Cheryl

Don,

You also said:

4. There are many others in the NT who are called apostles besides the 12 and Paul, none of these are said to be in an office. I do not see any offices in the new covenant besides Jesus as High Priest and the 12, which needed to be 12 to map to the 12 tribes of Israel.

I agree. There certainly was a special foundational type of apostle that was of the 12. But there were also other apostles in scripture. I believe each apostle and each pastor is gifted by God to be an apostle or a pastor. I really liked your analogy that an office is there whether a person is in that position or not. So we could say that the 12 apostles were apostles by gift but also apostles by a special office called “the foundation” of the church. Jesus, the 12 apostles and the prophets are called the foundation and the church is built on this foundation, with Jesus being the corner stone.