Tower and Town, October 1986

UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
AND IN THE CHURCH TODAY: III

Father Kelly's 'follow-up' of my article (July 1986 pp 3, 4) enables me to make one or two points clearer.

One of the great joys of my study leave was that I was able to give much of the time to looking at Christ's teach ing in the New Testament. As Fr. Kelly says: Jesus clearly called twelve Apostles, called them to the last supper, gave them a leader and commissioned them to go out in his name.

But it is the New Testament itself which compels us to go on from this to ask, What is the significance of three other Apostles, Paul, Barnabas and James, the brother of the Lord (Acts 15)? Was the authority given to the Twelve different from that given to Paul and Barnabas? Why do we hear virt ually nothing in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles about the Twelve and very little about their leader? If Peter and the other Ten plus Matthias had been given an absolute authority by Jesus, how is it that Paul seems in his letters to know nothing about it and certainly does not recognise it? (Galations 1 & 2).

If Jesus gave to the Twelve Apostles authority to lay down regulations for the Church and to organise a ministry, what the New Testament says is very puzzling.

If, on the contrary, Jesus left to the Twelve the authority to preach the message about repentance and forgiveness (Luke 24 v.47), and a command to share bread and cup in re membrance of him, to love one another and be united to him (Jn 15v.4), the New Testament makes sense.

This also makes sense of the fact the pattern of leader ship in the Church differed in Jerusalem (Acts 15) from that in the earlier Pauline Churches ( 1 Cor 12 & Eph 4) which differed from that at Philippi (1) and that mentioned in 1 Peter. Leadership in the Pastorals differs from that in Hebrews or Revelation.

Does not the New Testament itself make us question whether the Churches have been right to claim that one particular form of ministry is the one true apostolic ministry?

Christ's Church has an authority and requires ministry. We do indeed need to go back to the New Testament to look again to ask 'What sort of authority and what sort(s) of ministry'?

Wilfred Down