Can The Ministries And Offices Of The Church Be Counterfeited?
We know that the ministries and offices of the Church are counterfeited. Every gift of God, including salvation, is counterfeited. By their fruits shall you know them. The Scriptural order is very plain.
The counterfeits:
There are many instances where authority is claimed but a man or an organization is glorified. Anyone would know that this is not from God.
A friend of mine went to a seminar where anyone who wanted it could purchase the right to be a "five-fold ministry." What would make anyone believe they could purchase something like this? It really brings to mind Simon the Sorceror.
There is a group that saw, in Scripture, that there has to be apostles in the Church. They didn't see any, so they simply decided to be the apostles. Rather than wait on God, they just usurped the authority.
There are groups of apostles that function under a one-man ministry. That is, there is a local pastor who set up some people under his or her authority and gave those people the title of apostle. Apostle means, "one sent," and they were sent by man not by God.
There are those who are called apostles but are not under the headship of all the other apostles. They desire to be maverick. That is not scriptural.
There is a very plain scriptural order of apostles. It is obvious that they are here until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. They will be here until that happens, and we must build the Church according to the pattern God has given us in Scripture.
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