Why is Paul considered an Apostle? Possible Duplicate:
  What is an apostle?
  How do we know Paul wasn’t a false Apostle?  




Why is Paul considered an apostle rather than simply a disciple?  What Biblical references show why or why not?
An apostle is one sent from God, a disciple is one who studied under God.

Decent (albeit imperfect) analogues in the terminology would be Apostle is to Missionary as Disciple is to Student.

The 12 disciples included all of the men who studied under Jesus - including Judas. 

Once Jesus died and rose again, he sent the remaining 11 of them out (obviously not Judas, since he was dead!) to preach the Good News to the ends of the earth (Matt 28:19-20), and later called Paul to do the same.

Paul, however, did not know Jesus until his conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9), well after Jesus' teaching ministry was done. Thus, Paul was sent out (apostolos), but was never discipled directly by Jesus.