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APOSTOLIC FOUNDATIONS
"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." (Ephesians 2:19-22)
In his penetrating manner, the author seeks to capture the flavor and essential meaning of this most holy foundation: "the foundation of the apostles and prophets." With the current abundance of those "who call themselves apostles" (Rev. 2:2), it is refreshing to have a plumb-line from Heaven that will not only greatly enable God's people to correctly discern the true apostle from the false, but also challenge the core of their foundations in God.
Art Katz, aided by Jewish heritage and education acquired from prestigious academic institutions, zealously sought to bring the radical relevance of the Bible’s message to contemporary societies, both secular and religious. Over the course of nearly forty years of speaking and writing ministry, with several of his books translated into major foreign languages, Art traveled frequently and widely as a conference speaker and prophetic voice to the Church until his death in 2007. Art Katz embodied the apostolic and was equipped and anointed to communicate the intricacies of its essence with unequaled eloquence and impeccable scriptural accuracy.
This is the Kindle Version of the print book originally published in 2009 by Art Katz Ministries, which is published by Real Truth Publications with permission by Art Katz Ministries.
In his penetrating manner, the author seeks to capture the flavor and essential meaning of this most holy foundation: "the foundation of the apostles and prophets." With the current abundance of those "who call themselves apostles" (Rev. 2:2), it is refreshing to have a plumb-line from Heaven that will not only greatly enable God's people to correctly discern the true apostle from the false, but also challenge the core of their foundations in God.
Art Katz, aided by Jewish heritage and education acquired from prestigious academic institutions, zealously sought to bring the radical relevance of the Bible’s message to contemporary societies, both secular and religious. Over the course of nearly forty years of speaking and writing ministry, with several of his books translated into major foreign languages, Art traveled frequently and widely as a conference speaker and prophetic voice to the Church until his death in 2007. Art Katz embodied the apostolic and was equipped and anointed to communicate the intricacies of its essence with unequaled eloquence and impeccable scriptural accuracy.
This is the Kindle Version of the print book originally published in 2009 by Art Katz Ministries, which is published by Real Truth Publications with permission by Art Katz Ministries.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 6, 2000
51 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Arthur Katz
38 books21 followersArt Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929 of Jewish parents. Raised through the depression years and turbulence of World War II, and inducted into Marxist and existentialist ideologies, as well as merchant marine and military experiences, Art was brought to a final moral crisis as a high school teacher—able to raise, but not able to answer the groaning perplexities of the modern age.
During a leave of absence and on a hitch-hiking odyssey through Europe and the Middle East, the cynical and unbelieving atheist, vehement anti-religionist and anti-Christian was radically apprehended by a God who was actively seeking him. The actual journal of that experience, Ben Israel – Odyssey of a Modern Jew, recounts his quest for the true meaning to life, which climaxed significantly and symbolically in Jerusalem. For More Visit the official Website: About Art Katz
Arthur Katz also published under the name Art Katz
and Aaron Katz (disambiguated as Aaron^^Katz)
During a leave of absence and on a hitch-hiking odyssey through Europe and the Middle East, the cynical and unbelieving atheist, vehement anti-religionist and anti-Christian was radically apprehended by a God who was actively seeking him. The actual journal of that experience, Ben Israel – Odyssey of a Modern Jew, recounts his quest for the true meaning to life, which climaxed significantly and symbolically in Jerusalem. For More Visit the official Website: About Art Katz
Arthur Katz also published under the name Art Katz
and Aaron Katz (disambiguated as Aaron^^Katz)
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 19, 2015
“There is nothing more opposed to the purposes of God than the well-wishing intentions that men perpetuate out of their own human and religious zeal.”
Remember the “apostolic and universal” phrase in the old creeds? Well, it meant something. Katz explains what and challenges us to apostolic living. Prepare to see yourself, your pastor, your congregation in an unflattering mirror. Brutally honest, yet encouraging.
Well-written, if slightly archaic language. Katz died in 2007, but writes like people spoke fifty years ago.
As is true of the best books I’ve read, as soon as I finished it, I flipped back and started again (with highlighter in hand).
“God will not force upon us the perfect if we are satisfied with the counterfeit.”
Remember the “apostolic and universal” phrase in the old creeds? Well, it meant something. Katz explains what and challenges us to apostolic living. Prepare to see yourself, your pastor, your congregation in an unflattering mirror. Brutally honest, yet encouraging.
Well-written, if slightly archaic language. Katz died in 2007, but writes like people spoke fifty years ago.
As is true of the best books I’ve read, as soon as I finished it, I flipped back and started again (with highlighter in hand).
“God will not force upon us the perfect if we are satisfied with the counterfeit.”
June 5, 2020
Open any page and you will be pierced with deep thoughts on faith, community, living a real honest-to-God life, and the power of the cross and the Word. I hear Art's speaking with every paragraph. Unmistakeable and powerful reflections on what it means to be a believer.
December 27, 2016
“Apostolic Foundations” by Art Katz
Significant book in my life.
"The outpouring of the Spirit brings with it the sense of the future, and a church without a future is a depleted entity. A church that does not anticipate the consummation of the age has lost its identity as the church. Therefore, when we do not have that future because we do not have the Spirit, we stagnate at the level of conventional and predictable church life, nothing more than a succession of Sunday services. The evidence of that can be most pointedly seen in our children who are bored with church life, and we often have to drag them by the scruff of the neck to our functions. They would not be sitting in our congregations waiting for the thing to end, nor would they be drawn off and attracted to other questionable amusements, if we were living in the context of an end. The general character of our meetings is a terrible indictment against us because we have not raised up for our own children a standard and quality of life that compels their attention and their participation. We have not persuaded our children that what we are about is earnest and authentic. Though they may not articulate it, we are to them no more than some kind of adult Sunday culture.”
“We must see the connection between community and the Kingdom, because Church, as it is presently constituted, with a mere schedule of services, has not the framework to present an opportunity to men by which their character can be attended and be brought to the God-likeness that God intends. Merely seeing each other Sunday by Sunday, being physically present in pews, does not provide the opportunity for the redemptive working of God in the Church, for the shaping of character and life by which we can live in the spirit of humility, truth, meekness, love, peace, obedience, and have a conscience that is without offense both to God and to men. The Church needs to be a demonstration, the thing in itself, an expression already of the Kingdom come. ‘The Kingdom come’ is not just for some future millennia, there is a way we can live in its reality now. It is remarkable that when you begin to pursue this subject, you see how little the Church believes that God intended the Sermon on the Mount for now. We seem to think that God does not really intend that we should turn the other cheek, walk an extra mile, or love our enemies. It was relegated to some future millennial time, when the Church itself would be absent from the earth, and the Jews that remained would somehow fulfill the requirements of the Sermon on the Mount, when the Holy Spirit would be taken from the earth. It is insanity. It is cowardice. It is apostasy. It is heresy. God intended the fulfillment of these things now, through the Body of Christ, which is a covenanted community of God. This is more than the issue of doctrine or atonement. This is more than soul winning. This is more than proper orthodoxy. This is more than a Pentecostal distinctive. This is more than salvation as a private experience. This is corporate reality, something demonstrated by the Church in its corporateness in such a way as we can say to an unbelieving world, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’”
If there is something flaky about our apostles and prophets, then what will the superstructure be if it is based on that foundation?
The Church 2day moves largely as the world; as if no practical input by God into their daily lives is expected by virtue of their believing.
When you can praise God in the midst of adversity and suffering, you have the most powerful release from the powers of darkness.
There is always a period of obscurity before God brings forth out of that darkness and isolation His Josephs for the age.
In an age where the word ‘apostolic’ is grossly overused, the Lord is calling for a people willing to live in a truly apostolic way.
A church with apostolic foundations is that body of people whose central impulse is one thing only- a radical jealousy for the glory of God.
A church that does not anticipate the consummation of the age has lost its identity as the church.
I wonder how many of us are wearing porcelain faces, living out a Christian life from a self-assumed notion of how we ought to appear.
The presence of religious manipulation in modern ministry reflects the absence of reality in the lives of God's people.
Our Christianity is degenerating into a middle class culture, a comfortable nostalgia, in the avoidance of the Cross of Christ Jesus.
We can give an appearance of comeliness & well-being, but God seeks a consistency in our life that we shall not attain to without the Cross.
There's a terrible disparity to things we profess as believers, & what is the actual content of our lives. We have shrunk from the Cross.
We're coming to a conclusion of the age, and we shall be increasingly despised for constituting a threat to the status quo of the nations
There's something about the nature of suffering that has the greatest capacity to reveal truth.
To whatever degree our image of God is distorted, so are we also.
The character and authority of true “sons” is predicated, as it must be, upon the power of the resurrection life.
Ministry of the kind that is penetrating & that affects time & eternity must grow out of His life & the life comes out of relationships.
God does not want the faith of men to be established on eloquence, but on the basis of the power of God.
The preaching that is power comes when a man abandons himself, and will not lean on his own expertise or ability.
The veil needs to come off of the Church's eyes before it will come off of Israel's. We have not adequately seen His eternal purposes.
We've missed the mystery of Israel to the degree that we've missed the mystery of God. We don't understand the One who chooses whom He will.
The ultimate test of whether we are indeed the people of God is our ability not only to love the unlovely, but to love our enemies.
Unless we are authentically rooted and grounded in God, we will fail to be to the Jew what we ought to be in the days that lie ahead.
It's a real test for us, whether we will love what He loves and hate what He hates, especially in reference to His purposes for Israel.
The Church has suffered significantly by a tendency to dismiss the literal nature of statements made about Israel in the holy Scriptures.
The issue of Israel is the issue of the Church more than you could possibly imagine.
"We need to recognize that our salvation, the finality and the fullness of it, is near." -Art Katz
"How can we lose? Whether we are imprisoned, beheaded, tortured or persecuted, we receive a greater eternal glory & joy." -Art Katz
Righteousness is not something learned by discipline. Righteousness is very God.
Significant book in my life.
"The outpouring of the Spirit brings with it the sense of the future, and a church without a future is a depleted entity. A church that does not anticipate the consummation of the age has lost its identity as the church. Therefore, when we do not have that future because we do not have the Spirit, we stagnate at the level of conventional and predictable church life, nothing more than a succession of Sunday services. The evidence of that can be most pointedly seen in our children who are bored with church life, and we often have to drag them by the scruff of the neck to our functions. They would not be sitting in our congregations waiting for the thing to end, nor would they be drawn off and attracted to other questionable amusements, if we were living in the context of an end. The general character of our meetings is a terrible indictment against us because we have not raised up for our own children a standard and quality of life that compels their attention and their participation. We have not persuaded our children that what we are about is earnest and authentic. Though they may not articulate it, we are to them no more than some kind of adult Sunday culture.”
“We must see the connection between community and the Kingdom, because Church, as it is presently constituted, with a mere schedule of services, has not the framework to present an opportunity to men by which their character can be attended and be brought to the God-likeness that God intends. Merely seeing each other Sunday by Sunday, being physically present in pews, does not provide the opportunity for the redemptive working of God in the Church, for the shaping of character and life by which we can live in the spirit of humility, truth, meekness, love, peace, obedience, and have a conscience that is without offense both to God and to men. The Church needs to be a demonstration, the thing in itself, an expression already of the Kingdom come. ‘The Kingdom come’ is not just for some future millennia, there is a way we can live in its reality now. It is remarkable that when you begin to pursue this subject, you see how little the Church believes that God intended the Sermon on the Mount for now. We seem to think that God does not really intend that we should turn the other cheek, walk an extra mile, or love our enemies. It was relegated to some future millennial time, when the Church itself would be absent from the earth, and the Jews that remained would somehow fulfill the requirements of the Sermon on the Mount, when the Holy Spirit would be taken from the earth. It is insanity. It is cowardice. It is apostasy. It is heresy. God intended the fulfillment of these things now, through the Body of Christ, which is a covenanted community of God. This is more than the issue of doctrine or atonement. This is more than soul winning. This is more than proper orthodoxy. This is more than a Pentecostal distinctive. This is more than salvation as a private experience. This is corporate reality, something demonstrated by the Church in its corporateness in such a way as we can say to an unbelieving world, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’”
If there is something flaky about our apostles and prophets, then what will the superstructure be if it is based on that foundation?
The Church 2day moves largely as the world; as if no practical input by God into their daily lives is expected by virtue of their believing.
When you can praise God in the midst of adversity and suffering, you have the most powerful release from the powers of darkness.
There is always a period of obscurity before God brings forth out of that darkness and isolation His Josephs for the age.
In an age where the word ‘apostolic’ is grossly overused, the Lord is calling for a people willing to live in a truly apostolic way.
A church with apostolic foundations is that body of people whose central impulse is one thing only- a radical jealousy for the glory of God.
A church that does not anticipate the consummation of the age has lost its identity as the church.
I wonder how many of us are wearing porcelain faces, living out a Christian life from a self-assumed notion of how we ought to appear.
The presence of religious manipulation in modern ministry reflects the absence of reality in the lives of God's people.
Our Christianity is degenerating into a middle class culture, a comfortable nostalgia, in the avoidance of the Cross of Christ Jesus.
We can give an appearance of comeliness & well-being, but God seeks a consistency in our life that we shall not attain to without the Cross.
There's a terrible disparity to things we profess as believers, & what is the actual content of our lives. We have shrunk from the Cross.
We're coming to a conclusion of the age, and we shall be increasingly despised for constituting a threat to the status quo of the nations
There's something about the nature of suffering that has the greatest capacity to reveal truth.
To whatever degree our image of God is distorted, so are we also.
The character and authority of true “sons” is predicated, as it must be, upon the power of the resurrection life.
Ministry of the kind that is penetrating & that affects time & eternity must grow out of His life & the life comes out of relationships.
God does not want the faith of men to be established on eloquence, but on the basis of the power of God.
The preaching that is power comes when a man abandons himself, and will not lean on his own expertise or ability.
The veil needs to come off of the Church's eyes before it will come off of Israel's. We have not adequately seen His eternal purposes.
We've missed the mystery of Israel to the degree that we've missed the mystery of God. We don't understand the One who chooses whom He will.
The ultimate test of whether we are indeed the people of God is our ability not only to love the unlovely, but to love our enemies.
Unless we are authentically rooted and grounded in God, we will fail to be to the Jew what we ought to be in the days that lie ahead.
It's a real test for us, whether we will love what He loves and hate what He hates, especially in reference to His purposes for Israel.
The Church has suffered significantly by a tendency to dismiss the literal nature of statements made about Israel in the holy Scriptures.
The issue of Israel is the issue of the Church more than you could possibly imagine.
"We need to recognize that our salvation, the finality and the fullness of it, is near." -Art Katz
"How can we lose? Whether we are imprisoned, beheaded, tortured or persecuted, we receive a greater eternal glory & joy." -Art Katz
Righteousness is not something learned by discipline. Righteousness is very God.
November 14, 2013
What a hard-hitting set of realities Katz uses to bang the reader over the head numerous times throughout this exhortation to holiness. The late Art Katz is a grandfather of the faith, and in that respect, one pays respect where it is justly due.
With that in mind, I certainly don't agree with all of Katz's theological persuasions, but as I stated before, this book is certainly not book to quibble of doctrinal confessions, but rather, a poignant reflection on what it means to be apostolic. Nay, even further, what does it mean to be a follower of Christ? Whether you're a charismatic, or a special breed of Baptist that is afraid to Holy-Spirit raise thine hands - regardless - this book is worth the read, reflection, and proper meditation.
Brent McCulley (11/13/2013)
With that in mind, I certainly don't agree with all of Katz's theological persuasions, but as I stated before, this book is certainly not book to quibble of doctrinal confessions, but rather, a poignant reflection on what it means to be apostolic. Nay, even further, what does it mean to be a follower of Christ? Whether you're a charismatic, or a special breed of Baptist that is afraid to Holy-Spirit raise thine hands - regardless - this book is worth the read, reflection, and proper meditation.
Brent McCulley (11/13/2013)
Read
April 15, 2012This book was so hard hitting it was almost hard to stomach. No, Arthur Katz' call to holiness and abandon of everything for the sake of the Kingdom was hard to stomach and made me question whether I am cut out for such a life. Nee-esque in his black-and-white perspective on God and spirituality, Katz brings the hammer down on what it means to live an apostolic life. It left me with much to chew on.
December 7, 2010
This book is second only to The Bible. The first time I read it nonstop....the second time, I crawled through it on my belly...my face in the dirt. The profundity of Biblical, prophetic Truth expressed throughout almost needs to be chewed and sucked out before one can even consider swallowing~
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2015
That's a radical book from a radical person (Radical in a good sense), It is not easy to accept and if you read it, it is hard to just accept it, it will either change a good deal of you ideas and life or you will totally reject it.
August 2, 2023
Apostolic Foundations seeks to examine what a true apostle is and what it looks like in the church. I don’t agree with all of Katz’s arguments but it is a good guy check for Christians to be committed to following God and seek to be truly transformed.
July 29, 2023
Life changing book! You will start thinking with an eternal perspective.
July 4, 2012
I only read Kait's highlighted sections, so that should be noted. He seemed to still have dualism in some of his perspectives, but his poignant style didn't bother me. It's a famous book from a grandpa of the faith, so I'm glad I went through it albeit briefly.
February 26, 2013
From a troubled period in my life, I hold on to this book for its incredibly vivid explanation and description of the sacrificial system.
March 20, 2015
It is still perculating deep within me. To do any justice to tis work I will read it again.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews