Please read the comments above. That was the first question asked in response to this post and my answer follows.

Thanks – Stan

I’m curious why you include Paul among the 12. Wouldn’t that make 13?

I think the first step is to get the truth of Scripture in front of the people. Afterall, we claim that the Bible is our standard in matters of faith and practice. So, I’m all for letting Scripture be the judge of what we believe and what we do.

I’m approaching this from the standpoint of a teacher. It may be that God has to raise up prophets to call His wayward people back in this regard.

Thanks for your comment!

Thank you again for your continued encouragement!

You’re more than welcome to use the quote.

Keep coming back here too. I’ve got a few more posts about apostles yet to come.

In many situation we are finding that families pretty much disown those who abandon the Catholic religion to follow Jesus according to the Bible alone. I have not seen physical persecution in the South of Brazil; it is more of a psychological or emotional persecution from family members. In some areas that are staunchly Catholic people lose their jobs for becoming followers of Christ. This is economic persecution. I have heard accounts of physical persecution, but this seems to be less common today than it was in years past.

Part of difficulties mentioned stem from an individual approach to evangelism. Using individual evangelism methods which are very common in the US, the family of the former Catholic do not know what the person has been taught or what he or she has come to believe. They often assume he or she has become part of a sect or has been brainwashed.

When we are able to enter the home the whole family sees what is being taught and understands that teaching when one leaves the Catholic religion. There is still often some difficulty, but it does not seem to be as severe. And, in some instances, the whole family becomes followers of Jesus rather than Mary, the Saints or the Pope.

Since Constantine outlawed house church and started building church buildings we have lost the NT reality of the church and the God designed leadership for it. The “church” as it exists today in the West has virtually nothing to the church of the NT where form and function are concerned.

Speaking specifically in relation to apostles there is an interdependence of function that must be understood in order to know how the puzzle pieces fit together. I plan to explore that in future posts on the subject of apostles today.