Explore the Bible: Acts 1:15-25

In the period between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, we have one action taken by the early church recorded in Acts. Peter called the gathered followers of Jesus to select an apostolic replacement for Judas. This little incident has caused quite a bit of controversy, and there are a number of opinions about just what this episode means.

There are some who think the early church jumped the gun. They point to Paul’s call as an apostle, and claim that he was meant to be Judas’ replacement. However, this argument rests on the faulty assumption that Paul’s apostleship was the same thing as that of the disciples. When we look at the qualifications Peter laid out for Judas’ successor, we see that Paul met neither of them. Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ came well after He had ascended into heaven. Therefore Paul, while legitimately an apostle, was an apostle in a different sense than the Twelve.

Some questions are raised about the way the church chose the new apostle. Given the qualifications stated by Peter, there would have been a number of men qualified to take Judas’ place. It is likely (though not explicitly stated in Scripture) that Joseph and Matthias were both part of the larger group of disciples (70 or 72) sent out by Jesus, as recorded by Luke in Luke 10. That means there were probably several dozen others who met the minimum criteria! Something about these two stood out, however, as the group gathered together examined all of the men. If the “they” of verse 23 is the entire group, which I think is likely, the decision probably came down to these final two men.

Once the final candidates were chosen, the church decided to make the selection not by a vote or a decree of the apostles, but by lot. This seems odd to us today; would you call a pastor based on the flip of a coin? But the church wanted this decision, which had tremendous consequences for these men and for the new congregation forming, to be the Lord’s choice. The use of lots may reflect the way the high priest would seek the Lord’s counsel through the use of the Urim and Thummim (whose precise function we don’t know). It also reflected their belief that even what seems to be chance to us is in fact controlled by God. They cast the lot, and Matthias was chosen.

While Judas was replaced among the Twelve, this is the last time that this happens. When James is executed by Herod, there is no replacement sought for him. Nor do we see any of the other apostles replaced after their deaths. Why, then, did Peter call for a successor to Judas? First, he cites prophecy, but I think more significant is the statement in verse 25: “to take the place in this apostolic service that Judas left to go to his own place.” Taken together, there was a sense that Judas had abandoned his place among the apostles, and that there was a need to complete the number Jesus had chosen. When the apostles later died, they died still in their place, having remained faithful until the end.

This leaves us with the question of what this scenario means to us today. Certainly decision making in the church has changed since the coming of the Holy Spirit, something they did not yet have. I think that the choices made, and even the procedure used, show us that the earliest followers of Jesus did not want to put their own thinking and wisdom ahead of God’s will when making choices. There was a dependence on the Lord and His wisdom that we in the church can sometimes neglect in favor of our own ideas. While I certainly don’t advocate tossing dice to solve church problems, I do think we need to keep a constant awareness of God’s will and wisdom, and rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us into His truth, not ours.