NAR stands for the New Apostolic Reformation. I did not know the movement existed but only found out the past few years. Now I’m keyed in. It’s a disaster.
Trigger warning to all apostles and prophets of NAR. I’m a teacher. And I’m about to teach Scripture. So buckle up.
Let’s begin.
The notion that apostles lead the churches comes, among other places, from 1 Corinthians 12:28, where Paul writes: “And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, leading, various kinds of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:28). NAR assumes that first … second … third is a hierarchy.
First = apostles= top tier
Second = prophets = below the apostle
Third = teachers = lower level.
Thus teachers push rules and being doctrinally right, front and center in the church. They slow down the top two tiers.
This is full-scale NAR, and this movement is turning into a disaster. The idea to denigrate teachers, pastors, administrators, and evangelists comes from C. Peter Wagner’s book Churchquake! For him, it is all about apostles and prophets overseeing local church governments. This explains why so many pastors and evangelists claim to be apostles nowadays, when they are really just pastors and evangelists. They truly believe they are restoring the Scriptural teaching on church government.
However, Wagner defined apostleship too broadly, and this is causing NAR to shipwreck. Pastors and evangelists are out of line and have become inflated beyond their true calling. They are deceived. They have become arrogant, and God himself opposes arrogant people (1 Peter 5:5-6).
Another interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12:28 is possible, however. First … second … third are terms used in a simple list, without hierarchy. Note the other gifts that follow: miracles, and leading (also translated as ability to lead, administrates, or manage). Those gifts are just as valid as the first three in the same verse. No hierarchy needed. But I concede I cannot emphatically prove the hierarchy wrong by the other gifts in the verse. I believe, however, the list is the better exegesis. But I’m just a teacher, so why would NAR care about my interpretation?
NAR leaders need to find a passage that shows Paul appointing apostles and prophets to lead a local church. No. He appointed elders or overseers or pastors (functionally equivalent). He told Titus to appoint elders in every town on Crete (Titus 1:5) and Timothy to shore up the elders / overseers and deacons in Ephesus, to ensure they meet high qualifications (1 Tim. 3:1-13). He never once said to appoint apostles or prophets. Just the opposite. Elders who work hard at preaching and teaching (word and doctrine) are to receive double honor in leading local churches (1 Tim. 5:17).
So what are apostles? Clearly they are itinerant missionaries. In the Great Commission, Jesus commissioned the eleven to go into all the world and disciple nations, teaching them to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:18-20). In the last chapter of Luke’s Gospel, he commissioned the eleven (and others) to go into the world and proclaim repentance and forgiveness (Luke 24:47-48). If you accept the longer ending of Mark, Jesus appeared to the eleven and commissioned them to go into all the world (Mark 16:14-15). He did the same for the eleven in Acts (1:8). Acts 13-14 is about Paul’s and Barnabas’s first missionary journey, and they are called apostles (Acts 14:4). The entire second half of Acts is about Paul’s itinerant, on-the-move ministry.
What those verses have in common is that apostles are sent out to unevangelized territories. They are not sedentary pastors / overseers / elders. They are not network leaders to every church that joins their cause. In contrast, modern apostles are settled down in big, luxurious houses, leading their networks from their jacuzzi, chillin’.
Therefore, since apostles are itinerant, it would make no sense for Paul to tell Titus and Timothy to appoint apostles to lead the local churches. Apostles are on the move, always traveling. And another reason: Paul told the Romans that he was going on to Spain after his visit to them (Rom. 15:24, 28). He does not like to preach where Christ is already known and build on another man’s foundation (Rom. 15:20). No one should build on Paul’s foundation either, though certain super-apostles tried.
Early church historian Eusebius (c. AD 260/265 – 30 May AD 339) reports that the twelve (and others) did go out into the world as missionaries.
What about the kind of apostles who function as messengers or representatives or emissaries of the churches? They too are on the move, leaving and arriving and communicating messages to local churches. They don’t seem to have any extra authority. They follow orders.
We now have zoom calls and emails. Maybe these formats can replace the traveling apostle-messengers. Does Bill Johnson and the countless number of other apostles popping up everywhere, who are really just glorified, inflated pastors and evangelists, want to be called :”Apostles of Church Zoom Calls and Emails”? I doubt it.
Apostles are also called scum of the earth, garbage of the world (1 Cor. 4:13). Do today’s apostles want to be called scum and garbage and earth bound? Not on NAR’s definition.
Paul would not recognize NAR’s description of an apostle.
NAR leaders also teach the dumbest things, like astral projections, flying up into heaven to battle principalities and powers. They teach that you have to travel back in time to forgive, rather than just forgiving people who abused you in the past. They teach the courts of heaven, a complicated Gnostic doctrine. No, just approach God’s throne of grace boldly and confidently (Heb. 4:16). They teach that powerful Christians will not have gray hair or ageing faces. Never mind that Scripture honors age and gray hair:
Gray hair is a crown of splendor;
it is attained in the way of righteousness. (Prov. 16:31)
They claim to see gold dust and angel feathers appearing out of nowhere. (Either this is contrived or demonic. Jesus’s signs and wonders helped people with healing and deliverance. He worked miracles to help people. He never produced gold dust or angel feathers.) They prophesy about bitcoin. They prophesy about the significance of national sporting events and the names of winning horses and jockeys. They call evil good and good evil and get confused about what is light and what is dark (Is. 5:20).
Finally, innovative interpretations, so rife among hyper-charismatics, can lead to distorting or ignoring Scripture. But closely studying and following the Bible is too teacherly and beneath apostolic and prophetic dignity, apparently.
The apostolic promoters do not have a mandate from God to push the NAR or other apostolic revolutions onto the global church. These newfangled movements come from the minds of innovative men, big dreamers and visionaries (terms that are found throughout these new apostolic movements). They are looking for yet another novelty, the latest fad and trend. Of course, the movement leaders would say their motives are to be helpful and clarifying. Maybe so, but I say novelties are a major (and dangerous) obsession in American Christianity today.
It’s time to stop and go back the old thing: the Bible. Who knows? Maybe Bible teachers can help.
Until NAR leaders listen to certain teachers, NAR will continue to be a disaster and get worse day by day.
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