Topic:  What is the difference between a disciple and an apostle?

Source of this posting: Moderator response

Date originally posted: August 3, 2005

Moderator who originally posted this source: Kathy Martyn

Question: What is the difference between disciples and apostles?

Answer: 

Hi..great question! In the larger sense, all Christians are disciples. Apostle, while having a similiar meaning, is reserved for one of the chosen 12.

"It is at once evident that in a Christian sense, everyone who had received a mission from God, or Christ, to man could be called "Apostle". In fact, however, it was reserved to those of the disciples who received this title from Christ. At the same time, like other honourable titles, it was occasionally applied to those who in some way realized the fundamental idea of the name. The word also has various meanings.

The name Apostle denotes principally one of the twelve disciples who, on a solemn occasion, were called by Christ to a special mission. In the Gospels, however, those disciples are often designated by the expressions of mathetai (the disciples) or dodeka (the Twelve) and, after the treason and death of Judas, even of hendeka (the Eleven). In the Synoptics the name Apostle occurs but seldom with this meaning; only once in Matthew and Mark. But in other books of the New Testament, chiefly in the Epistles of St. Paul and in the Acts, this use of the word is current. Saul of Tarsus, being miraculously converted, and called to preach the Gospel to the heathens, claimed with much insistency this title and its rights.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews (iii, 1) the name is applied even to Christ, in the original meaning of a delegate sent from God to preach revealed truth to the world.
The word Apostle has also in the New Testament a larger meaning, and denotes some inferior disciples who, under the direction of the Apostles, preached the Gospel, or contributed to its diffusion; thus Barnabas (Acts, xiv, 4, 14), probably Andronicus and Junias (Rom., xvi, 7), Epaphroditus (Phil., ii, 25), two unknown Christians who were delegated for the collection in Corinth (II Cor., vii, 23). We know not why the honourable name of Apostle is not given to such illustrious missionaries as Timothy, Titus, and others who would equally merit it.
There are some passages in which the extension of the word Apostle is doubtful, as Luke, xi, 49; John, xiii, 16; II Cor., 13; I Thes., ii, 7; Ephes., iii, 5; Jude, 17, and perhaps the well-known expression "Apostles and Prophets". Even in an ironical meaning the word occurs (II Cor., xi, 5; xii, 11) to denote pseudo-apostles. There is but little to add on the use of the word in the old Christian literature. The first and third meanings are the only ones which occur frequently, and even in the oldest literature the larger meaning is seldom found." (www.newadvent.org)