In founding a church Paul naturally appointed the first local officials (
Ac 14:23), but he does not seem to have interfered with the ordinary administration of affairs in the churches he had planted. In those cases in which he was appealed to or was compelled by some grave scandal to interpose, he rested an authoritative command on some express word of the Lord (
1Co 7:10), and when he had no such word to rest on, was careful to distinguish his own judgment and counsel from a Divine commandment (
1Co 12:25,
30). His appeals in the latter case are grounded upon fundamental principles of morality common to heathen and Christian alike (
1Co 5:1), or are addressed to the spiritual judgment (
1Co 10:15), or are reinforced by the weight of a personal influence gained by unselfish service and by the fact that he was the spiritual father of his converts as having begotten them in Christ Jesus through the gospel (
1Co 4:15 f). It may be added here that the expressly missionary character of the apostleship seems to debar James, the Lord's brother, from any claim to the title. James was a prophet and teacher, but not an apostle. As the head of the church at Jerusalem, he exercised a ministry of a purely local nature. The passages on which it has been sought to establish his right to be included in the apostolate do not furnish any satisfactory evidence. In
1Co 15:7 James is contrasted with "all the apostles" rather than included in their number (compare
1Co 9:5). And in
Ga 1:19 the meaning may quite well be that with the exception of Peter, none of the apostles was seen by Paul in Jerusalem, but only James the Lord's brother (compare the Revised Version, margin).