A pastor and church growth expert, Dr. Oyewole Sarumi has observed that there are only two recognised church titles from the reading of the New Testaments.

He made the observation while reacting to the claim by Pastor Williams Kumuyi in a recent report that he graduated from being a teacher to a pastor, to an evangelist, to a prophet, and then an apostle.

Oyewole who is also the Chief Strategy Officer of Christian Leadership Institute stated that the two titles from the reading of the New Testament are: Bishop and Deacon.

Titles, invention of men

He said any other title that people use in the church other than these two are inventions of men that have no bearing with the scriptures.

Giving further insight into his position he said Apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher, and pastor are not titles, but specific offices and platforms that have dominant or specific gifts of the Holy Spirit for the one called to be able to perform all that is stated in Ephesian 4:11-12.

The scripture from the NIV reads, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

Jesus called the 12

While insisting that only the titles of Bishop and Deacon are recognised in the New Testament he said “Jesus was the one who called the 12 apostles. Those who came after them did not qualify to be apostles because they did not fit into the mould of apostleship.”

According to him, “Those who are in the mould of Apostleship are WITNESSES of the actual work of the Lord Jesus Christ if you care to read this from the pages of the New Testament. The last of them Paul, was called personally by Christ Himself – the one that the eleven chose through the ballot in Acts 1 was never known in Ministry. Why? He wasn’t a personal witness of the work of Christ throughout his three and half years of ministry.”

Sarumi said further, “Jesus chose the 12 to witness his work so they will report accurately what they had experienced while they were with him. Each of them was not chosen because of any particular gift they had. They were chosen because of what Jesus wanted them to do after he might have left the scene.”

No office is greater than the other

He said the offices mentioned in Ephesians 4v11 and 12 are not in offices that you graduate into, they are offices one is called to. “It’s not a question of being a teacher first, then you grow to become a pastor and so on. No. People are called to operate on each of those platforms. It is not a title that we can now start bearing as we bear Mr. So those who go about calling themselves Apostle this and that are not following scriptures.”

Sarumi emphasised that any church leader today who lays claim to being an apostle does not fit into what the scriptures regard as an apostle.

“Even those fathers of faith – who came after the martyrdom of the 12 Apostles, eg. Polycarp, Ignatius, Chrysanthin, etc. never called themselves apostles because they didn’t meet the criteria.”

Apostle, sent one? 

When reminded that the dictionary defines an apostle as a sent person, he said, “The dictionary meaning is the corrupted inoculation of the falsehood propagated by those who are looking for titles and positions before serving in the Body of Christ.”

On whether these offices are gifts as noted by some translations of the Bible, he said, “They are not gifts in the sense of gifts. They are offices. Some of the Bible translations used gifts to describe the offices. But they were not used in the sense of being a gift like word of wisdom, word of knowledge stated in 1 Cor 12v8-10.

“They were used as gifts in the sense of being offices believers are called into. After the 12 called apostles including Paul, no other person qualified to be apostle.  As a matter of fact, Paul did not put the prefix apostle to his name. He introduced himself as: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. We are the ones who called him Apostle Paul. Unfortunately, many people carry the title of apostle these days”

Office of the prophet

Sarumi also decried the way the prophetic office is being used in the church. He said many are confusing the New Testament prophet with that of the Old Testament. “In the Old Testament, we had prophets who were mouthpieces of God and they prophesied for the nation of Israel. In the New Testament, the prophetic office is for the church and nothing more.

“They are meant to edify the church. If their prophesies do not edify the church then they are not using that office well. Even when Agabus prophesied about famine in the New Testament, it was within the church that he made the prophecy. And that helped the church to prepare for the famine”