Acts 1:20-24

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.
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.


The Academy Awards are this coming Sunday. Most years I get around to seeing enough of the films that I feel justified complaining how most of the Academy’s choices were wrong . The individuals nominated will spend this week trying not to get their hopes up, but preparing a little speech just in case. Most of them, upon losing, will utter these words “It’s such an honor to even be nominated.” Of course, most of them will have feelings stronger than that; they’ll feel the same as you and I would when someone else was picked for something we wanted. It’s a bad combination of jealous, disappointment, and an appeal to some sense of justice that only makes sense in our heads. Usually, an individual, myself included, responds to being passed over by laying most of the blame on the person or people responsible for the decision. We think they got it wrong, and their fallibility both enrages and comforts us. However, what happens when the person picking someone else is an omniscient God?
This happens in the passage above, where Matthias is picked as a disciple over Barsabbas. This happens all over the Bible. Jesus picked his 12 disciples over a much larger pool of candidates, David was chosen to be King over all of his brothers, the Judges were hand-picked by God to rule Israel, and Joseph was clearly favored over his brothers. What can when learn from a God that loves everyone eternally and equally yet still doesn’t give equal opportunities to all his followers?
I think there are several things to be learned from this. The first is that we are all created uniquely. If there was meant to only one type of Christian, with one set of gifts, there would so much wasted potential and opportunity. Imagine it’s the Super bowl and your team has the 53 best quarterbacks in the world on the team, it would get blown out in the game by a team that simply has all of the positions covered. The body of Christ works the same way; everyone has a place or purpose that is different and unique. Second, pride is one of the biggest killers of the body of Christ. The disciples would constantly get corrected by Christ for fighting for position among themselves. They weren’t simply content being the chosen twelve; they had to be the best at that too. One of the questions I always try to ask when deciding between leaders is “How would they respond to not being chosen?” I want the individuals who will still give one hundred percent no matter what their role, not the ones who let their pride keep God from using them.
One of the coolest examples of someone who got it right was Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence gave up his life to join a monastery, and found himself working in the kitchen. Instead of jockeying for a better position, complaining, or even quitting, Brother Lawrence set out to glorify God in his role. He was determined that if his role was to cook and clean, he would glorify God by giving one hundred percent. His teaching and example has made such a bigger impact on the lives of people hundreds of years after his death, and it never would have happened had he received the position he probably deserved. God’s plan is for us to do what he made us to do, glorifying him with the best of our abilities, not to try to climb as high as we can up the hierarchy of the church. Always serve, but do not chase after higher positioning and authority for the sake of higher positioning and authority.

Matthew 20:16 “The first shall be last and the last shall be first”





1. I’m sorry, I seem to be in the minority when I say a movie should not be both incredibly boring and a Best Picture nominee.

Acts 1:15-20

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) ¹⁶ and said, “Brothers and sisters,^[d] 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]

Close your eyes and imagine the people you will spend eternity with in Heaven. For most of us, we see heroes of the faith, family, friends, Tim Tebow, and our pet dog Buster. We share the joys of Heaven with the people who share our worldviews and lived lives we think they should be proud of. The reality, however, is quite different. Heaven is going to be filled with people we never could possibly imagine being there. God’s grace covers racists, murderers, rapists, dictators, porn stars, police officers, slave owners, and drug addicts[1]. There are going to be so many people there that we surprise us, and I’m sure it may lead to some awkward encounters[2]. Many Christians, however, don’t like awkward encounters. They create a theology that limits God’s ability to forgive because it’s uncomfortable thinking that those we consider the lowest of the low have a place in the kingdom of heaven.

This is not a new phenomenon either. Even in the Old Testament people were resident to give grace to those they didn’t think deserve it. Look at the story of Jonah. God directly tells Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and tell them to repent. Jonah, knowing the reputation of Nineveh as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, fled the other way. As we know, God wasn’t having it. He used Jonah’s attempted escape as an opportunity to reveal himself to the sailors on Jonah’s boat, and then got Jonah to Nineveh anyway. The people were receptive to Jonah’s message, and this only further enrages Jonah! Jonah is mad at God for being “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity”[3]. It sounds like a great thing when God deals with our sin, but a gracious and compassionate God is not always what we wish upon our enemies.

With that being said, there is a prominent belief among Christians that Judas is definitely in hell. As one of the villains in the crucifixation of Christ, most Christians can’t imagine a heaven that includes him. Yet, the case against him is not much different than the case against most of us. All of us have turned our back on Christ in some way, and need to rely on God’s grace. Our sins are just as responsible for putting Jesus on the cross as the actions of Judas. While I’m not saying for sure Judas is in Heaven, as the whole point of this post is that judgment is not our place, he does have some things going for him in his favor. Satan entered him before he betrayed Christ[4], he repented and gave back the money, and he was still one of the disciples[5]. He followed Christ, he sinned, and then he repented. His story sounds a lot like most of ours. The point is, don’t fall into the trap of thinking some people aren’t worthy of salvation, because none of us. Let the enemy spend his time accusing and condemning people, there is no need to do it for him.

1. Members of the band Creed are also on this list.

2. Not gonna lie, I would love to be there when a slaveowner meets one of his slaves in heaven. I bet he’ll feel bad.

3. Jonah 4:2

4. Luke 22:3

5. Granted, he was obviously the worst of all the disciples, but that’s sort of like being the worst person in the Beatles. And Ringo still made out okay.

---

Rumor Has It My Only Hope Is You (And The Rumors Are True)

We all need Christ. It’s a very basic truth that I would bet my life on. However, occasionally we stumble across an individual whose need for Christ is overwhelming obvious. We see them struggling with an addiction or a mindset that needs to be laid down at the cross, and just wish that they would just encounter God’s grace. A recent example of this is Maureen Faulkner. For the younger and non-Philly readers, Maureen Faulkner is the widow of Officer Daniel Faulkner, a police officer killed in the line of duty most likely by Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1981. After thirty years of Faulkner and prosecutors trying to execute Aba-Jamal[1], the district attorney settled for life in prison without parole. Maureen Faulkner, distraught over Abu-Jamal not being put to death, gave a statement saying she will commit her life to make sure he receives no special treatment and is comforted by the fact that Abu-Jamal will burn in the “lowest dimension of hell”[2]. She added that eternity in hell is what he deserves.

Thank God that we all don’t just get what we deserve. The same grace that covers me also covers Maureen Faulkner and Mumia Abu-Jamal. I can’t help but think of the parable of the unmerciful servant[3], in which a servant, having just been forgiven of his massive debt to his master, refuses to show mercy on a fellow servant and has him thrown in prison. Reading that story, the sin of the unmerciful story jumps out to us, as his hypocrisy cannot be hidden. However, the life application struggles to be anything more than theoretical in our own lives. When someone else has wronged us, we look to our own sense of justice before we look to the example Christ set for us in his life and his death on the cross. This sense of justice, this entitlement to retribution that we trick ourselves into having was crucified on the cross along with our sins. The New Testament doesn’t tell us to judge, punish, and seek vengeance; it relentlessly hammers home the concepts of love, forgiveness, and prayer for our enemies.

I cannot even begin to contemplate the emotions and trauma of having a loved one murdered. Maureen Faulkner is not trying to be angry and hateful, it’s our natural response to such situations. I’m sure she’s not a bad person. After thirty years of simply looking back and refusing to forgive, she has become a clear example of why God is not subtle about how we are to deal with those who have wronged us. Instead of being a slave to our anger, and a martyr for the façade of human justice, we are told to pray for our enemies and ask God for the power to forgive. If we live angry at those who have wronged us and continue to dwell on the past, we will fail to look forward and we will miss what God is trying to do with us in the present and future.[4]

1. The murder of Daniel Faulkner and the treatment of Abu-Jamal is a humongous deal in the city of Philadelphia. There is an annual rally to “Free Mumia”, while many local businesses hang pictures of Officer Faulkner to show where they stand. I will not be offering any opinions on the actual case, as it will only take away from the main point.

2. http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Maureen-Faulkers-Message-to-Mumia-Abu-Jamal-135175638.html

3. Matthew 18:21-35

4. I didn’t want to go much longer, but I do have a disclaimer. For one, I apologize if it seemed to imply that forgiveness was an easy process or a one prayer and done thing. It takes a long time and a willingness to slowly let God heal us. Second, I also do not want to imply that forgiveness always has to end in a return to the status quo. You can forgive someone without it being healthy to be around them, especially if the forgiveness is only a one-sided affair. The most important thing is that we don’t carry the bitterness with us, not necessarily the relationship with the other person. Even Paul, who I’m sure had no problem forgiving John Mark and Barnabas, did not think it was wise to continue to work with them (Acts 15:37-39). Sins almost always external consequences, it’s God’s grace that can eliminate the internal consequences.

Acts 1:12-14

“Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk^[c] from the city. ¹³ When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴ They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers."

Look at the names listed in the passage above. It consists of eleven of the twelve disciples[1], the mother of Jesus, and various other friends and family. These men would go on to heal the sick, spread Christianity all over the world, and become heroes of the faith and founders of the church. Most would even be killed in sadistic ways because of their faith. Yet we see them here at a huge milestone in their ministries. Jesus had just left, leaving them with instructions to go and be witnesses to the very ends of the earth. So what did the men who would go on to be spiritual icons and heroes for the rest of time do first upon beginning their life after the ascension. They prayed.

There’s not a whole lot to this lesson, but it’s such a good example they set. They saw Jesus earlier in the day, were surrounded by Christians, and still decided to be “constantly in prayer” before beginning to do anything. Look what they would go on to accomplish. How often do we begin our day, our work, our projects, our ministries in prayer? These men were as close to Jesus as any humans could be and it was the first and most important thing they did. The prayer mentioned above does not sound as if it was an opening prayer to pay lip service before they figured out the logistics of world missions, but rather and constant pursuit of the Father’s will. If the original disciples did not view themselves as good or spiritual enough do begin their ministries without God’s help, how much more should we prioritize prayer in how we do things? All of the heroes of our faith once started out where most of us are now, with a desire to be part of God’s plan but an ignorance of the appropriate steps. The disciples make it quite clear. If the first step and top priority is prayer, and we turn over our desire to be in control of everything, God will be able to use us far beyond our own capacities.

1. Basically all the ones that didn’t betray Jesus for silver and then off themselves.

Rebranding Religion

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY&list=UUc4yillQaNo6a-iG2PYbbrA&index=1&feature=plcp

By now, most of our generation has seen the video posted above. The young man walks out into the courtyard of some magnificent building, and begins to discuss his love of Jesus and hatred of religion. The re-actions to this video were mostly positive, as if getting sixteen million people to watch a video about Jesus is a good thing. However some of the re-actions were surprisingly negative. People began to question whether his portrayal of Christianity and religion was accurate. However, both sides are missing the bigger picture.

Let’s rock some Bible. James 1:27 says “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” [1]. Wait, did that just say true religion is looking after widows and orphans? Isn’t that what Jefferson Bethke, the creator of the video, is advocating for? So the Bible’s definition of how a religious person should act match’s up with the Bethke’s definition of how a person should act. So we can’t say that what Bethke is advocating for is wrong, but we can’t say his wording is right either[2]. Let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

See, this conversation doesn’t start with a 20’s something rapper with some talent and awesome setting. It’s been going on for years. Since the world began, religion has been associated with genocide, racism, legalism, sexism, greed, sexual immorality, ignorance, terrorism, apathy, and the Crusades[3]. The church has tried for years to claim religion is not responsible for horrible things throughout history, and has come to realize there is a lot of guilt in our past. So a new plan was hatched to rebrand the word religion, so that it no longer means a spiritual worldview, but rather a word that encompasses all of the wrongs in the world. We began proclaiming Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. This allows for us to not be associated with the wrongs of religion, but simply with Christ. Some even go further, such as Author Donald Miller when he claims he is not a Christian, but rather he is a follower of Christian Spirituality[4]. We have a desire to only be held responsible for our own individual relationships with God, and do not want to be held responsible for the actions of others we disagree with. It makes it easy to blast the fallacies of the church and our brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have reduced or eliminated our association with them.

But wait…what if we started to redeem the church, redeem Christianity, and redeem the name of religion? Don’t stand around and say the church doesn’t feed the poor, be part of a church that does. Don’t parade down the street and point out the hypocrites, be a man or woman of character and grace that lives out what the Bible says and is not ashamed of it. We are all the body of Christ, not individuals who only coincidentally share the same common goals. We need to start changing the image of the church, not by distancing ourselves from it, but rather by embracing the “pure and faultless religion” discussed in James.

1. NIV

2. We’re moving away from the video, but before I do I just have to say I think this kid is legit. While the post is discussing his definition of religion, the main points about who we are in Christ are pretty sweet. He seems to have responded very well and humbly to the criticisms, plus I really enjoyed some of his other videos.

3. And if we count atheism as a religion, we can add the Holocaust and the cruelty of Stalin and Soviet Russia to that list.

4. Blue Like Jazz