Articles
Acts of the Apostles - Acts 1
Acts of the Apostles - Acts 1
Choosing of the apostles
Jesus, the son of God, the savior of the world, the king of kings and Lord of lords. How do you tell people this story? There is no TV, internet, Facebook, or any such media. Do you reveal it to kings and emperors? Do you reveal it to the leading religious leaders of the day? No, you pick 12 common men. You choose fishermen, a tax-collector, a political-rebel, and a few that we don’t know what they were.
Failures of the apostles
Then, and no one is really surprised at this, they prove to be normal men! They fail. They squabble among themselves over power and position. Continually. They don’t understand the teachings of Jesus. They even get the overall scheme of the story wrong. They become discouraged and disillusioned.
Turning point of the apostles – resurrection of Jesus
Then, a remarkable thing happens. Jesus, having been crucified, buried, and left for dead in the tomb, ARISES from the dead and appears unto them. He appears not once, but many times over a period of 40 days. He talks with them, continues instructing them. They see him, hear him, eat with him, and touch Him (cp. 1John 1:1-4). They KNOW He is alive. They watch as he ascends to heaven to sit on the right hand of God. They are now prepared to face the most daunting challenges with the story of Jesus.
The Acts of the apostles.
So what happened to them? What happened to the story of Jesus? Luke, having made a thorough study of the available data, writes the definitive history of these chosen men. It is not a biography of the apostles, but the telling of how the story of Jesus was spread throughout the world. It tells of the challenges these men faced as they tell and retell the story of Jesus and the resurrection. It doesn’t tell of the end of these apostles. If uninspired history is accurate, they died as martyrs for their telling of this story but THAT is NOT the story. The story isn’t about THEM, but about their story. Through this we can “know the exact truth about the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1-4). We can KNOW JESUS.
So, grab your bibles and let us read again this story, but remember, the story is the story of JESUS as told by the apostles.
Hugh DeLong
