Apostles?

[py3ak]

Anyone have any thoughts or resources on the shaliach (I'm guessing about the spelling there) being the paradigm for the apostles?

 

[py3ak]

It's something Stott and Ridderbos both mention, with phrases along the lines of, "Recent studies have shown that the function of apostle is based on the concept of the Jewish shaliach...."
I was wondering if any one had any details or further opinions.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

It is an interesting issue to me. This discussion by Don Golden, The Missional Church, may be of some help.

4.1. Apostolos / Shaliach

A problem confronts the inquirer into the meaning of the word apostolos in the NT. In its own Greek context there is no parallel to the way in which the word is employed by the Christian church of the same period. J. B. Lightfoot drew attention to the shaliach tradition of late Rabbinical Judaism as a possible solution.36 This theory came to maturity in K. H. Rengstorf'simportant article in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.37

The shaliach commissioned agent, was an essentially legal office summarised in the Rabbinical maxim, "The one sent by a man is as the man himself."38 In an effort to integrate the Jews of the Diaspora, the shaliach, took form as a distinct institution in the latter half of the first century.39 The shaliach may represent a number of individuals.40 He may also represent a community or a local congregation or, as with the case of the plenipotentiaries of the great Sanhedrin, the shaliach was commissioned to the Diaspora with the task (among other things) of announcing the date of the new month.41 It is notable, however, that never is a Jewish missionary denoted by the title shaliach (cf. Winter’s theory).

It appears that first century Jews had at hand an indigenous sending structure through which to facilitate trans-geographic organisation and expansion. It is notable that the nature and successof the shaliach was personal rather than institutional in nature. It was critical that the one sent be a person of integrity and faithfulness conducting his assignment with a "resolute subordination of the will".42 If the shaliach went beyond his authority, his decisions were invalid,43 yet within the boundaries of his commission, the decisions taken were considered that of the sender and its effects could not be revoked.44 For this reason fidelity was the quality most sought after. According to Rengstorf, the standard by which the suitability of the shaliach was determined was of a personal nature and was the "absolute trustworthiness of the one to be commissioned."45

Of particular significance in Rengstorf's research was the tracing of the shaliach of the Rabbinical period to the OT Jewish sending-convention (cf. 2 Sam. 10; 1 Sam. 25:40; 1 Chron..17:7-9 and 1 Kings 14:6) which would date the phenomenon well before the first century. In the following section, we will demonstrate how the shaliach grew out of Biblical theological roots deep in the OT.

4.2. The OT Law of Embassy.

Rengstorf showed how the origins of the shaliach lay in the law of embassy of the OT.

4.2.1. 2 Samuel 10

An example of the Jewish law of embassy is found in 2 Samuel ch. 10. In this passage David"sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun" (v.2) on the death of his father, the king of the Ammonites. Fearing that David had sent them as spies Hanun had the delegation seized, stripped and their heads shaved. The passage records that the offence against David's delegation caused the Ammonites to "become a stench in David's nostrils" (v.6). As a result of this insult, perceived by David as a personal affront, Israel went to war with the Ammonites.The Jewish sending-convention held that "The emissary of a king is as the king himself",46 thus David's personal pique was justified.

4.2.2. 1 Samuel 25

A second OT example of the Jewish law of embassy is 1 Samuel 25:39,40 where a delegation is sent to propose to Abigail on David's behalf. Verse 39 states that "David sent and spoke47aproposal to Abigail, . . ." but verse 40 reveals that it was actually his delegation which spoke to her ("When the servants of David came to Abigail. . . they spoke to her, saying, 'David has sent us to you. . . ."). The will and person of David were conveyed in David’s delegation. Further examples of the OT sending convention are 1 Chron. 17:7-9, which records the sending of religious teachers by Jehoshophat throughout Judah following the exile, and Genesis 24:1-9,where Abraham's servant is sent to Ur to take a wife for Isaac. The servant, in accepting the commission, becomes bound by the oath which Abraham had made before God (cf. 24:8).

4.2.3. 1 Kings 14

Of particular significance is 1 Kings 14:6 where the prophet Ahijah is described in terms of a 'sent-man' to deliver bad news from the Lord to the wife of Jeroboam. This is the sole occurrence of apostolos in the LXX. It describes Ahijah as being 'sent', though it is actually the wife of Jeroboam who is sent to him. The use of the word apostolos in the LXX to translate the word shaluach (the passive participle of shaliach)48 provides the best and earliest link between the Jewish shaliach concept and the NT apostolos. While it is true that 1 Kings 14:6 "hardly furnishes a precedent"49 for the translation of shaliach by the Greek apostolos, it nevertheless is an undisputed occurrence of the phenomena and one that predates the Christian era. Donaldson finds strong support for the shaliach / apostolos parallel in 1 Kings 14:6, arguing thatit provides "solid linguistic and terminological evidence for a link between the two concepts".50

4.3. Origin in God.

C. K. Barrett has stated that "The true line of descent from Rengstorf is given not by those who have sought to make quick and easy capital out of his results but by those who have continued the historical inquiry."51 In the following points, we look back further in the history of Israel for the origin and significance of the Jewish sending tradition.

4.3.1 Moses and the sending tradition.

It is from their own history that Israel came to know a God who chooses to reveal throughhuman agents. Beyond the above passages, God's self-revelation to Israel through Moses provides a biblical archetype of human representation of the divine (“I have made you [Moses] like God to Pharaoh” Ex. 7:1). Thus developed the Jewish tradition of embassy – of representing the corporate will of Israel through human mediation. The sending-convention held that "The emissary of a king is as the king himself"52 and the tradition developed a wider usage through Israel's subsequent history. Following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. the shaliach became a fixed legal institution that assisted in maintaining continuity in dispersed Israel. It is the later Jewish shaliach that stimulated the Jewish origins theory of the NT apostolate. The significance of Rengstorf’s research is the common origin uncovered between the OT sendingconvention (early Jewish) the shaliach (Rabbinical) and the apostolate (Christian) and their origin in nature of God. Thus, 'sending' is related to the nature of God and to his plan of salvation. The Exodus account portrays a personal God who desires reconciliation with man and who establishes his pattern of redemption through presenting himself to men through men. In the NT this pattern reaches its fulfilment as God is revealed definitively in the person of Jesus Christ53 and, through his Spirit who indwells them, this representation of God is carried on by Christ's chosen apostles, and furthermore, the apostolic church. This background should inform our reading of the commissioning accounts of, for example, Jn. 20:21 ("as the Father has sent me, I also send you"). The apostolic church inherits the task of making God's presence known to the world.

4.3.2 Mission and the imaging of God.

As bearers of the divine image, man is ordained to reflect God within creation. The church is that place where the actuality of that imaging is restored. The shaliach grows out of the very nature of God and his purpose and means for bringing his influence to bear on the world by choosing for himself a people who reflect his presence.54 Mission exists as the company of the redeemed reflect the triune God to a creation waiting in eager expectation for the sons of God tobe revealed.

Conclusions

1. The biblical ideal of the church is at odds with its current practice. A dichotomy betweenchurch and mission has been recognised by missiologists for more than a century.

2. The NT church was not divorced from mission but actually built upon the nature of thecongregation to achieve its missionary purposes.

3. The function of the apostolate was an essential element to the success and cohesion of thechurch’s missionary expansion in the NT.

4. The apostolate finds its nearest cultural parallel in the Rabbinical shaliach. The shaliach phenomena provided the church with a structure to facilitate expansion. The shaliach structure was deeply rooted in the nature of God and his redemptive dealings with Israel. Our structures today do not necessarily have this advantage and must not be allowed to function autonomously but must be evaluated against a biblical vision of the church.

36 See St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (Peabody, Hendrickson, 1981 [1st. published in 1865]) pp. 92 -101.

37 Rengstorf, 'Apostolos', op. cit., pp. 398-447.

38 Ibid., p. 415.

39 Ibid., p. 413.

40 Ibid., p. 416.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., p. 415.

43 Ibid.

44 Martin H. Franzmann, 'The Apostolate: Its Enduring Significance in the Apostolic Word' Concordia TheologicalMonthly 28 (1957) p. 175. Franzmann offers as an example that a marriage which is annulled by the commission of a shaliach cannot be reversed by the husband (cf. Rengstorf, op. cit., p. 415). Likewise, Donaldson states that, "The authority of the sender is so tied up with the role of the shaliach that as long as the latter did not exceed the bounds of his commission, if his task led him to perform a sacrilege it is the sender who is responsible (Me'il. 6:1f; Ket.98b)". See Donaldson, op. cit., p. 208.

45 See his book, Apostolate and Ministry (London, Concordia Publishing, 1969) pp. 27,28.

46 Rengstorf, 'Apostolos', op. cit., p. 416.

47 The words "and spoke" are footnoted in the NASB.

48 Donaldson, op. cit., p. 207.

49 Culver, op. cit., p. 132.

50 Donaldson, op. cit., p. 207. In addition to this evidence, Donaldson cites Rengstorf's appeal to the verbs apostello and shaliach and their close relationship in the LXX. Of this, Donaldson says that "While apostello can on occasion render other Hebrew verbs, in the great majority of its occurrences it is used to translate forms of shaliach." (p.207, n.32). He points to the fact that later Christian writers used apostolos of the shaliach institution (Jerome, Ad. Gal. 1:1; and Syrian NT) as further strengthening the parallel which is believed to have existed in the first century.51Barrett, op. cit., p. 15.

51 Barrett, op. cit., p. 15

52 Ibid., p. 416.

53 Vicedom, op. cit., p. 8 states that "The highest mystery of the mission out of which it grows and lives is: God sends His Son; the Father and Son the Holy Ghost. Here God makes Himself not only the one sent, but at the same time the Content of the sending, without dissolving through this the trinity of revelation . . . ."

54 See Georg F. Vicedom's book, The Mission of God (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1957). p. 9,

 

[py3ak]

Thanks for that, Andrew. I was thinking this afternoon that John 20:21 seems to support this idea very well: Jesus was the personal representative of the Father. The one who receives Him, receives the One who sent Him. And He seems to put the disciples on the same plane: the one who receives them, receives Jesus.
Don Golden seemed to want to attach it to the whole church. Stott and Ridderbos, however, attach this exclusively to the Apostles as part of their argument concerning the canon. The canon is apostolic tradition: apostolic tradition is canon because the apostles are, in that regard, as Christ Himself. One point against this is that Christ at two points seems to amplify the connection between Himself and His people: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" and "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
So I think there are strong arguments for limiting this concept to the apostles; but I have not seen anyone interact with other texts which also make a strong connection between Jesus and all His people.
Thoughts?