Was Paul the replacement for Judas?

Steve Brown:
Was Paul the replacement for Judas? The answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone so grace is for all of us. But there’s a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So, here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson from ForgeTruth to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hi Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. I woke up this morning thinking about that question. I mean, that was on, no, I didn’t, but it’s an interesting question. We’ll talk about it.

Steve Brown:
We’re going to find a significant answer to it because a guy disappeared. That’s called a teaser and people will listen to see who it was who just disappeared from the pages of Scripture. But we’ll find out whether Paul was the 12th apostle. And then we’ll find some dumb things that have been said about that particular issue. Pete, as you know, comes in every Friday. We’ve been doing this before most of you have ever been born. And we spend Fridays answering questions, and we do love your questions. You can ask a question by calling 1-800-KEY-LIFE and that’s open all the time. If you have a question in your mind, just pick up the phone, call it, and follow the instructions, and sometimes we put you on the air. Or you can send your questions to

Key Life Network
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or you can send your question to

Key Life Canada
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or you can e-mail your question to Steve@keylife.org and if you can help us financially, please do. This is an expensive ministry and so far the bills are paid, but they might not tomorrow. So, God might help you do that and help you at the same time help you help others. So, be as generous as you can, if you can, and if you can’t, we understand. We are a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. Both those organizations look over our books to make sure that we’re ethical. So, if you can help us do, if you can’t pray for us. Pete, why don’t you pray for us? And then we’ll answer these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray together. Our Great God, what a joy it is at the end of this week to come into your presence and to just praise you and thank you for being the God, the God who is, and the God who’s revealed himself to us in creation and in redemption in Jesus. We love you and we thank you that you are sovereign, that you are kind, that you’re good, that you’re powerful, that you know all things, that you never change in relation to us. And that you are patient with us every day of our life. So, we praise you, our Great God. And Lord, you know our needs and we have many. And so, we’re not going to play a game. We need you in our life every day. Father, we have a lot of questions and we pray for your presence with us now as we do Q&A. But also Lord, we pray that you would be with our pastors and teachers and priests and leaders, worship directors, all those that are going to stand in front of us and lead us this week-end as we come into your presence in worship and praise, receive that glory that you so richly deserve. Be with us all. And now, we commit this time of Q&A to you as we pray in Jesus’ strong Name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. By the way, if you’re new to Key Life and you’re wondering who Pete Alwinson is, and you want to find out, you ought to go check ForgeTruth.com it’ll tell you all about Pete’s ministry, which is an amazing ministry to men. There’s a weekly podcast, there are weekly meetings and gatherings of men all over the place. And lives are being changed, so check out ForgeTruth.com okay, we ought to do some questions.

Pete Alwinson:
All right. Thank you for that.

Steve Brown:
This is an e-mail. Is Paul the 13th apostle? I know that Matthias replaced Judas, but what about Paul?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. You have an interesting theory about that, Steve.

Steve Brown:
Well, they cast lots. I heard a preacher one time, by the way, Matthias is never mentioned again in the Bible. We don’t know what happened to him.

Pete Alwinson:
We don’t know.

Steve Brown:
He just disappeared. And I heard a preacher one time say that gambling is wrong, and they were casting lots, and so God didn’t honor their request, and Matthias died.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay. All right.

Steve Brown:
I didn’t say

Pete Alwinson:
You didn’t believe it.

Steve Brown:
I agreed with that. I just said, I heard a preacher say that once.

Pete Alwinson:
It goes a little bit beyond Scripture, quite frankly. But you know, the interesting thing is even in the church fathers, the Ante-Nicene Fathers and the Nicene Fathers and the Post-Nicene Fathers, I don’t know if he’s ever mentioned.

Steve Brown:
I don’t remember seeing Matthias’ name there. So, there’s a sense in which Paul became the 12th.

Pete Alwinson:
You know, it really is. Like, he took that place of Judas. And certainly, he calls himself the apostle born out of due time. You know, and it was irregular, but he had a vision of Jesus. So, he saw the resurrected Christ.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And I personally think that he is the 12th.

Pete Alwinson:
You think so.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, I do.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay.

Steve Brown:
Mathias is an old friend of mine. He just said, I’m not doing this anymore, and he left.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, gosh. All right, I’m going to go with Paul being number 13, lucky 13.

Steve Brown:
And I’ll go with 12. And when we get home, we’ll find out the truth about that.

Pete Alwinson:
We’ll figure out, yeah, we’ll see who’s right.

Steve Brown:
There isn’t a parent listening to us right now who hasn’t heard this question. This is an e-mail. Where does God come from?

Pete Alwinson:
I know, right? Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And parents are shocked that that comes up.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And they usually go to their pastor and say, what do I say to my kid about God and where he came from?

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
When you get that question, and you did a lot from parents, what did you say?

Pete Alwinson:
Well, it’s interesting. Today, just today, this morning, I read A.W. Tozer’s chapter on the self existence of God. And he brings up the exact same point. Every kid does it. Why? Because we instinctively know deep in the core of our being that we originated from some place beyond ourselves. But we have to explain to our children that God is the uncaused cause, that God is the self existent one, the only one who is self existent.

Steve Brown:
You know, it’s, it’s hard for children and adults to get their arms around that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s true.

Steve Brown:
Because we don’t know of anything that is self existent.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And everything begins and ends.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But not God.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Self existence, eternal, infinite.

Pete Alwinson:
Yep. And all of that argues for the existence of God. Anything when we think in terms of origin, it argues for God.

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
When we think about the origin of anything. And we inveterately go to ask about the origin of something.

Steve Brown:
And by the way, it’s one of the great arguments for the existence of God, when you’re debating an atheist, the origin issue is a very powerful statement

Pete Alwinson:
it really is

Steve Brown:
about it. We didn’t just happen.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
We’re not self existent.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. We are not.

Steve Brown:
Okay. Why did God allow Satan to exist in the first place? Well, he didn’t ask me, and he didn’t ask you. And where is Satan right now?

Pete Alwinson:
Oh, man. You know, it depends on how you interpret certain Scriptures, I suppose, right? Is he chained right now? Is he under, he’s called on at one point by Paul the prince of the power of the air. We know he has great influence, but I don’t believe he has infinite influence on the planet.

Steve Brown:
Not at all. And I’m not sure, that he even knows how defeated he is. In fact, the battle’s over.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm hmm.

Steve Brown:
That old statement, the dragon has been slain, but his tail still swishes.

Pete Alwinson:
I love it.

Steve Brown:
Is a very wise and profound statement about Satan. He’s still around. He’s still causing havoc a lot more than maybe modern day, scientific, rationalistic Americans would suggest, or even know. Frankly, and we’ve talked about this just in private, but frankly, there’s evil in the world right now, and I think a lot of that is satanic, and demonic, and dark, and really evil. And we’re living in a culture that doesn’t believe that.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
But the Bible is quite clear.

Pete Alwinson:
The Bible’s quite clear. And I think there’s so many telltale evidences of that evil, sex trafficking of children.

Steve Brown:
I agree.

Pete Alwinson:
The evil that we see perpetrated in government and the fraud, the lies, the stealing, the cheating.

Steve Brown:
And not even the recognition that that’s evil.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That really is from a dark, very dark place.

Pete Alwinson:
Mm hmm.

Steve Brown:
And for those who are Biblical believers, we know where it comes from. It comes from the reality of Satan himself. I remember when I was in graduate school of theology in Boston, we didn’t believe anything. We were liberals, just this side of wacko. But we, but every year at Reformation, in chapel, we sang Martin Luther’s hymn.

Pete Alwinson:
Interesting.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, and a part of that hymn is.

The earth filled with devil.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And I would look around at all these liberals, way to the left theologically, singing something that they didn’t believe for a minute. But I suspect as we all grew older, we began to see things that weren’t explainable except in terms of that sort of thing.

Pete Alwinson:
I agree.

Steve Brown:
Now, are we dualist?

Pete Alwinson:
No, we don’t believe

Steve Brown:
What is a duelist?

Pete Alwinson:
Duelist believes in two equal opposite forces in the universe one bad one good And so, God is, you never know, may the force be with you, you know. And I hope so, I hope we win. You know, so we don’t believe in luck, we believe in a sovereign God who is way superior, infinitely superior.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
In fact, Satan is the most diluted being in the universe in terms of his stature and, but he does have power.

Steve Brown:
And he’s the father of lies. And that brings us to one other element in the question, why was he created?

Pete Alwinson:
You know, all things were created to glorify God.

Steve Brown:
There you go. So, in a sense, he has a purpose.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And God created him as a lackey. In fact, he’s a servant

Pete Alwinson:
that’s right

Steve Brown:
of the sovereign God of the universe. So, stay close to Jesus and you’ll be okay.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. Amen.

Steve Brown:
All right. That’s enough. I don’t even want to talk about that anymore. I’m glad we’re out of time. Guys, we’ve got to go. Thanks for joining us at Key Life. And one other thing, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.