Acts 1:15-26

15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) 16 and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”

18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

20 “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms:

“‘May his place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in it,’[e]

and,

“‘May another take his place of leadership.’[f]

21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, 22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”

23 So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24 Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen 25 to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” 26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.



Dig Deeper
When I asked my wife to marry me I was much more interested in the part of actually being married than with the wedding itself. She seemed to be much more interested in the actual wedding ceremony than I was, but it was important to her so we went about planning it and getting ready for it. She wanted to have five attendants stand up with her including the maid of honor. This meant that I had to get five friends to be the groomsmen. After some wrangling and working through some scheduling conflicts with my potential groomsmen, I finally settled on the five guys that I wanted to stand up there with me on the big day. We went through all of the preparations and getting tuxedos and all of that. Then I got a phone call. One of my friends that was supposed to come from Oklahoma to be in the wedding could not make it as something rather unpreventable had come up that would preclude him from making the trip. That might seem bad enough but to make it worse, it was five days before the wedding. I was in real trouble now. Then I realized that I had a cousin who was a particular favorite of mine and who had been joking around for weeks that she was hurt because I hadn’t asked her to be one of my groomsmen. So, I decided to go outside of tradition and ask her to be one of the groomsmen. I had to have five groomsmen; it was just absolutely necessary. Five days later, there she was, tuxedo and all to help me out and fulfill the necessary number of groomsmen that I needed.

We obviously are not dealing with a wedding here but there was a sudden and unexpected shortfall for the apostles just the same. It was important that they had twelve apostles. It was highly symbolic. Having twelve apostles was a signal to the potential Jewish believers in those early days that Jesus’ people were the restored Israel, the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. Israel had traditionally had twelve tribes (although the tribe of Dan was removed from the list of twelve in Rev. 7:4-8 and replaced apparently for their persistent idolatry; this is an interesting detail as we see that one of the twelve apostles in this passage is removed from his place and replaced) which signified who they were as the people of God. A new movement that was claiming to be the fulfillment and true embodiment of the people of God would make that statement clearly and strongly to Jews by having twelve leaders at the helm. Having eleven just did not make the same statement. Although my situation at the wedding wasn’t as deeply symbolic, in both situations it was important to get another person fast. The apostles knew that they needed to restore their number to the count of twelve.

But before Luke described how they went about that choice, he recounted quickly how they arrived at such an emergency shortage in the first place. Peter, as he often did during Jesus’ ministry, took leadership of the twelve and the other disciples, and stood up before the group of believers in Jerusalem. It is not clear if Luke saw particular significance to the number of one-hundred twenty but that was the number of men required in Jewish practices in order to constitute a community with its own council (We should not think that these were the only disciples at the time, forgetting that there was a group of at least five hundred in Galilee who witnessed Jesus’ resurrection. This was simply the number of believers in Jerusalem at that time). Luke may have simply been recording the number of believers present, but he may also have been sending the message that they were a legitimate community with a legitimate leadership.

They found themselves in a rather unpleasant situation as a community. Not only was Jesus no longer with them but one of their own had betrayed him. Up until the night before Jesus’ death, Judas was one of them by every standard that they understood. Jesus had known that Judas would be his betrayer but had so loved Judas and treated him without contempt to the degree that when he declared that one of their number would betray Jesus, none of the other apostles even suspected Judas. Then came the shocking news of what he had done coupled with the dramatic events surrounding Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus was dead and word soon came that so was Judas. Luke’s details of this differ from those that Matthew gave in his gospel and it is difficult to know precisely how the two accounts fit together but it can easily be done without assuming that they contradict one another. Luke says that Judas bought a field and fell headlong in it as his body burst open. Matthew said that he hung himself and that the Jewish leaders bought the field with the money that Judas returned to them. The simplest way to harmonize these two accounts is to assume that Luke’s description was an assumption of the fact that his audience knew that Judas had hanged himself and was a rather graphic way of describing his fate when he was cut down from the tree. Almost as if to say, “here is the sad fate of this man who once walked with Jesus.” The Jews may have bought the field but they did so with Judas’ money, so it may have became common to simply speak of the field as being bought by Judas.

This situation with Judas left the apostles in uncharted waters. So they turned to prayer, as we saw in the previous passage, and to the word of God, the Scriptures. The early church saw the Psalms as being full of foreshadowing of the Messiah and so they saw them to be full of prophecies that related to Jesus and events surrounding his life and death. Psalm 69, which was quoted by Peter in verse 20, had to do with the one who would desert and betray God’s suffering servant. He should be removed from his place of salvation and be “blotted from the book of life” (that Peter related this Psalm to Judas’ condition should put to rest the arguments that some make that Judas was acting nobly and should still be considered righteous). In Psalm 109, the second quote in verse 20, we have another scene of a betrayer of the righteous, suffering servant. Let this betrayer, said the Psalmist, be stricken from his place and replaced by another. Luke’s point in the previous passage and in this one is that God was in control of all of this. Judas’ betrayal was not some unforeseen tragedy, but was prophesied about and fell into the strange purposes of God. It was difficult and unknown waters for them but not for God. When faced with such trying times, they turned to prayer and the word of God, a pattern worth following.

They decided upon the method of choosing lots after they had narrowed their options down to two men. They prayed and then let the Lord decide through the lots. I have, over the years, had people ask me if I think that the church today should decide matters based on this method. I would say decidedly “no” for at least two reasons. The first is that just because something is described in the Bible does not mean that it is prescribed as something we should do. It is significant that we never again see this method used anywhere in the New Testament Scriptures. Secondly, it is important to note that this event took place before the Holy Spirit was poured out on the community of believers. That is not to imply that this was a superstitious act. They narrowed the list down as best they could to two men in whom they had confidence in, then they prayed fervently, and felt that putting it to lots would be to let God decide. Later in Acts, when faced with difficult decisions, we see the leaders turning to the guidance of the Holy Spirit within them (Acts 15:28) to determine God’s will. That means that their actions were taken faithfully before the Holy Spirit was given to God’s people and so actions like drawing lots are no longer necessary or desirable for us who have the Holy Spirit.

As they determined who would be the replacement apostle, Peter made clear what the qualifications for the apostles were. The first was that they had to have been with the disciples from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. They could hardly serve as witnesses to Jesus’ ministry to the Jews if they were not there during that time. The second qualification was that they had to be a witness of the resurrection for that would be their primary role. These are qualifications that should be kept firmly in mind for men who would inappropriately claim the title of apostle today.

One interesting question that arises from all of this, though, is why Judas was replaced as an apostle but when James was martyred much later (Acts 12:2), he was not replaced. It appears that it has to do with their early role as witnesses to the people of Israel. Noted author I. Howard Marshall points out that when the community that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls chose twelve leaders it was intentionally done so to signify that they saw themselves as the renewed Israel, the faithful remnant. This was no doubt the same for the role of the twelve apostles. Jesus was always big on symbolism and saw the twelve apostles as a powerful statement to the children of Israel. This was the renewing of God’s people, his new family (see Luke 22:30). So, eleven apostles just would not do at the beginning, but as the gospel began to expand beyond the borders of Israel, the symbolism of having twelve apostles was no longer necessary. Paul would be added to the number of apostles as one “abnormally born” (1 Corinthians 15:8) and the twelve apostles would not be replaced continually. Once the twelve had served their primary symbolic function in Israel, they would have fulfilled their mission and the role of apostle could eventually give way to those that God called and to whom he gave different gifts.

Eventually the apostles chose Matthias. According to church writings of the early centuries, Matthias went on to spread the gospel in Ethiopia. We don’t know what happened to Joseph but I always have wondered about him. Neither man is mentioned again in Acts and neither is held up as being more important than the other. That’s an important reminder in God’s family. There are different roles but there are no greater or lesser roles in God’s kingdom. Everyone is called to do their part and bring glory to God no matter what role they have called to.


Devotional Thought
In everything that the early church did, they showed a reliance on God and a desire to be led by him through prayer, his word, and eventually the Spirit. Do you have the same reliance on God or does self-reliance sneak in more than you care to.