I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars . Revelation 2:2
Did you ever meet a real apostle? If you had been living in the very early years of Christianity, you very well might have. The apostles who had before been identified as Jesus disciples were very active in and around Jerusalem, and in the various places to which they carried the Gospel. These men had all seen the Lord Jesus; most had spent considerable timer with Him, listening to His teachings first-hand. When one of these godly men were speaking in the gatherings of the Lord’s people, they usually had something worthwhile to day. In those days, the New Testament had not been written, so the words of the apostles were valuable for the instruction of the Assemblies. Led by the Holy Spirit, these men helped to establish the Assemblies, found new Assemblies, and direct the efforts in spreading the Gospel. But there were some false apostles in those days, lots of false apostles. So how were the Christians to tell who were real and who were the liars?
The Assembly in Ephesus had no trouble telling the true apostles from the liars. They could spot and expose the fakes. That is why they were preserved from false doctrines. So how did they sort out the genuine from the fake? Simple: they compared the fake with the real. They knew and remembered the words of the faithful apostles who had taught them. Bu this point in history, they also had some of the Gospels and some of the epistles written by some of those faithful apostles, including Paul, Peter, and John. So when men came among them who pretended to be apostles but uttered words that did not line up with the truth, they rejected those liars. We take the very same approach today. It is true that we don’t have apostles with us; they are not necessary because the Word of God is complete, and it includes the apostles’ doctrine, all that we require. Because the canon of Scripture is complete, anyone claiming to be an apostle is obviously a liar. And anyone who teaches anything that disagrees with the Word of God is a false teacher, and definitely no apostle.
We have faithful and godly men who are teachers among our Assemblies. We have been preserved from false apostles and false teachers. And we should pray that this will continue. We all need to exercise godly discernment to make sure somebody is not trying to slip something new and different into our Assemblies. We need to watch and make sure that everything that is taught is in harmony with the Word of God. God has no new revelations for us today; none are needed. The cults and false religions have their apostles and prophets who are always dragging out something new and different. And it is always false because it comes from those that the Word of God identifies as liars.
When it comes to the things of God, if it is new, it is not true; if it is true, it is not new. -Jim MacIntosh