Written by: David Dozier
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Matthias: the First Serious Error of the Apostles

Overview

This series is Part 1 of a planned 2-part series.

A common error of many Christians and "theologians" is the failure to recognize the difference between inspired history and inspired doctrine, and how each is to be used to establish "sound doctrine". The Bible, of course, is filled with both; however, the distinction is that there are many examples in the Bible of genuine people of God doing stupid, silly or sometimes even evil things. A few, very well-known of the latter are:

All are examples of what actually happened. 
None represent behavior that Christians of the then current or latter generations should emulate simply because ancient believers did so.

These accounts are historic, nothing more or less, recorded at least to warn future believers of what not to do.

There is, however, another example of what not to believe that careless Christians have maintained for nearly two millenia: namely, to maintain the myth that the selection of Matthias by the remaining eleven apostles (Act 1.15-26) was legitimate. The reason for this thoughtlessness is simply that "that is what the early Apostles did", therefore, it must be OK.

While maintaining this typical error, Christians (astonishingly!) fail to look at "the big picture" concerning the proper use of inspired history.

Here are a few elements to consider:

Simply stated: the error of the eleven was to presume an authority that the Lord Christ alone possesses: namely, to select His own apostles at the time, place and manner of His own choosing.

The purpose of this article (Part 1 of 2) is:

The series is presented in five chapters:

  1. Introduction
  2. The Verb and Noun Forms Used (ἀποστέλλωἀπόστολοςἀποστολή).
  3. A modern defense of Matthias as the replacement Apostle via the misguided and surprisingly careless assertions of Dr. Wayne Grudem, “Systematic Theology”, Zondervan.
  4. The biblical rebuttal of Dr. Grudem’s assertions.
  5. The biblical statement of the single, biblical qualification for the Office of Apostle of Jesus Christ.