Two Words Worth Testing

Two lessons in, we've heard Krick's story and we've heard both sides argue their case. Today we stop surveying opinions and go straight to Scripture on the two specific issues driving most of the controversy: the word "apostle," and the practice of tying financial giving to healing. Both of these showed up directly in Allie Beth Stuckey's critique last lesson, and both showed up directly in Krick's own defense. And we should say up front - the apostle question is genuinely one of the more contested issues in the church right now, not a settled matter with one obvious answer. Cessationists and continuationists don't even agree with each other on it, and within the continuationists camp itself there's real disagreement about whether the office continues, whether only the function continues, or whether the word itself should even be used as a title today. So this lesson isn't going to hand you a single verdict and call it closed. It's going to walk through the strongest cases on more than one side, including a voice that brings real clarity to what apostolic ministry looks like today, and let you weigh the evidence for yourself. Let's actually open the Book and see what it says, starting with the title itself.

Function Over Title: What Apostolic Ministry Looks Like Today

The most substantive continuationists voice on this question isn't a blogger - it's Dr. Carolyn Tennant, professor emerita at North Central University and adjunct professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, who has spent decades studying the apostolic and prophetic within a classical Pentecostal framework. Tennant's core argument, laid out across Catch the Wind of the Spirit and her later book with Dr. Joseph Girdler, Keys to the Apostolic and Prophetic: Embracing the Authentic, Avoiding the Bizarre, is that the church has been asking the wrong question. Per George P. Wood's review, Tennant argues "the question should not be whether such-and-such a person bears the office and title of apostle or prophet but whether apostolic and prophetic functions are taking place in the Church" - a functional emphasis that is, notably, the official position of the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination in America. On that reading, apostolic ministry - pioneering new works, laying spiritual foundations, carrying authority to plant and oversee churches - genuinely does continue today, and shutting the door on it entirely risks quenching a ministry gift Christ actually gave the church in "He Himself gave some to be apostles" (Ephesians 4:11).

More Voices in Agreement

Tennant isn't a lone voice on this. C. Peter Wagner - who spent decades studying church growth at Fuller Seminary and later moved from Cessationism into the continuationists camp - defined an apostle functionally as "a Christian leader, gifted, taught, commissioned, and sent by God with the authority to establish the foundational government of the church within an assigned sphere of ministry," per Grokipedia's summary of his work. More significantly, respected continuationists scholars Sam Storms and Michael Brown - both mainstream, widely-published voices in charismatic theology - openly affirm ongoing apostolic and prophetic ministry today while still drawing hard lines against abuse. Storms has written that he holds "to the view that there have been apostles and prophets operating in the Church throughout history, even if not called by those" titles formally, per his own blog at Sam Storms. Yet Storms and Brown have also publicly gone after specific charismatic figures for what they call "charismatic fakes," per American Gospel TV, showing that affirming the gift and giving every claimed apostle a pass are two very different things. That's the throughline across all of these voices: the ministry function is real, but it has to be tested case by case rather than assumed from a title.

The Caution Behind the Title

And that's precisely the detail that adds real clarity to Krick's specific case: Tennant and Girdler make a deliberate choice throughout Keys to the Apostolic and Prophetic to avoid using "apostle" and "prophet" as titles for anyone ministering today, reserving those words for the biblical figures who held them, precisely because of "the increased number of false apostles and prophets in our day," per Pentecostal Theology's review. Their book's entire subtitle - Embracing the Authentic, Avoiding the Bizarre - is built around giving readers concrete criteria to tell the two apart, on the conviction that neglecting genuine apostolic ministry has left a vacuum that false apostles have rushed to fill. It's a functional, Pentecostal-scholarly middle path: the ministry gift is real and active, but the modern title culture around it - the business cards, the branding, the demand for recognition - is exactly the kind of thing believers are called to test, a pattern echoed by ministers like Rolland and Heidi Baker, who've written that genuine apostolic ministry is marked by moving toward the lowest position, not the most visible title, per Christian Post. Where that leaves Krick specifically is a real question worth sitting with: does her ministry reflect this vision of authentic apostolic function, or does the branding these same continuationists voices specifically warn against - the title stamped in front of her name on every video - fall closer to the pattern they say has filled the vacuum?

A Different Read: The Case She Makes

On the other end of the spectrum sits the traditional qualifications argument. Scripture describes the church as "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:20), and a Reformed evaluation of Krick's ministry argues from that verse, plus Paul's own defense of his apostleship - "Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?" (1 Corinthians 9:1) - and the standard the apostles themselves used to replace Judas, requiring someone who had personally witnessed Christ's earthly ministry (Acts 1:21-22), that the office was unique and foundational to the early church, per Monergism. Krick's own answer to that argument is Ephesians 4, which promises apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers "till we all come to the unity of the faith" (Ephesians 4:13) - and since the church clearly hasn't reached that full unity yet, she argues the office can't have ended, according to Prophecy News Watch. A defender writing at Strong Faith Publications - who explicitly states this "is in no way an endorsement of Kathryn Krick" - makes a similar case, pointing out that Peter and John were described by the religious council as "uneducated and untrained men" (Acts 4:13) and yet were still chosen to lay the church's foundation, and argues nowhere does Scripture explicitly state the apostolic office has ceased.

From Title to Tithe: What About the Money?

The second issue is giving. Biblical tithing is real and commanded - "bring all the tithes into the storehouse... and try Me now in this," (Malachi 3:10) God says through Malachi, and the New Testament likewise calls believers to give cheerfully and generously. But that's a completely different transaction than what critics allege Krick is teaching. As we covered last lesson, Stuckey's specific claim is that Krick told a struggling mother her son's healing depended on sowing a larger seed. That's not storehouse giving as an act of worship - it's giving as a purchase price for a specific outcome. Scripture actually gives us a named historical example of exactly that error: Simon the sorcerer, who saw the apostles laying hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit and "offered them money, saying, 'Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit,'" (Acts 8:18-19). Peter's response was not gentle: "Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money" (Acts 8:20). That's the biblical test for this specific issue - not whether giving itself is good, which it is, but whether a spiritual outcome is being sold. Peter's other warning fits here too - false teachers operating "by covetousness... with deceptive words" (2 Peter 2:3), and Paul's warning about teachers driven by "dishonest gain" (Titus 1:11). Krick's own defense, which we covered in Lesson Two, is that she never sold a miracle and that the seed instruction was about surrender, not payment. That's her explanation to weigh against Peter's words to Simon - not ours to settle for her, but Scripture at least tells us exactly what question to be asking.

Where This Leaves Us

On the title, three real positions are on the table: Tennant's functional middle path, which says the ministry gift is genuinely active today but warns hard against the title culture surrounding it; the traditional qualifications argument from Ephesians 2:20 and Acts 1:21-22 that concludes the office itself ended with the apostolic age; and Krick's own Ephesians 4 counterargument that the office continues since the church hasn't reached full unity yet. All three deserve to be weighed rather than dismissed - and notably, none of the three simply hand Krick's specific use of the title a clean pass, since even the strongest continuationists voices we heard from still insist the function has to be tested case by case. On the giving question, Scripture gives us a sharp, named test case in Simon the sorcerer that draws a clear line between giving as worship and giving as a purchase - and where any teacher lands on that line is exactly the kind of thing "you will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16) is asking us to weigh. What we haven't tested yet is the manifestations themselves - the shaking, the falling, the convulsing that started this whole conversation. That's Lesson Four, where we'll hold today's scenes up against Scripture and against the century of revival history we introduced back in Lesson One - Wesley, Edwards, the Quakers, and Cane Ridge.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV).