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NT Doctrine -- Acts 1 - Ed Hurst - 11-26-2022
(For this chapter, I can find no reason to rewrite the commentary I've already published elsewhere.)
Luke mentions that Jesus in His resurrected form remained for some 40 days on earth. During that time, He met with His disciples extensively in Galilee, after which they returned to Jerusalem. What Luke and John seem to emphasize was the critical importance of their understanding of how the Old Testament prophesied of His death, burial for three days, and His resurrection. They were taught quite a bit during this time based on their changed understanding of these things. Still, they did not have the Spirit. Jesus assured them He would come very soon, describing it as a baptism in fire.
But because they lacked that illuminating Presence, they still stumbled over their impression that the Kingdom was meant to be a human political order on earth. Was Jesus about to set Israel free from Roman domination? They had no doubt He could. Jesus had already told them repeatedly that this was not in the plans, but their minds were not ready for it. Instead, He pointed them back to the fundamental principle of believers living under various human governments. God retains full authority over such things, had long since ordained how it would all turn out and when, and seldom deemed it necessary to inform humans of his plans. Instead, they were to focus their minds on the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the mission which paid little heed to governments among men – to carry the gospel across all national borders to all men.
It almost seems as if we can see them hiking out of the northeastern gate of the city, across the Kidron, up the long sloping road to the pass between two peaks on Mount Olivet. As they crossed the zenith, they started down the slope toward Bethany, Jesus walking firmly in the lead. Except He didn't head down the road to Bethany, but simply stepped off into the air and floated away into the clouds, turning to raise His hands and bless them. As they stood there watching for one last glimpse of their Master, a voice told them that the time for such things was past. Turning to look at who spoke, they see angels. The angels promised that Jesus would someday return in pretty much the same fashion.
It was a Sabbath Day’s Journey back into the city. By that time, the Pharisees had fiddled with the meaning of the phrase until it stretched as much as 2.25 miles (3.6km). We find the disciples had moved their latest base of operations away from Bethany to the home in the Bethesda Quarter that hosted their banquet before Passover.
Luke names the eleven surviving disciples, as well as the women associated with Jesus’ ministry, but he includes the Lord’s own younger brothers. Indeed, the group had grown to some 120 members. About the only thing they could take action on at this point was replacing Judas Iscariot. Luke explains that Judas’ betrayal bribe was used to purchase the field, apparently where Judas had decided to hang himself. That was the evening before Passover Day, when no one was going to retrieve a dead body, particularly one having died so shamefully as hanging. Since he wasn’t dealt with until sometime later, his swollen body was pretty hard to handle, and may have already fallen to the ground. The easiest answer for the Sanhedrin, seeking to keep all of this secret, was buying the field where he lay and designating it as a pauper’s grave site. The money they used was Judas’ reward for betrayal, which could not be returned to the Temple treasury because it was blood money. Since the secrecy was so poor, the acreage was eventually called “Field of Blood” in honor of Judas’ death there, and the dirty money used to buy it.
It turned out there had been a handful of other men who had strung along with the Twelve pretty much the whole time they followed Jesus. While He officially called out the original group, nothing kept others from participating as volunteers. Perhaps they were younger men not yet working, or wealthy enough to afford the time. It’s typical of ancient, and particularly Eastern cultures, to pay little attention to this minor detail, since it was too common. Central figures in a narrative get named, but it was almost silly to name servants unless they took part in the action, and equally silly to assume there were none present. Jesus had a steady entourage much bigger than the Twelve, except in those places when the Gospels specifically say otherwise. At any rate, these men had experienced pretty much the same as the Twelve, so they chose one of them for the office Judas held. The method they used was a holdover from the Temple rituals. It was still appropriate because the Holy Spirit was not yet present to change the mode of operations.
There is nothing to indicate that Peter was wrong to seek fulfillment of the passages in Psalms (69:25; 109:8). Both of those were long regarded as prefiguring the trials of the Messiah, so finding in those verses a call to fill Judas’ empty place is typical of Hebrew thinking. On the other hand, we have almost nothing about this man. Luke never mentions him again, but that’s not exactly surprising, since this is mostly about Peter and Paul, and events that connect them. Further, the scraps of information we can find among the Early Church writers are contradictory. Perhaps a historian might guess he eventually went on mission to Ethiopia, but little else can be said. What matters is these people continued applying the Law of Moses as best they understood in the absence of the Holy Spirit to clarify things. It may have been a pointless gesture in the grand scheme of things, but the action was not wrong in the context. They simply did the best they knew until the one defining miracle of God changed it all.
RE: NT Doctrine -- Acts 1 - jaybreak - 11-29-2022
The church I grew up in was named after Judas' replacement (St. Matthias, obviously).
RE: NT Doctrine -- Acts 1 - Ed Hurst - 11-30-2022
Yep, that's him. There are all kinds of legends about him because there is simply no reliable record what happened to him. For example, after hanging about Judea for a while, he was said by some to have planted churches in the central region of modern Turkey called Cappadocia. Some say he went up around the Caspian Sea, etc. The Book of Acts is all about Peter and Paul.