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“Sermons frequently refer to the apostles of Christ as poor, uneducated tradesmen. But three of the Twelve, Matthew, John, and Peter, wrote some of the world’s all-time best-selling literature. The apostles were more than just literate; Jesus called them scribes “who [had] been trained for the kingdom of heaven . . . like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is oldâ€� (Matt 13:52). It would be surprising if the disciples ignored this and failed to take notes during Jesusâ€� ministry.”
― James Allen Moseley, Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains

“Jerome says Peter founded the church in Antioch, Syria. If so, January 15â€�22, AD 34 was probably the time when Peter did it.”
― James Allen Moseley, Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains

“I am an ambassador in chains,â€� wrote Paul in Ephesians 6:20.”
― James Allen Moseley, Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains

“The blood of Jesus settled the score for us to be a champion in Him, to break the satanic powers of darkness, to stop the destroyer called the devil in his tracks, and for us to recover everything that he has stolen from us that has to do with our purpose and our destiny. Whatever the conqueror and the locust have eaten, God is the restorer of everything.”
― John Ramirez

“The figure in the icon is not meant to represent literally what Peter or John or any of the apostles looked like, or what Mary looked like, nor the child, Jesus. But, the orthodox painter feels, Jesus of Nazareth did not walk around Galilee faceless. The icon of Jesus may not look like the man Jesus two thousand years ago, but it represents some *quality* of Jesus, or his mother, or his followers, and so becomes an open window through which we can be given a new glimpse of the love of God. ”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“Paintings of Jesus with long hair and a full beard and of first-century Jews in Persian turbans and Bedouin robes are fantasies of later artists. The Hellenistic world created by Alexander the Great was remarkably homogenous in style. From Britain to North Africa, from Spain to India, people affected Greek manners. The earliest paintings of Jesus depict him as the Good Shepherd with short hair, no beard, and wearing a knee-length tunic. This is probably far more what Jesus looked like than the paintings we know and love. The apostle Paul admonished men not to let their hair grow long (1 Cor 11:14), which he would hardly have done if the other apostles or the Sanhedrin had worn their hair long; he certainly would not have written that if Jesus had worn his hair long.”
― James Allen Moseley, Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains

“When John accuses "evildoers" of leading gullible people into sin, what troubles him is what troubled the Essenes: whether—or how much—to accommodate pagan culture. And when we see Jesus' earliest followers, including Peter, James, and Paul, not as we usually see them, as early Christians, but as they saw themselves—as Jews who had found God's messiah—we can see that they struggled with the same question. For when John charges that certain prophets and teachers are encouraging God's people to eat "unclean" food and engage in "unclean" sex, he is taking up arguments that had broken out between Paul and followers of James and Peter about forty years earlier—an argument that John of Patmos continues with a second generation of Paul's followers. For when we ask, who are the "evildoers" against whom John warns? we may be surprised by the answer. Those whom John says Jesus "hates" look very much like the Gentile followers of Jesus converted through Paul's teaching. Many commentators have pointed out that when we step back from John's angry rhetoric, we can see that the very practices John denounces are those that Paul had recommended.”
― Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation

“The disciples were, most likely, rather well off. Peter and Andrew were business partners of James and John (Luke 5:7, 10). James and John, under the supervision of their father, Zebedee, ran a fishing business wealthy enough to employ multiple hired men (Mark 1:19â€�20).”
― James Allen Moseley, Biographies of Jesus' Apostles: Ambassadors in Chains

“Our problems sometimes show the degree of our relationship with God.”
― Dr Paul Gitwaza

“We are weak Christians simply because we have refused to be bondservants of Christ”
― Dr Paul Gitwaza

“Apostles go into new territory and establish God’s kingdom.”
― Sherry K. White, Walking in the Father's Riches: The Prosperity of Sonship

“I argue that the Jesus of the Gospels is essentially a myth. The Gospels are largely fiction. They were created around the turn of the first and second century in order to give concreteness and substance to the Jesus who, as the Messiah, had appeared to Paul and his fellow apostles in ecstatic visions.”
― Alvar EllegÃ¥rd

“The first chapter of Matthew begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ; and in the third chapter of Luke there is also given a genealogy of Jesus Christ. Did these two agree, it would not prove the genealogy to be true, because it might nevertheless be a fabrication; but as they contradict each other in every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood; and if Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood: and as there is no authority for believing one more than the other, there is no authority for believing either; and if they cannot be believed even in the very first thing they say, and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be believed in any thing they say afterwards. Truth is an uniform thing; and as to inspiration and revelation, were we to admit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. Either then the men called apostles were imposters, or the books ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and fathered upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament.

Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood between them (as these two accounts show they do) in the very commencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of who, and of what he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there left for believing the strange things they tell us afterwards? If they cannot be believed in their account of his natural genealogy, how are we to believe them when they tell us he was the son of God, begotten by a ghost; and that an angel announced this in secret to his mother? If they lied in one genealogy, why are we to believe them in the other? If his natural genealogy be manufactured, which it certainly is, why are we not to suppose that his celestial genealogy is manufactured also, and that the whole is fabulous? Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness upon the belief of a story naturally impossible, repugnant to every idea of decency, and related by persons already detected of falsehood?”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“Nous sommes des chrétiens faibles simplement parce que nous avons refusé d'être des serviteurs de Christ”
― Dr Paul Gitwaza

“To understand antiquity’s idea of man, we must examine its gods and heroes, myths and legends. In these we find the classical prototype of genuine man. ... the will to greatness, wealth, power and fame. Anything opposed to it falls short of the authentically human. ...

What a world of difference between this conception and that to which Christ has led us! ...

Jesusâ€� friends are in no way remarkable for their talent or character. He who considers the apostles or disciples great from a human or religious point of view raises the suspicion that he is unacquainted with true greatness. Moreover, he is confusing standards, for the apostle and disciple have nothing to do with such greatness. Their uniqueness consists of their being sent, of their God-given role of pillars for the coming salvation.”
― Romano Guardini, The Lord

“Christianity was derailed when Bible Schools became certification centers for true apostles of Christ. Where is the Holy Spirit? John 16:13”
― Felix Wantang , Face to Face Meetings with Jesus Christ 2: Preparing for God's Paradise

“the apostles of mediocrity shall always stand to defend mediocrity out of mediocrity”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“Young scholars, learning their historical method from Gospel scholars, often treat it as self-evident that the more skeptical they are toward their sources, the more rigorous will be their historical method. It has to be said, over and over, that historical rigor does not consist in fundamental skepticism toward historical testimony but in fundamental trust along with testing by critical questioningâ€�”
― Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony

“True apostles do not speak to flatter people. True apostles are not self seeking. True apostles do not seek praise from mere men.”
― brother Billy

“Christus den store og rette Lære-Mester blev af GUD skikked ned paa Jorden, for at drive paa de store Naturens Bud, som vare satte til Side, og haver viset, at ved det Ord Næste ikke maa forstaaes en Medborger alleene, men et hvert Menneske. GUD give, at vi Christne havde efterlevet vor Lære-Mesters og Apostlernes Lærdom herudi!”
― Ludvig Holberg, Epistler

“You should train disciples and followers to work and perform better than you did”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Every believer should be an apostle ('one sent forth') since each believer is sent by the Lord Jesus to go and bear fruit. As a sent one, not every believer can preach like Peter to thousands...as in the beginning of Acts. However, every believer can be an apostle in a house, and can teach and experience fellowship as Paul did at the end of Acts. This conclusion opens the door for every believer to continue the writing of the book of Acts of the Apostles by visiting homes and opening their own house to build the assembly. --from ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose From House To House”
― Henry Hon

“No one person or group of people could have brought
about the first church community. No heights of oratory,
no burning enthusiasm, could have awakened for Christ the
thousands who were moved at the time, or produced the
united life of the early church. The friends of Jesus knew this
very well. Had not the risen one himself commanded them
to wait in Jerusalem for the fulfillment of the great promise?
(Luke 24:49) John had baptized in water all those who
listened to him. But the first church was to be submerged in
and filled with the holy wind of Christ’s spirit. (Acts 2:1â€�2)”
― Eberhard Arnold, God's Revolution: Justice, Community, and the Coming Kingdom

“The work of an apostle, from the first ones sent out by Jesus to anyone aligned with the reign of peace, is to be God's loving word to every part of the world. Echoing the Word, they are sent out to confront the powers and principalities by rejecting state violence and revolutionary violence, and, instead putting on the armor of peace.”
― C. Andrew Doyle, Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church

“Pastors, Apostles, Prophets, Teachers and Evangelist, the five fold ministry is simply the ministry of JESUS CHRIST in five expressions.”
― Kingsley Opuwari Manuel

“His eyes, barely open, were glazed and distant. There wasn’t a single vital function his body could perform for itself; machines crowded around him, hovering like apostles.”
― Jeff Arch, Attachments

“You have to keep moving no matter the circumstances. We are in a world of movement.”
― Dr Paul Gitwaza

“And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
― Jesus Christ

“ONE OF THE MOST interesting features of the early Christian debates over orthodoxy and heresy is the fact that views that were originally [...] deemed orthodox came to be declared heretical. Nowhere is this more clear than in the case of the first heretical view of Christ—the view that denies his divinity. [...] the very first Christians held to exaltation Christologies which maintained that the man Jesus (who was nothing more than a man) had been exalted to the status and authority of God. The earliest Christians thought that this happened at his resurrection; eventually, some Christians came to believe it happened at his baptism. Both views came to be regarded as heretical by the second century CE, [...] It is not that the second-century “heresy-huntersâ€� among the Christian authors attacked the original Christians for these views. Instead, they attacked the people of their own day for holding them; and in their attacks they more or less “rewrote history,â€� by claiming that such views had never been held by the apostles at the beginning or by the majority of Christians ever.”
― Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

“The Gospels and Book of Acts chronicle for us the exciting work of the Apostles that Jesus trained and anointed for His service.”
― Greg Gordon, An Ancient Worship Movement