Cheryl

Don,

You points about other apostles is agreed upon by me.  There were other apostles and some of them are named in scripture.  This isn’t what I am talking about.  I am talking about the apostles of Jesus Christ who were given the responsibility to oversee the foundation of the church.  They are listed with Jesus as the foundation of the church with Jesus being the corner stone.

Now regarding Acts 1:26, this is a very interesting verse.  Let’s see if we can unpack it.

Act 1:26  And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Now the “drew lots” can mean either that they shook the dice or perhaps drew straws and the short straw “won”.  Either way, this method of decision making was never repeated in scripture nor is it given as an example of a godly decision making option for the Christian church.  Why did they do this when they always relied on prayer and God’s answer through prayer after this time?

The term “he was added” to the eleven apostles absolutely does mean that they considered him the twelfth apostle.  This was the problem.  They considered him the twelfth apostle and because of this Paul’s claim of an apostle ordained by Christ for the overseer place in the foundation level of the church was rejected by many.  This is why Paul can say that he was not “from man or from the agency of man” Galatians 1:1.  Matthias cannot say that he was “not from man or from the agency of man” because the disciples took up themselves the authority to pick two men whom they would ask God to choose between.  This is man’s ordination and I believe very strongly that it was not God’s ordination.

Don, you said that there is no indication in scripture that God did not approve.  I believe there is in the claims of Paul.  He claimed to be one who held a special apostleship directly from Jesus and he had the signs to prove it.  Where were any of the other apostles required to have “signs”?  They weren’t.  It is only the twelve who were the foundational apostles responsible for overseeing the foundation of the church and whom all died as martyrs for that faith and foundation except for the apostle John.

The fact is that Matthias is never mentioned again in scripture and yes I am sure that he stayed with the twelve as one of them.  However my contention is not that he wasn’t consider by the others as the twelfth apostle.  My contention is also not that he was with the others in their journey’s etc.  My contention is that he was not personally picked by the resurrected Christ.  All of the others were picked by the man Jesus Christ.  Paul said that he too was picked by the man Jesus Christ and he personally saw the man Jesus as the resurrected Lord in heaven.  Matthias on the other hand had none of these things except for an ordination from man.

So do I consider there to be other apostles?  Yes, certainly and one of them was a woman (Junia)!  Do I consider the scriptures to show that Matthias was ordained by Jesus Christ the man as an apostle of his?  No, there is no scripture to show this and Paul’s claims to have been ordained by the man Jesus Christ ring true to scripture.  There is where I stand and I offer my position as one that should be verified by scripture.