as planting and overseeing the infant work in a new field, and in this
sense Barnabas also was an apostle (Acts 13:46 with 14:4).

That the word "apostle" really signified a planter and was therefore
descriptive of the kind of work done is shown by the words of Paul
himself: "For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship
of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles"
(Gal. 2:8). And again, he says to the Corinthians, "If I be not an
apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am _to you_; for _the seal of
mine apostleship are ye in the Lord_" (1 Cor. 9:2). In another place
he says to the same church, "Though ye have ten thousand instructors
in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have
begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15).

The special, personal relation that the apostle, or planter, sustained
to the work which he had founded and over which he exercised general
jurisdiction, was but temporary, a sort of fatherly care. He was
obliged to oversee the work as a whole, including young ministers,
until it became thoroughly established. After others were able for the
work and the apostle's special oversight was withdrawn, there might be
ten thousand other instructors, but _no more fathers_. This disproves
entirely the episcopal idea as an essential feature of church
government. The apostle Peter even classes himself simply as an elder
in common with other elders (1 Pet. 5:1). But with the exception of
the original apostles, who were specially commissioned to reveal the
doctrine and message of the gospel and to establish the Christian
faith, the difference existing between elders in the primitive
church was not a difference in kind, but in degree only, varying in
accordance with their ability to put forth some portion of that moral
and spiritual power by which alone Christ governs his church.