APOSTLES AND PROPHETS

When you grow up in church, there are obvious things contained in the Bible that are too familiar to see. 

I was listening to a podcast the other day and the host was quoting a passage from Ephesians 2:

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I had never thought of the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles as being equal in status and having similar roles until I heard Paul mentioning them together here in verse 20. 

The prophets were tasked with pronouncing mysteries and pointing God's people toward their coming salvation. On the other hand, the apostles pronounced the fact that the people's salvation had come, and they spent time explaining the mysteries which accompanied that salvation

The prophets spent much of their time correcting the behavior and attitudes of God's people, Israel, while the apostles spent time guiding and correcting the behavior and attitudes of Christ's Body, the Church. 

What's weird is that we so often think and preach that these apostles were ordinary men who became disciples of Jesus, but we don't give a lot of thought to the ways they were special and called to special tasks and given special insights and special power at various times.

The thought gives me pause over preaching on something like Peter walking on water as an example for us as modern disciples to emulate. 

Do we need to mentally differentiate between Peter as a disciple and Peter as an apostle in the making? If so, how? Does it matter?

Just something new for me to chew on a bit.