And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples.
Peter’s attitude
Mark the bearing of Peter towards his fellow-believers. No priestly attitude does he assume. Though he leads, he associates the whole assembly with himself. He will have them to choose candidates for the apostleship; he accepts their nomination; and though it is all but certain that in laying these two before the Lord, he was the spokesman, this is not said. Nor was it only on this first occasion, when he might be supposed rather to shrink, that he thus acted, but on every subsequent occasion his procedure was in keeping with this. So little ground is there not only for the lordly assumptions of those who call themselves successors of “the prince of the apostles,” but for that ecclesiastical ambition which has proved the bane and blight of many who repudiate Romish pretensions. (D. Brown, D. D.)
A model church meeting
This was a meeting--
I. To transact business of very grave importance. To elect an apostle--an eye-witness of the resurrection--in the place of Judas. The resurrection is the key-stone of the Christian system. The fact was so extraordinary, and clashed so mightily with popular prejudices that no one would dare to proclaim it who had not been deeply convinced of it by irresistible evidence. To be able to do this was necessary to constitute an apostle.
II. In which the assembled members had a duty to fulfil, and all of them, male and female, were called upon to exercise their best judgment, and to give their conscientious vote. The candidates were set up not by the apostles, but by the whole body of disciples. The appointment of ministers is not the right of an individual, however distinguished in Church and state, but by the assembled Church.
III. Competent in itself to discharge the business. They sought no counsel from any body of men external to themselves, nor would they have submitted to dictation from any person or society outside, however dignified. The power of a Church for its own business is in itself inspired and guided by Christ its Head.
IV. Superintended by its ablest member. Peter’s conduct shows that he was the most competent--the man to direct affairs. Observe--
1. His sketch of the miserable man who had once occupied the vacant post.
2. His counsel as to present duty. Peter’s principle was that the new apostle should be selected from those who were most intimate with the Master--a principle to be for ever observed. He only is qualified for the highest office in the Church whose alliance with Christ is most vital.
V. In which they engaged in united prayer to heaven for direction. The prayer implies--
1. A recognition of the Divine omniscience. A deep impression of God’s acquaintance with all hearts is essential to devotion.
2. A desire to have their choice regulated by the Divine. “We only desire to vote for Him whom Thou hast ordained.” Conclusion: Would that all church meetings had ever been ruled by this model. Gathered not for trivial but important business; recognising the right of every member to a voice; holding the power to transact all its affairs independently of external authority, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Preparing for ecclesiastical business
Notice that the company was--
1. Comparatively small. But it was the first part of Christ’s mighty kingdom. Despise not the day of small things.
2. Business-like. “Names” suggests that a list was probably drawn up--a sign of intelligence and earnestness.
3. Imperfect. One place was vacant, and the company could not be content till it was filled.
4. Every member of it acknowledged the authority of Holy Scripture. The company was prepared--
I. By being adequately instructed. Peter’s speech showed--
1. That the place of Judas must be filled up. The number of apostles followed that of the twelve tribes of Israel. They were commonly designated as “the Twelve,” both before and after the death of Judas.
2. That the whole assembly must take part in filling up the vacancy.
3. That the Word of God was to give the assembly present direction.
4. That definite qualifications were required in an apostle.
5. That a definite work had to be done by the apostles. This instruction probably cleared up vague thinkings for many a member of the company.
II. By being strongly warned against sin. In the case of Judas they saw--
1. Sin working in one who had held office under Jesus--the Saviour from sin. What qualifications had they which Judas had not had? Yet sin turned him out of his office. Then let all beware.
2. Sin working in one who had been chosen for office by Jesus Himself.
3. Sin growing to great enormity.
4. Sin making its perpetrator infamous.
5. Sin ending in a doom of darkness.
Conclusion: Here we see--
1. The true primacy of Peter. He led in preparation, interpretation and prayer. The fulfilment of the words, “Thou art Peter,” etc., is here begun. The foundation is not the confession, but the man (Galatians 2:9; Ephesians 2:20; 1 Timothy 3:15; 1 Peter 2:4-6). Christ is the one foundation stone (1 Corinthians 3:11); but there is also a foundation of the apostles and prophets, and this is laid in Peter. Accordingly he founded the Jewish portion of the Church, as we see in the early Chapter s of this book. On him, standing on Christ, were laid in one day three thousand souls. And he also founded the Gentile portion (chaps. 10., 11.). But Peter had no special primacy of rank after his own special work was completed. And he could have no successor.
2. The true functions of the preacher. Peter gave the sense of Scripture, and applied it to the circumstances of the time so directing the hearers. The Acts is the best treatise on homiletics.
3. A good example for all Christians. Under Peter’s direction the company prayed, considered their duty, and so proceeded to action--prayer, meditation, work, describe the whole sphere of Christian duty. (W. Hudson.)
The premature election
1. “In those days” Peter “stood up.” It was a pity he did so, for he had been told to sit down. But who can wait ten days? Yet those periods of waiting are interposed in every life, for the trial of patience and for the perfecting of faith. “They also serve who only stand and wait.” “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” “Your strength is to sit still.” But Peter was a man who could not wait. He was always more or less of a talkative man. Instead of embodying it in patience and endurance his energy evaporated in speech. He will become a better man by and by; yes, even in this opening speech, he begins to show that delicacy of touch which made him conspicuous amid all the apostolic writers. It was to be feared that he would begin with a mistake, because he ended with one (John 21:21). The fussy church must be doing something, if it is only mischief; the mechanical church cannot stand still; they consider that if they are walking up and down very much, they are doing something, but if they be sitting quietly still in expectancy and eager love, they are doing nothing. Peter will have a vote taken, or a ballot; he will complete the broken circle--he who broke the circle most.
2. Peter begins where all wise teachers begin, if they would continue efficiently, and conclude beneficently. He founds what he has to say upon the Scriptures. This is the peculiarity of Christian teaching: it founds itself upon the Written Word. Even where there may be differences of interpretation, it rests upon something deeper than merely verbal exposition. Herein is that sublime possibility of all Christian sections being substantially and integrally right. It is the spirit that unites, it is the letter that divides and kills. It is quite possible for a heterodox man to have an orthodox spirit, and it is by his spirit that he will be saved, and not by his letter.
3. Grounding himself upon Scripture, and only partially interpreting it, Peter proceeded to take a ballot for an apostle to succeed the apostate Judas. Who asked him to rise and address the disciples at all? The disciples were told to wait for the baptism of power. Peter was not endued with the Holy Ghost in the Pentecostal sense when he made this speech. The conditions of succession to the apostolate are very beautiful (verses 21, 22). That is the law of the ministry to-day. “Lay hands suddenly on no man.” The Christian ministry must be composed of men who have “companied with us” and known the Lord Jesus Christ all the time. You cannot make ministers; they must be born, not of blood, etc. This is the mischief against which we have to guard, that you can buy ministers with money. This genius is not in the market.
4. Having elected two men for choice, the disciples prayed: they left the case in the hands of God, but unfortunately they had first taken it into their own. Never take your own case into your own hand. Persons say, “Be prudent”--if ever you can for a moment sit yourself down, resolving to be prudent, God has forsaken you! Persons say, “Beware of exaggeration, of enterprises that are dangerous”--those persons never did anything for the world; they cannot; cold water never drove an engine, and a body without wings never knew the danger, the mystery, the joy of flight. Seek an inspired life. So the apostles committed themselves in prayer to God for guidance. So would I take every matter to God day by day.
5. The disciples gave forth their lots. How pitiful. In a few more days they will have had the Holy Ghost. There are men now who would decide everything by lot: it seems a short and easy method, but it is no method in the house of God; we are now under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. There is no such way of discovering God’s thought. We do not decide things by lot in our own narrow sphere, nor do we carry things unanimously ourselves. Thus, these are the voters that live in you--Judgment, Self-interest, immediate Success, Curiosity, Speculation, Family considerations, Health, Time, and some twenty more voters all have a seat in the council of your mind. Now those who are in favour of this course say, “Aye,” those who oppose say, “No,” and then you, that innermost You, says, “The ayes have it--or the noes,” so that in reality you do not carry your own personal decisions unanimously. Sometimes your judgment does not vote at all, then the resolution is said to be carried nem. con. Sometimes you carry your resolutions unanimously, the whole man stands up and says, “Let it be done.” When I have wished in critical hours to know what was right, I have submitted myself to three tests--
(1) What is my own deepest conviction.
(2) What is the concurrent voice of my most trusted counsellors.
(3) What is the fair inference from conspiring circumstances? With these, I have said, “There is none other than God’s will: if it be not, Lord, stop me. Not my will but Thine be done.”
6. In the case before us the lot fell upon Matthias, and you hear no more about him. I do not want to be a balloted minister: here because I had six votes, and another man had only five: I want to stand in my ministry by right Divine, by credentials not written by men and that cannot be expunged by men. That is the calling of the whole Church: do not imagine that Episcopalianism, Congregationalism, etc., will save you. We are not saved by name, nor are we an influential Church because we bear an illustrious name. Every day needs its own inspiration, as every day requires its own bread. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Christian life organic
I. The suicide of Judas created a vacancy in the number of the twelve apostles. Christ does not seem to have spoken concerning this, but leaves it to be filled by the Church. And this is the duty to which Peter summons them. The little handful of believers were waiting for “the promise of the Father.” They were called not to activity, but to stillness and expectancy. But Peter at once organises a council and proceeds to an Episcopal election. And, unquestionably, Peter was right, and the disciples recognised it to be their first duty to fill up the ranks and perfect the organisation, and so enlarge the influence and increase the working power of that Divine agency which Christ had committed to their charge.
II. Let us admit freely that organisation is not life, but without organisation there can be no life. In nature we know of life at all, only as it exhibits itself under organised forms, and so St. Paul affirms must the life of Divine truth in the world, be an organised life with a head, and hands and feet--in other words with that which governs and that which communicates and that which obeys. When a farmer in the Salt Lake Valley constructs that ingenious system of sinuous and interlacing the watercourses by which the melting snows of the Wausatch Mountains are conducted to every remotest corner of his vineyards and cornfields, he has not thereby secured the smallest guarantee that the snow will fall, or that it will melt, or that it will obey the law of gravitation and run down hill into his tanks. These things are ordered by God, and his orchards blossom and his corn sprouts, not because he has laid so many feet of drain-pipe, but because God has put into the melted snow or the chance shower some mysterious power of making that arid desert of sand with its silex and potash to burst forth, straightway so soon as the water has touched it, and bud and blossom as a rose. But none the less, as things are, that arid and desert valley would never have burst into flower if the farmer’s simple machinery had not so organised and utilised these forces of nature that the baptism of the one became the new birth and resurrection of the other.
III. And this, at any rate, is the lesson of such a parable, as it is of all history. The church of God is in the world, not as a human invention, but as a Divine appointment to be applied by human hands. Its fellowship is not salvation, but it is a means of salvation. Its sacraments are not grace, but they are channels of grace. Its Bible is not a charm or a talisman, but it is a teacher and guide. Its services are not spells, but they are helps and refreshments. I honour with my whole soul that protest against the formalism of the Church, which resents the tendency to make of these things the whole of religion. I honour no less that vehement and robust indignation which denounces the temper that hands over all men who do not belong to your Church or mine or some other of equal historic pretensions, to the uncovenanted mercies of God. But all this does not affect in the smallest degree, the question whether or no Christ has founded a Church, whether or no you and I have sought, and found its fellowship. The Church exists in the world not to enjoy our patronage, to invite our criticism, to gratify our taste, but to accept our discipleship. Her organised life, her ministry, her sacraments, her worship, the proclamation of her Lord’s message--all these things are not less essential to-day, than when in the beginning Peter convened the hundred and twenty disciples to choose Matthias. This Christian organisation is Divine, and as such it speaks its message and holds forth its ministrations. It may be that some of us have come to regard the Church as a kind of social appendage, a rather more dignified marrying and burying and baptising association, which we are to make use of when tradition or custom or decorum constrains us to, and at other times conveniently forget. But the moment that we look into it we find that it asserts of itself nothing less than a Divine origin, and it demands a definite obedience. We may say that that authority is groundless, but until we have proved it, our allegiance is not an option, it is a debt.
IV. And so I plead with parents to train children in ways of reverent familiarity with God’s word, God’s house, and God’s day. Let them understand that something higher than your taste or preference makes these things sacred and binding. And that you may do this the more effectually, give them, I entreat you, that mightiest teaching which consists in your own consistent and devout example. And in your holidays remember that wherever you go, you are a baptised member of the Church, and treachery to your baptismal vow is as disloyal under a foreign flag as it would be under your own. (Bp H. C. Potter, D. D.)
Lessons from the pre-Pentecostal period
In this paragraph we have--
I. The law of leadership in Christian communities.
1. Society without leadership sinks into confusion.
2. In the long run leadership resolves itself into a question of personal qualification. Sooner or later unqualified men have to resign positions they ought never to have assumed.
3. In a great leader many elements are combined. Others may excel him in detached points, but taken as a whole, he rules not by one dominant faculty, but by a noble proportion of gifts.
4. The position of leader is not so easy as it seems to unreflecting observers. Men see the elevation, not the strain and responsibility.
5. The only sound rule for promotion is wisdom which should be recognised irrespective of age or position.
6. He leads best who knows the art of wise following. The leader is often, as here, but the mouthpiece of the whole community.
7. All human leadership is to be subjected to the Headship of the Divine Redeemer.
II. The construction of the Christian ministry.
1. It was required that the successor to the vacant bishopric be a man who had known Christ. Those who now sustain the office of witnesses for Christ must be men whose spiritual intimacy with Him is intense and fully tested. Every minister must have seen Christ and known the power of His resurrection.
2. It is clear from the election of Matthias that there is in the Scriptures a distinct claim to apostolic succession. Who then are in this succession? Those who are animated by the apostolic spirit. It is not question of ecclesiastical descent, but of spiritual illumination and sympathy.
3. The twelfth minister was chosen by the whole Church subject to a distinct expression of the Divine Will. The election was not determined by personal taste, much less by the industrious canvassing of ambitious candidates. The minister was sought by prayer and as a consequence was received with submission and thankfulness. (J. Parker, D. D.)