“His Chosen Apostles”

Friday, November 14, 2014

     I have to ask you something.  Why does Jesus tell His disciples to steal?   Matthew 21:2-3: that breaks the eighth commandment.  Also, Matthew 24:26 contradicts Matthew 28:7.  The first says don’t go if someone tells you He’s here or there.  Then the other verse says they were told to go, and they went.  Why are we supposed to look up to the apostles?  Jesus always had to get on to them about faith, told them they needed to be like children, they all betrayed Him, one turned Him in, one kept denying Him, and they all abandoned Him.  Sounds to me like He picked the wrong ones.  Please help.  I love God, but the Bible has lots of problems with contradictions.

Sincerely,
Appalled At The Apostles

Dear Appalled At The Apostles,

There are three questions here, and we’ll answer them each in turn.  In Matt 21:2, Jesus told His disciples to go and fetch a colt that was tied up – but He specifically said that if the owners of the colt asked about what they were doing, they should reply, and then the owners would give them permission (Matt 21:3).  Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to steal; He had supernatural knowledge of someone willing to give their colt to His disciples.  There is no contradiction.

Matt 24:26 does say that they shouldn’t believe people when they said that the Christ had come back… but the time context is very important.  In Matthew 24, Jesus is addressing what to do when people other than Him say that they are the Christ (Matt 24:4-5).  In Matt 28:7, the angel is saying that they can find Jesus in Galilee because He had risen from the dead.  One verse deals with false christs that would come after Jesus; the other verse is a command to seek Jesus Himself.  No contradiction, just different contexts.

Lastly, we’ll address the apostles.  We are told to imitate the apostles inasmuch as they imitate Christ (1 Cor 11:1).  There is no doubt that not everything the apostles did was right – they admitted they were just men and not worthy of worship (Acts 10:25-26).  However, the apostles were Jesus’ chosen servants to preach and teach His message.  The apostles were men of great bravery and faith – men that failed and got back up again to fight another day.  We should also follow the apostles because they were led by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit gave them perfect remembrance of Christ’s life (Jhn 14:26) and perfect knowledge of what God needed mankind to know (Lk 12:11-12).

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