Acts 1: Reliable Witnesses in the Age of Fake News

Introduction

Do you remember that photo of President Macron on a train in Ukraine, with the German and British heads of government? On the table, a small object looked like a white bag. Within hours, a cocaine scandal went around the world. It was a tissue.

Joseph Tandy starts from there to ask the question of this message to Église Connexion in Paris: in the age of fake news, which word can we still believe? We ask it every day without realizing it: the child who yells that there is a huge spider in the bathtub, the unknown number calling, the message received on a classified ads site. It also concerns the big questions: whom to believe to guide our lives, what to believe in the face of death, does God exist?

We have never seen Jesus. We depend on other people to tell us about him, starting with the authors of the Bible. How can we know that this message is a solid foundation and not one more fake news story? And how can we know that we are not spreading fake news ourselves when we announce it to others? The passage of Acts 1:12-26, which we would gladly cut in the editing, answers this question.

Outline of the Message

1. Luke Writes to Give Certainty

The book of Acts is the second volume of Luke's Gospel. Luke was a doctor. He investigated Jesus for years before writing.
From the very first page, he states his goal: to write an orderly account "so that you might know the certainty of the things in which you were instructed" (Luke 1:3-4).
The passage on the election of Matthias may seem boring, apart from the bloody detail of Judas's entrails. Yet it is vital: it shows that certainty is possible, because the message about Jesus comes from trustworthy witnesses.
Joseph Tandy develops three points: the witnesses of Jesus are unchanged, they stay honest, they are qualified to found a new people.

2. The Witnesses of Jesus Are Unchanged

After the ascension, the disciples come back from the Mount of Olives and go up to the upper room: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot and Jude, son of James (Acts 1:12-13).
We are tempted to see the disciples as ordinary people: they make mistakes, they sin, they doubt, like us. That is true, but they also play a unique role in history. Jesus chose them as apostles, that is, sent ones, like an ambassador who speaks with all the authority of the one who sends him.
To be a witness is to be able to tell what you have seen and heard. None of us has seen and heard Jesus as they did. Listening to them is listening to Jesus, and therefore to God. Rejecting them is rejecting Jesus, and therefore God.
There are no longer apostles like these today, direct witnesses of Jesus. What we have is their testimony in the Bible: the books of the New Testament were written by apostles or under their direction. If you wonder where to start to know God, start with Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Luke first stresses that these are indeed the men chosen by Jesus. Contrary to the idea popularized by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, it was not a free-for-all in the end, with accounts sorted centuries later. The list in verse 13 is the one from the Gospels: no newcomer.
Luke is precise: he distinguishes the two Jameses by naming "James, son of Alphaeus." Matthew and Mark speak of Thaddaeus where Luke writes Jude, son of James: carrying two names was common, and a Christian named Judas might want to use the other one.

3. The Witnesses of Jesus Stay Honest

One name is missing: Judas Iscariot, the traitor. That is awkward. A friend of the preacher compared the situation to Lance Armstrong: seven Tours de France won in a row, titles stripped in 2012 for doping, and all of cycling discredited. If one of the apostles was not reliable, why would the others be?
In front of about 120 people, Peter hides nothing and sweeps nothing under the rug. Judas was counted among them, with the same ministry. He acquired a field with the wages of his crime, he fell, his entrails spilled out, and that field was called Akeldama, field of blood (Acts 1:15-19).
But Peter answers: "it was necessary that the Scripture be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David" (Acts 1:16). The book of Psalms had written it centuries earlier: "Let his habitation be made desolate" and "Let another take his office" (Acts 1:20, Psalm 69:26 and Psalm 109:8).
To go back to the Tour de France image: if the organizers had announced long in advance that a rider would be doped for an experiment, the scandal would not have tarnished the others. The fall of Judas was part of the plan.
This takes nothing away from Judas's responsibility: in the Gospels, he plots, negotiates, acts without constraint, then is seized with remorse. God's sovereignty and human responsibility do not exclude each other. The cross illustrates it: the worst crime in history, committed by truly guilty people, was also God's eternal plan to save.
A former colleague of the preacher claimed that the disciples had invented stories to found a religion and become gurus. The passage answers: there was only one ill-intentioned person among the apostles, and his fall was announced from the start.
Why so many bloody details? When an ambassador betrays his country, he is not quietly dismissed: the affair makes the headlines, the trial is public. The death of Judas is public to the point of giving its name to a field, because the role of apostle is too precious. God wants you to have full confidence to put all your eggs in the same basket, the Bible.

4. The Witnesses of Jesus Are Qualified to Found a New People

Eleven men able to attest that they had seen Jesus alive after his death was already a lot. Why a twelfth? In the Bible, numbers are often symbolic, and 12 evokes the people of God: the 12 sons of Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 precious stones on the high priest's garment (Exodus 28:21).
At the end of the Bible, the new Jerusalem rests on 12 foundations that bear the names, not of the 12 tribes, but of the 12 apostles (Revelation 21:14). Through them, Jesus founds his new people.
We enter the people of God by believing their message. This summer, invited to the baptism of a little girl in a Catholic church, the preacher heard the priest explain that the ceremony begins at the door because we enter the Church through baptism. The Bible says something else: we enter the Church by believing the good news as the apostles taught it. Baptism is then the way to confess it publicly.
"My family is Christian," "I had a supernatural experience," "a pastor prayed for me": none of these reasons brings anyone into the people of God. We enter by believing the message of the apostles, which is why it matters that they be qualified.
The criteria of verse 21: a man who accompanied the apostles throughout Jesus's ministry, from the baptism of John to the ascension, and who can be a witness of his resurrection (Acts 1:21-22). Not someone who met him now and then, nor someone who would pass on "hearsay."

5. A Radically Historical Faith

Christian faith is not first a philosophy or an ideology. It is not legends invented long after the facts, nor a man coming out of a cave saying "God spoke to me," nor a mere feeling: "I feel it is true, and if you feel something else, that is true for you."
It is eyewitness testimony: what a group of men saw and heard of Jesus. This testimony could be verified, cross-checked, and refuted at a time close enough to the facts if there had been errors.
Recently, a rather serious incident happened in the class of one of the preacher's children. The school was able to establish the facts because the principal immediately collected the testimonies of the students present, before they forgot. Christian faith is like that, except that what these men saw and told was extraordinary, because it was about Jesus.
Two candidates meet the criteria, Joseph called Barsabbas and Matthias. The disciples pray, then cast lots, as often in the Old Testament, and the lot falls on Matthias (Acts 1:23-26). With humor, Joseph Tandy notes that between two equally good options, praying and then choosing is better than torturing yourself looking for signs. But the point of the passage lies elsewhere: to show that Jesus names, according to his criteria, the team of witnesses who found his new people.

6. A Reliable Word to Live By and to Pass On

Which word can we still believe? Luke answers: the word of Jesus passed on by those he chose as witnesses. Without this certainty, we go in every direction. With it, the risen Lord invites us to build our lives with confidence, serenity and joy.
Faced with instability, we can cling to people, to authority figures, even to gurus. Jesus offers his word as the only source of stability and comfort.
Twenty years ago, as a student, the preacher went through anxiety and depression: had he chosen the right studies, where was his life going? Peace came when he discovered that the words of this book are reliable.
It is because these words are reliable that we can pass them on. When he was a journalist, a colleague was offended by the arrogance of Christians who dare to tell others to believe in Jesus. But passing on a testimony is not arrogance: we do not accuse a journalist of arrogance when he faithfully reports what he has seen and verified. We can share this testimony without the slightest complex.
If you do not call yourself a Christian, the preacher invites you not to wave Christian faith away: every rational person should take the time to examine this testimony in order to make an informed decision.
The book of Acts tells what Jesus continued to do after his ascension: it should be called "the Acts of Jesus, volume 2." Jesus acts from heaven in our lives when we let the words of this book work in us. Then we can approach it with great expectations, with joy and with trembling, because it is the Lord who speaks.
In his closing prayer, the preacher takes up Jesus's word to Martha: in the midst of worries, only one thing is needed, to sit at Jesus's feet and listen to him (Luke 10:42).

Key Takeaways

Christian faith rests on witnesses chosen and trained by Jesus, not on self-appointed apostles or on accounts sorted centuries later.
Judas's betrayal was announced by Scripture: it does not discredit the other apostles, and Judas remains responsible for his actions.
We enter the people of God by believing the message of the apostles, not through family, an experience or a rite.
Christian faith is historical: it rests on eyewitness testimony, verifiable at the time of the events.
Because the word of Jesus is reliable, we can build our lives on it and pass it on without arrogance or complex.

Personal Application

On which word do you rely today to guide your life and face your uncertainties?
What or whom do you cling to when instability comes: people, authority figures, or the word of Jesus?
What do you base your certainty of belonging to the people of God on: your family, an experience, or the message of the apostles that you believed?
Which "little voices" keep you from talking about Jesus around you, and how does the image of the journalist who faithfully reports change how you see it?
With what expectations do you open the Bible this week: out of habit, or knowing that it is the Lord who speaks?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can we trust the message of the apostles?

Joseph Tandy points out in Acts 1 that the men gathered after the ascension are exactly those whom Jesus had chosen and trained: the list in verse 13 repeats the one in the Gospels, with no newcomer. They are not impostors or self-appointed apostles, but eyewitnesses of Jesus.

Doesn't Judas's betrayal discredit the other apostles?

No. Peter hides nothing in front of the 120 disciples: he names the problem and shows that Scripture had announced it, the betrayal, the death of Judas and his replacement. His fall was part of God's plan, without removing Judas's responsibility for his actions. The credibility of the other witnesses remains intact.

Why did Judas have to be replaced by a twelfth apostle?

In the Bible, the number 12 evokes the people of God: the 12 sons of Jacob, the 12 tribes of Israel, and in Revelation the 12 foundations of the new Jerusalem bear the names of the 12 apostles. Through them, Jesus founds his new people. The replacement had to have accompanied Jesus since the baptism of John and be a witness of his resurrection.