Matthias Replaces Judas - Acts 1:12-26 - Comments by Mike Kines

After Jesus' resurrection and ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and gathered with other believers, including Jesus' family. They prayed together and recognized the need to replace Judas among the twelve apostles. They prayed and chose Matthias, who had been with them since the time of John the Baptist. The significance of having twelve apostles may be related to the twelve tribes of Israel. Numbers are often significant in the Bible, symbolizing accounting and precision. This shows God's knowledge and love for us. We can trust in God's love and that he has our best interests in mind. Matthias replaces Judas. Acts chapter 1 verses 12 to 26. What I want to focus in on today just to give you a brief summary of what's happening here is this is after the Lord Jesus has resurrected and he's ascended back to heaven and the disciples in obedience to the Lord have returned to Jerusalem and there's a hundred and twenty disciples and they're all gathered together including the the family of Jesus Mary and his mother and his brothers gathered together there with the disciples evidently the people in his family didn't believe him came to become believers they're all gathered together and they're praying together Peter he kind of takes on a leadership role here and he brings up this problem they have that you know the Lord called twelve disciples or quote twelve apostles in there and one of Judas is now gone and they recognize that this is the fulfillment of Scripture now they're beginning to see things that everything surrounding the life of Christ is fulfilling of Scripture they're beginning to understand how everything that happened was a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and so they realized that what happened with Judas was to fulfill Scripture but however they still need another apostle to fill out that twelve apostles they pray over this and they cast lots and it falls to a disciple by the name of Matthias to become one of the twelve apostles and one of the qualifications that he had to have was that he had to be have been around since the time of John the Baptist when John was baptized in to have been able to see the life in the ministry of the Lord to be there during his death burial his resurrection to have been a personal witness of these events so evidently this Matthias was had been around or been part of the group had they had been following these twelve apostles from the very beginning and so he became one of the twelve apostles now I don't really understand the significance of why there had to be twelve apostles I'm thinking that perhaps they had something to do with the fact that they were twelve tribes of Israel I don't know what the significance is of the number twelve however you can look at the Bible and see that many times numbers are significant this whole idea of accounting is very important and it's a pattern in the Bible there are entire chapters in the Bible where they're doing nothing but counting the numbers of people or the numbers of particular types of items like when you study the scriptures especially surrounding the tabernacle how they were very careful to count every single item so there is this it shows us something about the character nature of God even the New Testament when Jesus said the 5,000 people it gives us the exact number of people that were fed it gives you the exact number of fish and loaves that were he started out with and it gives us the exact number of baskets of scraps that were gathered after the fact and so it makes you wonder why are all these very specific details about numbers given in the Bible and I think has something to do with the fact of accounting that everything is counted Jesus even said that the very hair of our head is counted that God knows the hairs of our head and that he knows every word that is on our tongue before we speak it and that we will one day give an account of our lives to God God knows everything about us and yet he loves us so much that he's saying his son Jesus to come into this world down the cross for us that's how much God loves us he knows everything about you you can't hide anything from God he knows what you think he knows when you get up in the morning you go to bed at night he knows every single detail of your life from the time you were born and to wherever you are at today God knows you and he loves you and he sent his son Jesus down the cross for us for you and for me so we can trust in him we can trust in God that he loves us and he has our best interest at heart that's my commentary today on these scriptures here in Acts chapter 1 verses 12 to 26 Matthias replaces Judas bless you and keep you the Lord make his face shine upon you and we'll give you peace