By Art Katz
I have a very special respect for the word apostolic. To lose its meaning threatens the loss of the faith itself. It is not a word that is easy to define, and yet there is something about this word and its meaning that is at the heart of the faith. It is an ultimate word, and it is a word that needs to be resuscitated, and not be thought of as merely a denominational identification. It is a word that pulsates with glory, and therefore we need to seek for and rescue the apostolic foundation-or we will not have a church worthy of that word.
Like every great biblical word, we will not find the definition in a dictionary. We need rather to be apprehended by the genius of what that word represents. It is a seeking out and restoring of all that was once authentic, all that was held dear, all that was believed, all that was understood, and all that was vital in the first church. There is something pungent about the word apostolic that brings to mind the heart, the spirit and the sense of the church when it was at its glory. The church was apostolic at its inception and needs to be so at its conclusion. Indeed, only an apostolic church can stand and overcome, and by that witness, testify to and penetrate an obdurate and resistant remnant of Israel in the mystery of God at the end of this age.
Probably one of the greatest failures of the church is to be satisfied with verbal statements and credal affirmations¾ but without the corresponding actuality. We are deceived, and we will be deceiving others if we satisfy ourselves with mere verbal acknowledgments alone. God is existential-He is the God of reality; He is not content with the mere approval of a doctrine. He waits for the appropriation and the reality.
A church with apostolic foundations is that body of people whose central impulse and principle of life, being and service is one thing only, namely, a radical and total jealousy for the glory of God. May these great apostolic themes kindle in your own hearts nothing less or other than this holy standard. And may something come into your spirit and the marrow of your being that henceforth will never let you go.
Be assured that the insights expressed here have not come cheaply nor glibly, but by conditions of life, experienced corporately and personally, that approximate in some measure the realities that constituted the grit of the early church. To those who have suffered with us these pains in the hope of the glory is this book dedicated.
Arthur Katz
Apostolic Foundations - Preface