Three or four times we read in the New Testament of ‘apostles of the churches’. These were messengers sent out by a particular church on a particular mission, as Epaphroditus was the Philippians’ ‘apostle’ (NIV ‘messenger’; Phil. 2:25), and as certain brothers were ‘representatives (apostoloi) of the churches’ (2 Cor. 8:23). We would probably call them ‘missionaries’ or ‘mission partners’. The overwhelming use of ‘apostle’ in the New Testament, however, is in relation to the Twelve, whom Jesus himself