“Rom. 1:1,6 “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, CALLED TO BE AN APOSTLE, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, CALLED TO BE SAINTS: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Did you see that in verse 1, “called to be an apostle”? All of those in the Bible that held the title of apostle had a calling; todays modern apostles have only an appointment by some man or body of men who tell them they are apostles. Still yet others appoint themselves. But each of the original twelve had a personal face to face calling from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The times of their calling are recorded in the scriptures. Paul was called as one born out of due time and had a meeting with the glorified Lord that caused him to be blinded for a set period of time. You can be sure he knew when he was called and gave account of that calling more than once in the scriptures. According to New and Old Testament scripture (Acts 1: 16-26) Matthias was ordained an apostle having been chosen by the Lord and was a follower of the living Christ since John’s baptism. Today’s preachers claiming to be apostles fall short of the credentials I just listed from scripture and should think this modern heresy through before continuing further in their folly.
If you want to look at a book that has the doctrine of salvation for the Church Age as delivered to Paul by Jesus Christ, Romans is your book. We find the theme of justification by faith throughout this book. Verse 7 of chapter one tells us again that this book is written to the Romans and when God tells us something twice, especially in so short notice we need to consider why He did it. At the time of this writing Rome was the ruler of the entire world. Coincidently all the Gentile nations of today came in some manner from those nations that were then under Rome. This is the time of the Gentiles and we all came from some nation that Paul was writing to at that time. Heads up and eyes straight ahead; this is your book Gentile; it is written to you.
