The Five-Fold Ministry

In the year 1832 the Catholic Apostolic Church sought to restore the “five-fold ministry”. They ordained 12 Apostles and it was prophesied the they would be the last apostles to appear before the Millennial Age when Christ appears. However, when those apostles died, so did that movement.

Without relation to the aforementioned, in 1896 the Christian Apostolic Church embarked on the same endeavor, to restore the “five-fold ministry”, with its founder being named its first apostle after receiving a “divine revelation” that he was called to be so. This movement however, also died after the death of its first apostle.

In 1906, the Azusa Street Revivals also began to revive the “five-fold ministry” along with other spiritual gifts within their movement. While the influence of the movement sparked out of these revivals still resonates with Pentecostals today, the fire for a restoration of the “five-fold ministry” fizzled out until the Charismatic Movement took shape in the 1960s. However it faded again in the 1970s.

In 1996 a man named Peter Wagner began to introduce the New Apostolic Movement. It is from this movement that we see the many Apostolic-Prophetic churches, reformation, communions, etc. emerging today.

I say all of this to say that this “apostolic-prophetic” and restoration of a “five-fold ministry” ecclesiastical doctrine is not even 200 years old. There is no mention in the bible at all of a cessation of any office within The Church and its heroic revival 1,800 years later. Since none of the Apostles who actually walked with, touched, heard in the flesh, witnessed the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of The Lord Jesus Christ mentioned it, in holy writ or by holy tradition, 👇🏽

IT IS NOT REALLY APOSTOLIC NOR IS IT PROPHETIC

It may actually be an illegitimate operation of ministry, since no gift in scripture has ever actually disappeared. All that Christ has given to His Church has been guided, guarded, and given by The Holy Spirit within The Church for the last 2000 years. There is no need to revive what has never died.