[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Good. Who does the ‘calling out’?

God does, when He saves them through faith on the Word as it is preached, and they are assembled into a local church.

For instance, everywhere Paul the Apostle went preaching, people were saved, and then gathered together into local churches, which is why we see the churchES of Galatia, etc. spoken of.

That's the point, too - authority is conferred by God's Word, through faithfulness to it. There is no such thing as "apostolic" authority. The notion that the pastors of local churches had authority because they were installed by apostles, or by the descendants of apostles, is completely foreign to the Scripture. Any pastor of a local assembly has the same authority as Peter himself had - indeed, James the brother of Jesus, who was not an apostle, had the final word OVER Peter and the other apostles in the question before the church at Jerusalem in Acts 15 - this being the case because James was by this time the pastor at Jerusalem, not Peter.

[narses]

The root of it, the claim:

There is no such thing as "apostolic" authority.

Why then did those who were called out by God directly as Apostles find the authority to call out replacements? Why did the early Fathers of Christianity agree that such authority existed and was supported by the teachings of Our Lord even before the Canon of the Bible was collected or even written down yet?

[annalex]

James the brother of Jesus, who was not an apostle

Really?

James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the publican, and James the son of Alpheus, and Thaddeus ( Matthew 10:3)

But other of the apostles I saw none, saving James the brother of the Lord (Galatians 1:19)

James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship: that we should go unto the Gentiles (Galatians 2:9; compare Acts 15)