Word: apostleship
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Dates: during 1901-1901
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Even in the very earliest years of the church, there grew up inevitably certain distinctions between its members. Some were called to the highest positions--to apostleship, to prophecy, to teaching--and to others were given the smaller offices in the organism. But all the authority which came to pertain to church officers was but the authority of missionaries and evangelists over their people, and in no sense the diocesan authority of regularly appointed bishops. Authority was given for and was conditional upon superior spirituality alone, and nowhere is there evidence of a clerical hierarchy understood as established...