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]].
Richard Brothers
In 1793 Brothers declared himself to be the apostle of a new religion. He began to see himself as possessing a special role in the gathering of the Jews back into Palestine, in particular, the "Jews" who were hidden amongst the population of Great Britain. In similarity to modern British Israelists, Brothers asserted that the "hidden Israel" had no notion of its biological lineage and that part of his role would be to teach them of their true identity and lead them to the land of Canaan. Brothers proclaimed himself to be "Prince of the Hebrews", literal descendant of the Biblical House of David, and the "Nephew of the Almighty", who would rule over Israel until the return of Jesus Christ. Brothers declared he would achieve all this using a rod he had fashioned from a wild rosebush, with which he would perform miracles, as Moses had done.