Junia (New Testament person)
According to professor and pastor [[Gilbert Bilezikian]], the term "apostle" connotes the highest level of leadership and authority in the early church. Initially, only the original disciples (meaning "students", "learners") of Jesus were called "apostles" (meaning "those sent forth with a mission). After Jesus' resurrection, the designation was given to missionaries involved in establishing churches and who saw the resurrected Christ before his [[Ascension of Jesus|ascension]]. This included more than "five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time" and then Paul himself. After that, the appellation of apostle was extended to Christian disciples who had never seen Christ but who were pioneer missionaries, such as Apollos, Epaphroditus, Sylvanus and Timothy. The description of "apostles" as one of the three higher spiritual gifts that Christians should desire is evidence of continued accessibility to this ministry for qualified persons. They could aspire to become apostles, prophets, or teachers. Bilezikian writes that the term "apostle" was still used in this broad sense in the post-apostolic writing of the [[Didache]].
Judas Iscariot
The name "Judas" (Ὶούδας) is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Judah (יהודה, Yhûdâh, Hebrew for "God is praised"), which was an extremely common name for Jewish men during the first century AD, due to the renowned hero Judas Maccabeus. Consequently, numerous other figures with this name are mentioned throughout the New Testament. In the Gospel of Mark , the earliest of all the gospels, which was written in the mid 60s or early 70s AD, Judas Iscariot is the only apostle named "Judas". follows this portrayal. The Gospel of Luke , however, replaces the apostle whom Mark and Matthew call "Thaddeus" with "Judas son of James". Peter Stanford suggests that this renaming may represent an effort by the author of the Gospel of Luke to create a "good Judas" in contrast to the betrayer Judas Iscariot.