apostle

1. 1. Apostle One of a group made up especially of the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus to preach the gospel.
   2. A missionary of the early Christian Church.
   3. A leader of the first Christian mission to a country or region.
2. One of the 12 members of the administrative council in the Mormon Church.
3. 1. One who pioneers an important reform movement, cause, or belief: an apostle of conservation.
   2. A passionate adherent; a strong supporter.

[Middle English, from Old English apostol and from Old French apostle, both from Late Latin apostolus, from Greek apostolos, messenger, from apostellein, to send off : apo-, apo- + stellein, to send.]

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noun

A person doing religious or charitable work in a foreign country: evangelist, missionary, missioner. See religion.

Definition: advocate
Antonyms: critic, opponent

Conventional Christian language tends to identify the term "apostle" with the twelve closest companions of Jesus during his public ministry, hence to fix the expression "the Twelve Apostles" (Matt 10:2; Luke 22:14) as a point of reference for the historic foundation of institutional Christianity. Luke's gospel offers the simplified rationale for this conventional usage in its report of the choice of "the Twelve": "And when it was day, he called his disciples to him, and from them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles," (Luke 6:13; cf Acts 1:2). According to Luke's second book, the Acts of the Apostles, the eleven left after Judas' defection had to choose his replacement in the established circle of twelve from among the larger pool of those "who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John�" (Acts 1:21-22). Luke thus paints the orderly picture of the origins of the Church which most people have: "apostles" were its founding authorities because they could vouch for its tradition about Jesus from comprehensive personal experience (Acts 13:31).

Yet even Luke, who seems to presume an equation of "the Twelve" and "the apostles", accords "apostle" status to the missionaries Barnabas and Paul in his account of the early Pauline missions in Asia Minor (Acts 14:4, 14). How could it be that Paul, who had no contact with Jesus during his earthly life, was classified as an "apostle" and even made vigorous claim to the title in his letters ? (I Cor 9:1; 15:8-11; II Cor 12:11-12; Gal 1:1). His membership in the apostolic circle, even as "the least of the apostles" (I Cor 15:9), puts the prerequisite of companionship with the earthly Jesus in serious doubt.

Luke's prescription for Judas' successor did, however, include one feature which Paul could boast: namely the status of a witness of the resurrection (Acts 1:22). Paul's own list of resurrection witnesses, tailored to imply a closed series of which his experience was "the last of all" (I Cor 15:8), includes an appearance to "more than five hundred brethren at once" (I Cor 15:6) which effectively disqualifies "resurrection witness" as an adequately specific criterion for the apostle-status. Moreover, Paul's list further confuses the conventional picture by mentioning "the Twelve" and "all the apostles" separately in the appearance-series, clearly implying that, so far as he and his community knew, the two groups did not coincide after all (I Cor 15:5, 7). Correspondingly, the names which Paul mentions elsewhere in connection with the office of apostle – including "Andronicus and Junias" at Rome (Rom 16:7), "James, the Lord's brother in Jerusalem" (Gal 1:19; cf I Cor 15:7), perhaps even his own co-workers, Sylvanus and Timothy (I Thes 1:1) – range far beyond the lists of names of the Twelve given by the gospels and Acts, which, for that matter, are not consistent among themselves (Matt 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13). All that can be concluded from Paul's evidence, therefore, is that although he knew the apostles as a closed circle to which he gained belated entrance as "last of all" (I Cor 15:8), he does not identify that circle with "the Twelve" of Jesus' ministry but includes several names associated with the development of the Gentile mission as well as those who were "apostles before me" at Jerusalem (Gal 1:17). Paul builds the argument for his own claim to apostolic status upon some fixed credentials of "apostle of Jesus Christ," but these were apparently so well known to his audiences that he never needed to list them (Rom 1:1-5; I Cor 9:1-6; 15:1-11; II Cor 11:5-15; 12:11-13; Gal 1:1-17). Consequently, his interpreter of today has to piece them together from mostly unspoken premises of his arguments, and the results of this are far from conclusive.

Research of the Greek word apostolos is not much more productive of decisive norms for the office. The noun's relation to the very "send" apostellein is illustrated in the one use the fourth evangelist makes of the former (John 13:16). In Greek usage outside the Bible, this relationship is found mostly in reference to military and maritime expeditions, without the distinctive NT sense of an authorized "envoy". The Greek translation of the OT approaches that sense once, the only time it uses the noun (I Kgs 14:6). Only if we press our search beyond the precise word apostolos can we find a material parallel to the office of apostle, which heads the list of Church functions given twice in the Pauline letters (I Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11). The legal institution of the envoy-delegate, who carried the same authority and commanded the same respect as the person he represented, was legislated by the Talmud (cf Mishnah Berakhot 5:5) and comes close to the NT institution. But since the rabbinical provision was not confined to religious matters and is of uncertain origin, its influence on the NT cannot be demonstrated.

It looks finally as if "apostle" might be a language-innovation made by earliest Christianity, even though the usage was already fixed by the time of Paul's earliest writing. "Apostles of Jesus Christ" were fully authorized delegates of the risen Christ, dispatched by his personal revelation (Eph 2:20; 3:5) and, with the charismatic prophets, itinerant founders of the earliest Christian communities. By analogy, the authorized envoys of these communities in dealings with the rest of Christendom were sometimes called "messengers of the churches" (II Cor 8:23). There was, however, a unique apostolic charism of embodying the Lord's own person, and this accounts for the special play Paul gives to his personal embodiment of both the sufferings of Christ and the principle of salvation "by the grace of God" (I Cor 4:9-13; 15:9-10; II Cor 11:21-12:13; Gal 1:13-17; Phil 3:4-11). His theology of the cross applied to the apostolic mandate put a higher value on suffering for the mission than on the "signs and wonders and mighty deeds" (II Cor 12:12) which others relied on as the "signs of an apostle."

The twelve men chosen by Jesus to follow him and to spread the gospel after his death. They included Peter, James, John, Thomas, Matthew, and Judas Iscariot (who was later replaced). Paul, even though he was not one of the Twelve, is generally considered an apostle because of his crucial role in the spread of Christianity.

Tutor's tip: An "apostle" (one who preaches the gospel) may make an "apostil/apostille" (marginal note) in his or her books.

Dansk (Danish)
n. - apostel, forkynder, missionær

Nederlands (Dutch)
apostel (bijbel), vertegenwoordiger, leidende figuur

Français (French)
n. - (Hist, Relig, fig) apôtre

Deutsch (German)
n. - Apostel

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (θρησκ., μτφ.) απόστολος

Italiano (Italian)
apostolo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - apóstolo (m), líder (m) religioso ou moralista

Русский (Russian)
апостол, поборник, сторонник

Español (Spanish)
n. - apóstol

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - apostel

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
传道者, 最初的传道者, 使徒

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 傳道者, 最初的傳道者, 使徒

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 사도, 선구자

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 使者, 使徒, 開祖, 主唱者

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) هامش أو حاشيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מבשר של הבשורה הנוצרית, שליח או נציג, כל אחד מ-21 תלמידיו של ישו, מנהיג דגול, המיסיונר הנוצרי הראשון בארץ מסוימת‬

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