Chapter 1

Who is Theophilus?

This is often the first question people ask when they read the book of Acts.

Chapter 1 verse 1 tells us that this book is addressed to this person, so it’s a little embarrassing as a Christian leader discipling recent converts to admit that we really don’t know.

The thing is, it’s quite a valid name. So on the one hand, it simply could be a member of the church named “Theophilus”.

On the other hand, it could be a code-name for someone. It literally means “One who loves God”, so it would be quite an appropriate codename for a Christian who wishes not to be identified (and fair enough, too, considering what used to happen to early Christians).

On the OTHER other hand, it could be YOU.

What do I mean? Well, you’re someone who loves God – you must be, if you have dragged yourself along this far reading my commentaries! – and you’re reading the book. That could mean that you’re the person it is addressed to! In other words, it could simply mean “Friend who loves God” – a title for any person who reads the book.

Anyway, we don’t know. We DO know that the Gospel of Luke is addressed to the same person, so that links this book with Luke’s Gospel. In fact, it is this book which actually spills the identity of the Gospel writer in the first place. But I’m getting ahead of myself here – that happens in a later chapter!

A breakdown of the first chapter is as follows:

* Vs 1 – 11: Wrapping up the story of Jesus – the ascension.
* Vs 12 – 14: A list of who was present, as well as the disciples’ agreement to include Mary, Jesus’ mother, his brothers and a couple of other women in their group.
* Vs 15 – 26: Replacing Judas.

It is the replacement of Judas that arouses a lot of comment from readers of this book. Firstly, it seems to fly in the face of the assertion in the Gospel of Matthew that Judas went away and hanged himself – in Acts, Luke spills more of the gory details (if you’ll pardon some grossly inappropriate puns there!) and tells us that he plunged headalong and burst . .

In the past this is one of those passages atheists like to look at and scream “Owned! Contradiction there!”

This never impressed me a lot. As far as I can see, the two are far from mutually exclusive, and if he hanged himself in a bad place, it could have easily been both. Anyway, that’s not a big deal.

What MAY be a big deal is this method of choosing the replacement – by drawing lots. This causes a lot of consternation among Christians. Conservative Southern Baptists, who are REALLY not into gambling, dislike it just on principle; Anglicans, many of whom have no such hang-ups, still dislike the idea of choosing a leader of the church at random. They (fairly!) ask if this is any way to select the best person for the job?

Of course, there’s more to this than meets the eye at first. It’s actually not a bad way of picking a leader when you carefully read what they did.

Note that the disciples did NOT just say “Okay, we’ll draw lots, and the first person the dice favours is the leader.” No the first thing they did can be found in verses 21 and 22, and it’s obvious once it gets pointed out to you (though if this is the first time you’ve picked this up, it may be a comfort for you to learn that I didn’t pick it up either until I was in my mid-20s).

Firstly, the Disciples select all the people among them who QUALIFY to be a disciple! This process yields two candidates, Justus and Matthias. Do you get this? They’re already screening out anyone undesirable by simply saying that the preferred candidate had to have been among Jesus’ disciples from the beginning of his ministry to his ascension.

The trick is to understand that the lot was cast ONLY after the disciples had already made a sound choice of the candidates. Once we were at this point, presumably from a human perspective, the two candidates are more or less equal. God is basically being asked to break the tie, which he does.

An episode of Yes Prime Minister refers to this passage when Jim is being asked to recommend the appointment of a bishop to the Sovereign. He asks the Church of England representatives how it was done in Bible times; they respond “They let the Holy Ghost decide by drawing lots.”

Jim, puzzled, asks why don’t they let the Holy Ghost decide this one?

The answer given is “They’re not certain the Holy Ghost has a good idea of what is required of a modern Bishop!”

Yes, it’s a funny call, but there is a deadly serious side to all this. We often don’t trust God anywhere near enough!

It’s strange how, when given two options that from our point of view appear equal, we are reluctant to let God make a decision. Yet here the Disciples are allowing God to decide the replacement leader in this way! Let’s face it, people – most of us would find that really hard to do.

Yet it seems to work. Matthias, if not reaching the heights of fame the other disciples did, at least he doesn’t screw up in any deep level.

Tonight’s reminder is fairly simple – the church belongs to God. YES, we are required to make the wisest decisions we can. Yes indeed, that’s important – and as we have seen, the Disciples did that too. But it’s equally important to recognize that if it is His church, He can be trusted to do right by it.