apostles today

172 Pages·2012·1.34 MB·English

by  Revival Ministries

APOSTLES

TODAY

PAUL GALLIGAN

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Apostles Today

APOSTLES TODAY
Copyright © 2006 by Paul Galligan

Paul Galligan
Revival Ministries Australia
P.O. Box 2718 BC
TOOWOOMBA Qld. 4350
AUSTRALIA
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.revivalministries.org.au

This book is offered to the body of Christ as the
seed of His word sown freely to bring forth a
harvest of righteousness, pleasing unto the Lord.
Any part of it may be copied and distributed
for teaching purposes, not for profit.

All Scripture quotations are from the New King James
Version [NKJV]
© 1979, 1980,1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published by Revival Ministries Australia Ltd
ACN 082 081 098
PO Box 2718 BC
TOOWOOMBA Q 4350
AUSTRALIA

Cover Photograph Peter De-Bressac
Word Processing & Editorial assistance Janet Barton

DEDICATION

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Dedication

Jesus said “If they receive you [the apostles] they re-
ceive Me, and if they receive Me they receive the One
[the Father] who sent Me” Matt.10:40.

This book is presented to you “all the saints in Christ
Jesus who are in every place, with the overseers and
deacons” (Phil.1:1) and to the apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors and teachers whom Christ has
given to the church in His ascension (Eph.4:11).

“Through Christ we have received grace and
apostleship for obedience to the faith among all na-
tions” Rom.1:5.

I dedicate this book to you for your teaching, re-
proof, correction and instruction in righteousness.
Never for a moment do I think my book is equal to
Scripture in any way, but I believe that the teaching I
am presenting to you is the teaching I have received
from the Lord as I have studied the word in the spirit
of wisdom and revelation. I have been much aided
by many other ministers of Christ whose writings
and teachings I have received. I realise that my
teaching is incomplete as the word of God continues
to unfold.

I echo the Apostle Jude’s words “exhorting you to
contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all
delivered to the saints” (v.3).

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CONTENTS

Preface - Coming into the Apostolic 7

Introduction - The Goal is a Perfect Church 11

Chapter 1 A Change of Leadership -
From Shebna to Eliakim 21
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Apostles Today

Chapter 2 The Finished Work of Jesus the Apostle 38

Chapter 3 Why we need Apostles Today 54

Chapter 4 Apostles are Fathers 70

Chapter 5 What is an Apostle? 82

Chapter 6 Characteristics of Apostolic Ministry 102

Chapter 7 What is Apostolic Doctrine 122

Conclusion The Apostolic Revelation 146

Appendix i Apostolic Council 149

Appendix ii Discipleship Course - based on Manuals 152

Discipleship Course I 155

Discipleship Course II 160

Discipleship Course III 164

Discipleship Course IV 168

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PREFACE

It wasn’t until September 1997 that I first seriously con-
sidered the ministry of the apostle as a reality today. At that time
I was serving on the staff of a denominational church, gifted as a
teacher to the body of Christ. I had been aware of the prophetic
movement since the mid-nineteen eighties, when a prophet
called Paul Cain testified in a John Wimber conference in Aus-
tralia. One thing that most in the prophetic movement failed to
do was to prophesy the restoration of apostles. I personally did
not become involved in the prophetic movement and, in fact,
saw some ‘not good fruit’ coming out of a prophetic school here
in Australia. However, I always had a basic belief in the five-
fold ministry of Ephesians 4:11 without a full understanding and
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Preface

with next to no understanding of the ministry of the apostle.
My Ministry Background
Previous to the teaching ministry I was serving in from
1994-97, I had served for six years as a pastor and, prior to that,
four years as a church and Christian School administrator. Over-
all I thoroughly enjoyed the work of the pastor, working hard,
serving the Lord, being the best minister I could be, but not be-
ing satisfied deep within. From 1985-1990 I served as a part-
time honorary chaplain at a local university, doing the work of
the evangelist and seeing some fruit but knowing that I did not
have the ministry gift of the evangelist, although I deeply de-
sired to be more effective in winning the lost.
For reasons beyond the scope of this introduction, I left
the ministry in late 1990. For two and a half years I wandered in
a strange wilderness, serving in a range of jobs from house
painting to international consultancy and then returning to full-
time university study. All along I knew I was called to be a min-
ister of Jesus Christ but felt disqualified and had no idea how
God could bring me back into the ministry, but He did. In mid
1993 I began a teaching seminar in a local church where I was
attending. At that time, I applied for a job as administrator with
this church. For me I thought this was a way of getting back into
ministry as by now I knew God was calling me.
Applicants for the administrator’s job were narrowed to
two and finally the decision was made against me. However, the
senior minister came to inform me of the final decision and why.
My qualifications and CV were most suitable and I was judged
as worthy as the successful applicant, but the selection commit-
tee decided it was not my calling, as I was called ‘to preach and
teach the word of God’. Despite having put considerable hope
into getting that job, I was not disappointed, but was actually
encouraged as I was affirmed in my ministry calling and my gift
to preach and teach. Praise the Lord!
A Teacher of the Word
Later in 1993 I was offered a job with that same church
as a teacher of the word and with responsibility for community
outreach. I entered into an exciting, challenging and fulfilling
ministry for the next four years. This included presenting teach-
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Apostles Today

ing seminars in prayer and in evangelism. I was responsible for
writing study manuals for these seminars. This teaching ministry
was received by many churches in the body of Christ. By 1996 I
was travelling with a team of trainee ministers and the Lord had
given us a very strong anointing to teach the word, to apply the
word through workshops and to impart the anointing of the Holy
Spirit.
By the second half of 1997, the denomination to which
the church belonged and in which I was serving, made some
very wrong moves in terms of accepting unrepentant homosexu-
als into membership and not excluding such ones from the or-
dained ministry. In our local church, the senior minister and
many others were resigning and leaving the denomination. This
was when God began to speak to me about the ministry of the
apostle. I was given some tapes to listen to and, on one tape, the
brother spoke about the ministry of the apostle. This activated
my heart and the Lord revealed to me that this was my calling.
He then led a small group of us to tender our resignation and
begin to plan a new ministry. ‘Revival Ministries Australia’ was
the result. The Lord revealed the very name and confirmed it
and we launched the ministry in January 1998.
I saw the Lord
As the time of the planned launch came close, I person-
ally began to feel the responsibility of leading a ministry and I
was timid and afraid about doing this. Up until this time, in four-
teen years of fulltime ministry serving in three different church
ministries, I was always in the role of the assistant or the one
representing someone else. Now I was going to be the leader! I
had expressed my fears to no one, but the Lord knew. I awoke at
1 a.m. in the morning to see the Lord Jesus standing at the end
of my bed and as I focused on Him, He imparted courage to me,
right into my spirit, in a tangible way. This was a most awesome
and memorable experience: ‘I saw the Lord’ and He ministered
to me in a life-changing way, preparing and empowering me for
the work of the ministry He was calling me to. Not wanting to
lose the powerful reality of seeing the Lord, I rose from my bed
and went to my study, switching on the light and reaching for
my Bible. While I could no longer see Jesus, I knew He was
with me and very clearly He instructed me to open Joshua 1. It
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Preface

was as if He read to me the first nine verses, which emphasise
‘being strong and courageous’.
Commissioned to be an apostle
At the time I was not consciously thinking of the minis-
try of the apostle but I have known, ever since that day, that this
was my commissioning by Jesus to be an apostle. One of the
key words in the reading, Joshua 1:1-9, is the word
“inheritance”. While in the context God is telling Joshua that he
will divide the land as an inheritance to God’s people, I knew
that my role in restoring inheritance to God’s people would be
in “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Tim.2:15). My strength
in ministry at that time was as a teacher and now I am a teaching
apostle, and God has enabled me to play a part in restoring the
‘inheritance’ to His people. Little did I know that one day I
would write the book, ‘Walking in our Inheritance’ [2004].

A School of Tyrannus
Part of the vision that the Lord put in my heart from
those early months of planning the ministry and launching Re-
vival Ministries Australia, was to establish, in due time, an apos-
tolic training/teaching centre. We wrote of this and envisioned
that one day God would enable us to have a modern version of
the “School of Tyrannus” (Acts 19:9-10). After a trip into the
Union of Myanmar [formerly known as Burma] in early 1999,
we established a six-week training school in June/July of that
year, using hired facilities. At that time, the ministry was based
in various homes. We had experienced a short term training
school in Myanmar and had also been taken to minister in vari-
ous towns, mainly in house-churches that had been established
by disciples trained in that ministry. God was showing me a pat-
tern of the apostolic church in action: short term training schools
to train disciples for ministry and the establishment of the
church in the house. At the end of 2000, a businessman, who is
part of our ministry group, actually purchased a building in the
central business district of our city, for Revival Ministries Aus-
tralia. Ever since then we have had a permanent base for an ap-
ostolic training centre. We have been conducting two-week
training schools, twice yearly, since 2001. In April to June 2006,
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Apostles Today

we held a three-month international training school with eight-
een international delegates attending from seven different na-
tions. God has enabled us to ‘flesh out’ the original vision He
showed us in the Scriptures.
Over the years, beginning in 1998, I have been enabled
by the Lord to write a number of teaching/study manuals. I had
learnt to write manuals in the previous ministry so I drew on that
experience. The manuals that emerged really map our journey in
the unfolding apostolic revelation that we walk in today. This
book ‘Apostles Today’ is a compilation of sessions from a num-
ber of those manuals, drawing together teaching and understand-
ing of apostles today, including an introduction to apostolic doc-
trine. However, all of the content and material has been edited,
expanded and updated in the light of the unfolding revelation
and the lessons and practical applications learned by experience.
INTRODUCTION

The Goal is a Perfect Church

Jesus Christ is preparing for Himself “a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without
blemish” Eph.5:27. He is preparing this church “by sanctifying
and cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word”
Eph.5:26. This is the church that has grown up into maturity
having come “to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ” Eph.4:13. This is the church that has
“gone on to perfection”, having properly laid the foundations of
“repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, the doc-
trine of baptisms and the laying on of hands, the doctrine of the
resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment” Heb.6:1-2.

This is the church that Jesus is coming back for:
a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any
such thing, a holy church without blemish.

We go on to perfection [maturity] only “if God per-
mits” (Heb.6:3) and God will only give that permit when the
church has strong foundations. Jesus Christ is that “foundation”:
“no other foundation can anyone lay” (1Cor.3:10-11); Jesus
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