Page 92 - SoulWinning Crash Course

1 Corinthians 1:22 "For the Jews require a sign,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom:"

Jews are stubborn by nature (Exodus 32:9, 33:3-5) and have a hard time
believing anything without a sign. In this transitional time period in early
church history, God was gracious enough to His chosen people to give them
tangible evidence that what the Apostles preached about Jesus was true, by
having the Apostles be "conduits" of the Holy Spirit to them.

Acts 5:29 "Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said...
30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged

on a tree.
31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a
Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy
Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him."

Hebrews 2:3-4 (written to HEBREWS, i.e. Jews) "How shall we escape, if

we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken
by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God
also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers
miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?"

This intermediary "remitting and retaining" power was obviously
TEMPORARY, like any other of the "signs of an apostle" (2 Corinthians
12:12). The Apostles didn't live on earth forever. The signs could last no

longer than their physical life. But they ended even sooner than that.
Healing the sick was another sign (Mark 16:17-18), but by the end of Paul's
life, he couldn't heal himself (2 Corinthians 12:9), or Timothy (1 Timothy
5:23), or Trophimus (2 Timothy 4:20). And as you read above, he was
teaching the churches that nobody needed him or anyone else to intercede
for them to get the Holy Ghost. (You may be wondering how they could
have ever needed the apostles when

1 Timothy 2:5 says "there is...one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus." It's simple. Paul wrote 1 Timothy 2:5 about eleven
years after Acts 19.)