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In the same way, one can appreciate the distinction that Furnish and Marxsen, among others, both make between the two different phases of Paul's ministry as an apostle appointed, as he believed, to establish the gospel. As an apostle, Paul was a sower or a parent, but he recognized a difference between the "missionary preaching" whereby he had sown the seed of the gospel or given birth to his children (cf. 1 Cor. 3:6; Gal. 4:19) and the "pastoral teaching" whereby he (as well as others) nurtured and cultivated the plant or exhorted and trained the children. Here, again, one need not make the pertinent distinction by a questionable use of the distinction between "preaching" and "teaching." Whether addressed to unbelievers or believers, the explicit witness of the church involves proclamation as well as teaching. But the relevant point is that there is a real and important difference between explicit witness's, and therefore both preaching and teaching's, functioning to generate faith and its functioning to confirm faith already generated.

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