore. We don’t need any of that. No, he’s talking about the order of which we prioritize our faith and how we view things and how we look at these gifts in these roles that we don’t try grab on to them, that that’s our identity.

00;23;24;16 – 00;23;47;06
That’s what’s most important is all these gifts. He says, just remember the greatest of everything that the Jesus has given you. It’s love. You know, it doesn’t matter. You know, you can you can prophesy. You can have gifts of faith and of healing. I mean, this is how the love chapter opens. But if you don’t have love, all those gifts are meaningless.

00;23;47;06 – 00;24;11;28
You didn’t say they’ve stopped. It’s just we’ve got to do it in love. So I say that to recognize that these gifts of leadership, they are given to some because it’s a leadership call. Not everyone is called to lead. And even as leaders, there’s different kinds of leaders. I mean, that’s the amazing thing. God is very creative, but he’s also very thorough and he has provided specially us.

00;24;12;01 – 00;24;31;11
And this is what we’re going to look at here. After a bit of you in describing, briefly, you know, what do these five leaders even look like? Because I guarantee you, if you’ve been to a church and you have a pastor, my guess is some of you, that individual may not even be a pastor. They may be an evangelist.

00;24;31;14 – 00;25;01;23
They may actually be more apostolic than pastoral. Okay, this is going to help some of you. So hang on. All right. Now, I want to pull some, things here in terms of just looking at apostle. All right. Again, helping us to shift our thinking from the title to the function. And I want to I want to give a shout out to our network of churches that we are part of, of Christian Fellowship International, because the founder of that ministry, Larry Crider, this this has been his call.

00;25;01;25 – 00;25;33;05
Dove is an apostolic ministry most known for planting churches, because this has always been Larry’s heart. And the majority of the churches are actually outside the United States. And we have so appreciated the teaching that he has done through the years and how this network, the leadership in this network, have modeled such healthy leadership. And I just I want to cite, Larry’s written over 40 books on this and two that I want to call your attention to, and I’ll put the links below.

00;25;33;10 – 00;25;57;04
Training for Elders and Church leadership, which is really a handbook if you are in church leadership, if you are a pastor, if you’re wanting more helps in what even, you know, helps to can you get to form a healthy elder team or even within a local congregation? What kind of accountability, you know, is there that Scripture would indicate excellent teaching training for elders in church leadership?

00;25;57;06 – 00;26;23;22
The other kind of flagship message that Larry has preached for years is the cry for spiritual fathers and mothers. Now, that term spiritual fathering has become a trigger to some because it’s one of those things, like a lot of these, you know, gifts, whatever they they’ve been overused, misapplied, abused. But they’re there is a real need for spiritual fathers and mothers.

00;26;23;22 – 00;26;48;20
Okay. Today, and this has really been the heart behind, Larry Laverne’s ministry all of these years is is having leaders, servant leaders who really care for the body of Christ like a mother and father would like a healthy mother and father would. And so those are two books I just want to, you know, point out to you if you’d like to explore that further.

00;26;48;23 – 00;27;14;16
And so he does a lot of training in what it means, you know, to be apostolic. And he suggests, and I’ve heard this elsewhere, that there, there are there are two different kinds of apostles listed in the New Testament, the 12 apostles of Christ. There’s no question there’s only 12. Okay. The 12 that Jesus chose are the 12 found in Luke 6:13.

00;27;14;16 – 00;27;47;11
It says, when morning came, he called his disciples to him, and chose 12 of them whom he also designated apostles. Okay, so yes, that is their class all of their own. However, the New Testament mentions more than 20 additional apostles who served the early church. Okay, so a few mentions here. Acts 1414 but when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd.

00;27;47;13 – 00;28;15;27
He, Barnabas, and Paul were not part of the original 12, and yet they are called apostles. James, the Lord’s brother, is mentioned in Galatians 118 and 18. Paul is saying that after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with CPAs and stayed with him 15 days. I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the Lord’s brother. Well, again, James was not a part of the original 12, but here he was called an apostle.

00;28;15;29 – 00;28;37;22
And then in first Corinthians four nine, actually that chapter, Paul is traveling with Apollos and talking about he and Apollos working together. And so he says, for I think that God has exhibited us, exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death. And he’s talking about the work of the apostles and the challenges with it.

00;28;37;24 – 00;29;00;21
So, you know, there’s numerous other, places in the New Testament that speak of apostles beyond the 12. It never stop. The apostolic function of these leaders never stopped because Jesus’s commission, I mean, it really only began, you know, when he left and and he and the Holy Spirit was poured out. That was the beginning of this reproducing.

00;29;00;24 – 00;29;28;03
Okay. And this is key in understanding even five fold, ministries, because that’s what, kind of the terminology that’s used when we’re talking about these five leadership gifts that Jesus has given. It’s the five fold ministers they are given to equip, to empower, to reproduce themselves. That’s how the kingdom is expanded. I mean, even in church planting, when you’re a missionary, what happens?

00;29;28;06 – 00;29;54;13
You know, these missionaries, they go and they plan to church. They make disciples who make disciples, who make disciples. I mean, that’s that’s the heart and the essence of good leadership, the kind that Jesus gave, okay, is that we reproduce ourselves because we want to see the kingdom expand. Okay. Another scripture, first Corinthians three 1011. The apostolic function is to build foundations.

00;29;54;15 – 00;30;21;09
I know I had the reference here of building on the foundation of the apostles and prophets in that scripture. It’s not just talking about, okay, the original 12. They did everything that was supposed to be done, and now it’s done. You know, there’s no more to add to it. It’s not what it means. If these apostles are supposed to go other places to establish the kingdom of God, that means you have to lay a foundation there.

00;30;21;12 – 00;30;58;06
You’ve got we’re always laying foundations, because that’s the work. When you’re discipling someone, when you’re bringing someone into this new kingdom reality, they need discipling. They need those foundations put into place. That’s the apostolic work. That’s what an apostle thinks. Like another, scripture. And this kind of gets to the idea of this heart of a father and mother, because the apostle Paul recognizes in first Corinthians 414 to 17 he says, I’m writing this not to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children, you know how many times he called, believers, his children.

00;30;58;08 – 00;31;34;03
So he he had this father heart. He says, even if you had 10,000 guardians in Christ. Now, some translations, actually, I think they use the word teachers. But you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. So he’s making a differentiation here that, you know, you can have a teaching gift, you can have an evangelistic gift, but but when you have a heart like like a father or a mother, it’s not just about what you do.

00;31;34;06 – 00;31;59;27
It’s not just about teaching or bringing someone to Jesus. It’s about carrying for, for someone long term caring for churches long term. So again, it just goes back to the heart and the motivation, okay. Behind, even all the five world leaders, because of their desire to reproduce themselves like a mom and dad reproduce, you know what Jesus did?

00;31;59;27 – 00;32;23;25
That is the heart. And because of the nature of this, a true servant leader, which really, all any of these should be servant leaders. Okay? Because that’s what we’re finding right now with all these exposures and all of these unhealthy practices. Unfortunately, we’ve had too many leaders who have made it all about themselves, building their platform, building their ministry.

00;32;23;27 – 00;32;55;01
They’re not reproducing anybody. They’re just calling everyone to themselves. That is totally not scriptural. You don’t find that anywhere. What you find is the true heart of a servant leader in these roles is to to undergird others, to build them up. And thus some of the most effective apostolic leaders, even prophetic ministers. You’re not going to see a lot of what they do because they’re they’re undergirding.

00;32;55;05 – 00;33;35;24
They are reproducing themselves. Their heart is to so get beside others and stir others to do things. It’s not about them. I hope I’m I’m building a case for you here. The scripture that I was referencing earlier was in Ephesians 2:19. The 22 says, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

00;33;35;26 – 00;33;59;24
In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. Obviously, as the people of God. It’s not a building, it’s not a ministry that is kind of the container or perhaps even the wineskin for who we are as a people. But we are always being built as a people, and we always need to revisit these foundations.

00;33;59;27 – 00;34;36;18
This is what we’re doing right now as these corrupted practices, as these sins are coming forward and as we’re realizing the lack of accountability, the lack of health, we’ve got some cracked foundations. I mean, that’s not what they they established in Jesus’s time. No. So we need to be rebuilding. I mean, even the Old Testament prophets, you know, spoke about this and, you know, rebuilding the ancient walls, you know, and putting in those stones again, because it’s going to be broken down.

00;34;36;20 – 00;35;03;16
Yeah. We’ve got some broken foundations, we’ve got some cracks, we’ve got some holes in in some of our foundational beliefs and practices that that we need to reform. This is why we need good apostolic leaders, prophetic leaders. And so let’s look at this. This is kind of how I’m going to win this thing down, is I want to just briefly look at these five gifts, not just the apostles and prophets, but all of them, okay?

00;35;03;16 – 00;35;29;04
Because again, you can’t just pick and choose. You can’t say, in in this list for Ephesians 4. Well, yeah, we believe in pastors. We believe in teachers and evangelists, but not apostles and prophets. It doesn’t even make sense, because Scripture does not bear that out. And so we just need to have a better understanding of what kinds of leaders these are, because they’re really specialists.

00;35;29;04 – 00;35;57;14
That’s the beauty of it. I mean, Jesus exhibited the fullness of all of these, but he has raised up and called certain leaders to specialized areas. So just let’s just take a look at this, okay? The first one, apostles, I’ve kind of been laying a case here for the work of an apostle. They are usually church planters, missionaries, builders in some denominations at.

00;35;57;17 – 00;36;25;02
The fact is, there’s so many apostles today. They just don’t carry that that title. But even in a church setting, because remember what I said, I’m going to challenge you to consider, okay, what about just in your church or maybe the last church you were part of or whatever? Consider that pastor and recognize, you know, the term pastor is actually only used one time in the New Testament, and that’s only in one translation, the New Testament.

00;36;25;02 – 00;36;52;03
Actually, the term used, is Shepherd, the term pastor, especially in the United States, is purely cultural, and everyone is just labeled a pastor. If you have a church, whoever’s in charge is the pastor. And yet they might not actually have the grace or the calling, the specialized gifting of a pastor. They may actually be an evangelist. They may actually be more of a teacher.

00;36;52;05 – 00;37;16;17
And the reason I love teaching on this is because it actually helps us to recognize the kind of leader that God has given us, and to celebrate it, rather than complaining. Why is it my pastor more like this? And if you can realize, well, maybe that what you’re looking for, that particular leader was graced differently, so maybe celebrate that.

00;37;16;24 – 00;37;41;16
Okay, so an apostolic pastor, if you if you have a pastor or a church leader who is an apostle, probably starting a lot of ministries, initiating, building projects, they know how to grow big visionaries. They are delegating, a lot of authority. You know, they’ve got others who are doing the work of ministry. They’re probably church planting.

00;37;41;18 – 00;37;59;16
They’re training up others. They love to resource. I mean, this is the mindset, the motivation in an apostolic leader. They want to go out and conquer. They want to, you know, go out and do things that and they’re pioneers. Apostolic leaders are pioneers. They’re always thinking of new things to do. All right. Which is different than a pastor, which we’ll get to.

00;37;59;16 – 00;38;44;22
Okay. Well, so what about prophets? Okay. Because we’ve seen a lot of bad prophets, false prophets, fake prophets, counterfeit prophets, whatever. There are real prophets. Yes, there are, but what would a prophetic leader look like? Why would God do that? Well, if the gifts of the spirit are in operation today, what would it be wonderful to have a leader that was specifically and uniquely graced and called and empowered by Jesus to actually help facilitate that, nurture that gift, do some quality control, do some accountability so that those gifts really are operated and they they can function in a way that brings health and life to a church.

00;38;44;24 – 00;39;06;24
Well, that’s why God has gifted prophets. It’s not to just predict the future or to do this for ministry. The true fivefold function of a prophetic leader is to bring people to an awareness of the work and person of the Holy Spirit, and to actually work alongside the other leaders in the church. Okay, to add that part to it.

00;39;06;26 – 00;39;40;23
So usually if you have a pastor or a leader that is prophetic, that is a prophet, oftentimes they’re intercessors, worshipers, revivalists, because all of those, gifts are in touch with with the spiritual realities. Okay. Because that’s the unique thing about prophets is hearing from the Lord receiving that fresh revelation from the Lord. You know, you can have a goal or an agenda and someone who’s prophetic is always ask the Holy Spirit, okay, now how do you want us to walk this out?

00;39;40;28 – 00;40;02;11
What do we need to be aware of? Give us some fresh understanding of what you want us to do next. That is what a prophet is therefore. And so prophets, if you have a prophetic leader, you probably have a church full of intercessors and full of worshipers. You got the flaggers and the dancers. Because that is the heart of a prophet.

00;40;02;11 – 00;40;46;10
A true prophet is to bring others into this relationship, ship with the Holy Spirit. The third part of the Trinity. Yes, he is a person. And so that’s what the prophets want the people of God to do. And a true prophet is going to reproduce that hunger and that desire. A true prophet is not just going to be focusing on giving you words or, predicting things, but a true prophet is going to be reproducing that same hunger and desire to know God intimately daily in a fresh way, and that there is fresh revelation coming, that that’s part of that gift is to bring that fresh revelation just a new understanding.

00;40;46;12 – 00;41;09;28
That’s who God is. Oh, that’s what you mean. That’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s why we need this gift. Okay, evangelists. Okay. We should know what an evangelist does. An evangelist is has a grace just to go out and get. People say, if you have an evangelistic pastor, you’re probably having baptisms, like every week, if not every other week.

00;41;10;00 – 00;41;33;25
I mean, it’s almost classic. You can tell who really has that evangelistic call because they are so passionate to get people saved. And so they’re always making altar calls. They’re they’re bringing in him and they’re celebrating how many more we got baptized. You know, this week or this month. And they’re usually growing their church, churches, evangelists. They grow large churches because they have that grace to bring people into the kingdom.

00;41;33;28 – 00;42;16;20
Sometimes they don’t go as deep in their teaching or their theology because they’re always reaching out. They just they just want to get people in there. Not necessarily graced in the same way as a teacher or an apostle or prophet would be. But obviously we need evangelists, right? Pastors, guard and shepherd. I mean, that’s really and this has been some of the tension that we’ve seen, in recent years is a people are looking to pastors to be more prophetic, you know, in calling out sin or and bringing attention to things, or even, being evangelistic or apostolic, you know, big vision people and growing and being more assertive.

00;42;16;23 – 00;42;37;26
The heart of a pastor, a shepherd, is just to guard and nurture the flock. That is their grace. That is their primary motivation. I want to take care of the people that I have, that pastors are not interested in conquering. By and large, you know, they are looking for the safety of the sheep. They’re not thinking how they can expand and who they can bring in there.

00;42;37;26 – 00;43;04;17
You know, and really, most true pastors don’t have big churches because they love to be so hands on. They want to take care of everyone. They really feel responsible for it. And so they can only handle maybe 200 people, 250. That’s pretty much max for for a true pastor. We have I mean, the majority of churches, probably in this nation, our community, churches led by pastors, we need them because they’re like families.

00;43;04;17 – 00;43;27;06
That’s where we feel safe. I mean, it’s beautiful. Teachers, teachers are gifted in digging deep into Scripture. If you have a teacher as a as a lead pastor in your church, you probably have a lot of series teaching series. My husband, Bobby, is a strong teacher. And so he he rarely does a stand-alone sermon.

00;43;27;06 – 00;43;49;14
It’s always a series because he loves teaching. He has a gift of teaching the Word of God in a way that because a true teacher not only teaches, but he incites this desire to learn. You know, when you listen to a teacher, I mean, they dig deep into things, but it gives you that same hunger to dig into the Word of God, to learn, to grow.

00;43;49;16 – 00;44;16;19
A teacher is needed because they help establish sound doctrine. And Lord knows we need that. They will examine things. Oftentimes, they’re the quality control agents within a church because they’re always checking. Wait a minute. Is this biblically accurate? Is this what Scripture says? So you can see, you know, just this brief overview of these five specialty kinds of leaders.

00;44;16;21 – 00;45;00;16
Every one of them is important. Every one of them is needed to be healthy as the body of Christ, to think that we can just survive and thrive even on just evangelists, pastors, teachers know we need apostolic ministry, we need prophetic ministry. And yes, there’s been a lot of abuse, but my case that I have tried to present to you, is that Jesus always intended that these roles continue until we all attain maturity, unity in the faith that we fully represent, who Christ is, who Jesus was when He walked here.

00;45;00;18 – 00;45;35;08
That’s the desire. So until that happens, I don’t see these gifts ceasing. I don’t see these functions stopping. We need good models. We need good examples so that all the detractors and critics that say they don’t exist because of all the abusers, we need to shift those arguments. I know of many healthy, life giving, reproducing apostles and prophets, as well as pastors, teachers, and evangelists.

00;45;35;11 – 00;46;03;01
They’re all needed. We need to be healthy. And and the Lord wants us to be healthy. You know something? I thought about that this morning again, thinking about getting past the titles. We’ve often been told in all of these examinations, you know, all these leaders, lately we look at the fruit, know them by their fruits. Well, which kind again, have we focused so much just on, on the fruit of their ministry?

00;46;03;03 – 00;46;29;08
Is that the ultimate test? The fact is, any believer can operate in a spiritual gift. Gifts are given freely by the Holy Spirit. You don’t get to a certain point, you know, in your spiritual maturity right now. The words okay, now you’re old enough, now you’re mature enough. I’ll give you a gift. I mean, on the day of Pentecost, as soon as the Holy Spirit was poured out, everyone was speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues, I mean, the gifts were poured out.

00;46;29;10 – 00;46;58;03
Any believer can operate in a spiritual gift that is not the true test of their character. Perhaps if we tested the fruit of the spirit just as much as the fruit of the ministry, we’d have better discernment. Because that’s again why these gifts are given the gifts of the spirit. Yes, that can reveal who who Christ is the fruit of the spirit that reveals who we are.

00;46;58;05 – 00;47;37;15
And right now it’s being tested is not just the gifts, it’s the vessels and thus the fruit of the spirit. We need to pay much more attention to. And if we understand the function of these gifts and why Jesus gave these gifts to the church, we’ll know where to look for, and we’ll help establish some new foundation stones in the years to come whereby we can consider character just as important as the gifts, how we relate to one another, how we work together, how we build together, and what ultimately are we building?

00;47;37;18 – 00;48;05;17
Are we extending the kingdom? That’s what we’re supposed to be doing, not building our own, but building His. So I hope that this has been helpful for you. There’s a lot more that I’m going to be doing in future videos. I wanted to lay this foundation because we are going to be looking at the New Apostolic Reformation and and some of the specific criticisms aimed against the NAR leaders.

00;48;05;19 – 00;48;21;20
And we’re we’re going to have some good conversation about that, because we do need to examine it. I’m also going to be interviewing some folks, and we’re going to examine the prophetic movement pros and cons. You know, what have been the mistakes, that we’ve made. But yet what are the things that we want to hold on to?

00;48;21;20 – 00;48;42;19
What what are those faith practices and, and things that we’ve learned that we need to continue doing? This is a time of reformation of examination. So let’s do it thoughtfully. Let’s do it scripturally. Let’s be practical, and let’s learn together. So, again, do to want to join me? I have a lot more resources on all of these things.

00;48;42;19 – 00;49;04;23
I’ve got a great topical, section in my resource page. You can even do word searches, because I’ve got years of materials, PDF downloads, articles, videos on a lot of these things. But we are going to be talking more ahead in the days to come. So please subscribe to this channel. Like it? Share it. We’d love to hear your comments and your questions, because I do read all the comments.

00;49;04;28 – 00;49;21;06
And if you have questions, if it does need clarity, anything that I’ve said, I would love to be able to address that in the future. So thanks for staying this far and blessings. Until next time.

Wanda Alger is an ordained and commissioned fivefold leader who has been in ministry for more than 35 years and is passionate about interpreting life from Heaven’s perspective. She is called to speak to the Body of Christ about the mountain of government, godly leadership, and Kingdom authority. Her blogs, videos, books, and other resources are available at wandaalger.me.