Cheryl

Don,

Your questions are good as always although you and I disagree on the issue of the twelfth apostle.

I disagree with you also about wanting to be ordained in a church that has problems with ordaining women.  In the comments made by the sister, her denomination does ordain women however the Pastor in the church she is in is against women as pastors so he will not allow for a woman to participate in his church.  While I can completely understand why someone would leave a church like this and move on, I can also support someone who would work to change the mindset of the church.  I think it is a person’s decision on how they wish to work through this issue.  For example Paul saw Peter’s way of holding back from eating with the Gentiles as not a leadership decision but a sin issue.  If all the leaders were on Peter’s side they still would have been wrong.  Paul was not going to move on because it was an issue that needed correcting.
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Don, although you do not see Paul as claiming to be one of the twelve, I clearly see it.  Paul’s claim to be an apostle picked by Jesus himself to be a witness to the resurrection is the claim of the eleven.  We find here two important things:

1. Paul claimed to be an apostle for the exact same thing as all the other eleven (all were apostles of Jesus for the witness of the resurrection).

2. No one else claimed to be an apostle of Jesus for a witness of the resurrection.

Paul also was the only one in scripture who found the need to defend his apostleship.  The question we need to ask is why?  Why did only Paul claim to have the same mandate as the eleven?  Why was only Paul made to have to defend his apostleship?  These are questions that anyone needs to ask who does not believe that Paul was the twelfth apostle.

“If the 11 acting in concert after refrring to Scripture and praying could make this big a blunder, how do we know anything they did later makes any sense at all?”

There is a difference between what the apostles did later and what they did before they were filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  If we are going to say that the disciples could not make any mistakes before they were filled with the Holy Spirit’s power then we will have to go back to when they thought that the kingdom was going to be set up by Jesus in their lifetime.  They all appeared to be in unity on this issue but they were all wrong.  The difference comes at the time when they are all speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit – that is the time when they could not be wrong.  Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came upon them, he (the Holy Spirit) would lead them into all truth.  Did Jesus promise that they would not make any mistakes before that time?  I don’t think so.

So if Jesus promised the eleven that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth, then once the Holy Spirit came upon them, they would not make any mistakes because it was the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to lead them all into all truth.

What is the difference between the Holy Spirit’s leading after Pentecost and the decision that they made regarding Matthias before Pentecost?  Let’s consider the differences:

1.  They were led into all truth after Pentecost and no decision that they made in unity was ever wrong.  There was no promise that they would be lead in to all truth before the Holy Spirit came upon them in power so questioning their decision before they were empowered does not open up a whole can of worms.  It would only be questioning of their humanity instead of questioning the Holy Spirit’s leading.

2.  Before Pentecost they collectively had wrong ideas that were corrected in time by Jesus.  These wrong ideas did not taint their leadership because their leadership without error came from the power of the Holy Spirit.  Because of this what happened before Pentecost was in a different category from what happened with them after they were empowered by the Holy Spirit.  If they were perfect before Pentecost then it was their own power and their own ability that made them perfect, not the power of the Holy Spirit.  This was not the way it was to be.

3.  When they prayed to God to make the decision, they gave God choices instead of waiting for him to give his choice. That would force God to pick one of their choices instead of picking someone that they had not even thought of as a candidate.  If God had answered their prayer by a miraculous leading to pick Matthias, then we could be sure that the disciple’s choice of only two men was correct and there was no a third option.  But God did not answer miraculously and if the disciple’s decision to only pick two men at that time and not three (Paul certainly would have been a choice available later on), then we cannot assume that the disciples had the mind of Christ before they were empowered to know his mind.  I think that it is reasonable to question a decision that the disciples made before they were empowered.  To not question their decision before they were empowered seems to me to make the apostles to be icons in their own right.  It would make their own collective will (their decision to pick only two men for God to choose from) as equal to God’s will.  Why should they be empowered then with the Holy Spirit if they had the ability to collectively know God’s will before they were empowered to be led into all truth?  The Holy Spirit then would be not needed since they could do his work as long as they were collectively in union?  No, I don’t think so.  They were human and were susceptible to error before they were empowered as a unit to be the foundations of the church.

4.  No other decision that they made after they were empowered by the Holy Spirit is called into question.  There are many who call into question the choice that they made before they were empowered.  For example many call into question their decision to cast lots.  This method of understanding God’s will was never used by the Holy Spirit as a method of making a decision.

If the eleven apostles could pick their own human choices for the twelfth apostle, then should this be an example of how we are to pray?  “God, I am not sure if I should marry Janet or Sue. Please show me which one is your will.  I will cast lots to know.”  What if God wants you to marry Barbara?  How will casting lots work in this situation?  It can’t.  We are not to limit God to our own understanding but allow him to work beyond our human understanding.

“There is no indication of God’s displeasure with their choosing of Matthias that I can find. ”

God allowed them to have their choice, but he was not restricted by their choice since it was his decision not theirs.  I believe this is the only way to properly understand Paul’s claims.  Paul claimed two things that will need to be explained away by anyone who does not believe that he was claiming to be the twelfth apostle.  The fact is that Paul claimed to have the exact same mandate as the eleven – Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ to be a witness of the resurrection.  The second thing is that Paul was always having to defend his apostleship.  It is understandable that Paul had to defend his apostleship since the one picked to be the last apostle of the resurrection was Matthias.  If Matthias was the twelfth apostle of the resurrection then Paul’s claim to being an apostle of Jesus Christ as a witness of the resurrection was bogus.

In my mind, I can either accept Paul’s claim to being an apostle of Jesus Christ as a witness of the resurrection or I can accept that a group of men had infallibility to choose an apostle of Jesus Christ before they were given power by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  I see no can of worms here since I do not see the apostle’s infallibility coming before Pentecost.  I also do not see the wisdom of deciding on two men and then asking God to pick.  Nothing in the OT tells them that it was their responsibility to pick a replacement and nothing in scripture makes the apostles infallible before Pentecost.

Don, I really have a lot of appreciation for you and I have grown to love you as a brother in Christ.  When you said this, it made me smile:

“I also think it is a mistake to try to couple the idea of Paul being the 12th apostle (and consequently Matthias being therefore man’s choice but not God’s) with the issue of women being able to be leaders in church.”

Since this is my blog, I reserve the right to give my strong opinion. 

I will allow myself to be corrected if I am wrong but my correction will come from the text itself and not from fear of questioning.   I do not believe that I am wrong.  If I am wrong, then you will have to prove that the disciples had infallibility before Pentecost and then explain why they even needed Pentecost.  You will also have to explain why the need for the casting of lots if they collectively all had the mind of Christ before Pentecost?  Lastly, you will have to explain to me why the inspired scripture never even hints that a group of men would have the power to pick candidates for the “office” of witness to the resurrection when the scriptures say that the one who is to take Judas’ place is to do the “taking” himself.  You will never convince me that there is a can of worms to open by challenging the humanity of the apostles before Pentecost.  I am not the first to question their wisdom nor will I be the last.  The answer will be in the text itself.  It will not be in fearing to question their humanity before their empowerment by the Holy Spirit.

I also see a very strong application to the women’s issue.  I am known for seeing things outside the box so I won’t force you to follow me on my pathway.  All that I would ask you to do is to understand that it is okay to see the humanity of men even of the apostles before they were given the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  I have given many reasons for why I believe as I do.  Paul’s claim to being an apostle of Jesus Christ for a witness of the resurrection is something that I cannot ignore and I choose to take him at face value and believe that he was exactly what he said he was.  He was the twelfth witness chosen by Jesus Christ himself to be a witness to the resurrection and one who replaced Judas who failed to be a faithful witness.

Even though we disagree, I still love you a lot!!!