The Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles

The Lord left his apostles with instructions and with great gifts. The instructions are listed in several distinct places, but the the gifts are more scattered, both in the four gospels and in the book of Acts later, being given as the apostles needed them.

First, about the apostles... just to clarify, here I'm referring to "the disciples" as including anyone who has followed along to hear the Lord, and "the apostles" to mean the twelve men that the Lord recruited specifically, as listed in Matthew 10, Mark 3, and Luke 6.

Who were the apostles? From the lists in Matthew and Mark, which are the same, we have: Simon (Peter), James and John the sons of Zebedee, Andrew (Peter’s brother), Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew (the publican), Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, (as is Matthew, so they are brothers, too), Thaddeus, (also known as Libbeus), Simon the Canaanite (also called Simon the Zealot), and Judas Iscariot. Bartholomew is almost undoubtedly another name for Nathaniel, see John 1. The list in Luke includes another Judas, "Judas the brother of James" and doesn’t have Thaddeus.

The stories of how they were individually chosen differ, especially in the gospel of John, but that these twelve were appointed by the Lord is clear. A point of interest is that - other than Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot they are all from towns around the sea of Galilee - and perhaps those two are as well. These twelve have their names inscribed on the twelve foundations of the walls of the holy city New Jerusalem, in Revelation 21:14 in which there are also the twelve gates. These men were chosen to represent all the different states of the natural human being that can be receptive of the Lord. They are from Galilee because Galilee represents that natural state of the human mind. The number twelve in the Word represents all possible states of mankind.

What is indicated here is that all people, everywhere, can be saved or regenerated if they repent and turn to the Lord in their lives. No one is "outside" of His reach. We are born natural, everyone is, but we are so formed that our minds can be raised to what is higher, called spiritual for our conceptions of Divine truth, or Celestial for our perceptions of Divine good. But we all start in a natural state and can only move upward by listening to the Lord’s teachings in His Word, and following Him as those Apostles did.

Not all of our natural states are states of good; they can be selfish, domineering, and cruel. But the Lord said that He came "not to save the just but to call sinners to repentance". Perhaps this is why Simon the Canaanite and Judas were two that He called. Simon is little known, but in some places in the Word, "Canaan signifies an external worship without a true internal worship". (See Arcana Coelestia 1060). Can the Lord work with that - with external worship that's internally barren? Yes, as a starting point. And, even Judas, who betrayed the Lord so terribly, we are told, repented of his betrayal of the Lord. (Matthew 27:3-5)

The Lord's Instructions to the Apostles

The two most comprehensive sets of instructions are in Luke 10:1-17 where seventy Disciples are sent out two by two, apparently to a specified list of cities that Jesus intends to visit, and then in Matthew 20:1-19 where the chosen twelve Apostles are sent out to all Israel. Later, as recorded in different epistles, the Apostles go out further, through a wide region.

The basic instructions were to preach that the kingdom of heaven is near, that all should be led to repent of their sins, and that all who wish should be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles should not take any money or extra clothing along, and they were to depend entirely on the Lord’s providence with no doubt that they shall be welcomed, fed, and sheltered. If they were welcomed, they should stay and preach the good news about the risen Lord and His teachings, and if they were not, they should shake from their feet the dust of that place and go on to a place where they were welcome. See Matthew 10, 28, Mark 13, 16, Luke 9, 10:24.

There are several assurances for the twelve. The Lord has told them to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit is sent to strengthen them, and in John 20 where the ten are gathered it is said that He breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit". Also, in his long talk with them in John 14, 15, 16) He assures them that his crucifixion and death are necessary to his mission and they should even rejoice that it is coming. He shows them from scripture that it has all been prophesied from long ago, (see Mark 4:34) and that what seems to them a tragedy, is truly His glorification and the end of the work He came to do. They, His twelve, are in the same steam of providence and will be protected. "Don’t be anxious," He tells them, "I will put into your mouths what you are to say, I will bring into your memories the incidents to tell to the people".

Here is a listing of the chapters and verses in John where such things are said: John 14:1-3, 10, 16-18, 26-28, 15:11, 16, 26-27, 16:7, 13-15, 22, 26-27, 33. Or simply read the three chapters and pick out your favorites.

A marvelous gift is mentioned in Matthew 10:13, "But blessed are your eyes for they see and blessed are your ears, for they hear…".

In the book of Acts, the Lord vividly shows the apostles that when they speak in their Galileen dialect every listener will hear their words as his own language in his ears; not gibberish, but Arabic to the Arabs, Greek to the Greeks, and Latin to the Romans.

When Peter starts to preach to a gathering of sympathetic Jews he speaks clearly and unafraid, saying that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and that people should worship Him openly and repent of how they might have felt earlier. Peter’s talk in Acts 3 and 4 is a bold and powerful one. No more hiding behind locked doors.

The early history of the Christian church shows just how well all this worked out. You know what? The Apostles preached to the peoples in the Near East 2000 years ago, and their preaching is just as relevant today as it was then: "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Being at hand has nothing to do with the date or the state of political history in the world, it has to do with the inside of your mind. The Lord is just as close to you now as He was then, and He never turns away, though we might turn away from him. Remember that He said "behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears and opens the door He will come right in." This hasn’t changed nor will it ever change, but He leaves us in freedom to ignore His knocking, if that is what we want. We have to make the choice, but He is always ready if we choose to open the door.

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There’s a saying, “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” (Orson Welles).

In part two of this series, we read about Gideon’s miraculous rout of the Midianites. With just 300 men he took on an enemy force of 145,000 and won. We often stop the story there and get our happy ending. But, in the Bible, that’s not where the story of Gideon ends. It carries on, and there’s not such a happy ending. It seems important to look at this and talk about what it means for our efforts at spiritual growth, because if we just read the success stories in the Bible we might get a rather skewed picture of what to expect in our lives.

There are two main sections of this part of the story:

1) Finishing off the Midianites (and dealing with some Israelites along the way), and

2) what happened after the battle.

The first thing that happens in this chapter is that the men of the tribe of Ephraim are angry at Gideon for not involving them in the battle from the beginning. They say, “What is this thing you have done to us by not calling us when you went to fight against the Midianites?” (Judges 8:1). Nothing has been done to them. It’s wasn't about them; it was about beating the enemy, not who about who got to do the beating.

Nonetheless, for the men of Ephraim it really seems to matter who did it. A few chapters later in the Book of Judges, they complain to another judge who just led Israelites to another great victory. They say, “Why did you go to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We’re going to burn down your house over your head” (Judges 12:1). And in that case they fight against the judge - and the judge wins and kills 42,000 of them.

The teachings of the New Church say that Ephraim represents intelligence (Secrets of Heaven 264). And when intelligence is called in from the mountains to help, by Gideon and the 300 who lapped, it’s a powerful ally. Similarly, when we have a humble desire to seek what the Lord says, then it can be really powerful to use our minds to their full extent and think through all of the ramifications of the truth which helps with capturing the selfishness that might be trying to get away. But, when they’re just the men of Ephraim on their own, they seem to represent intelligence that has a lot of pride in its own power. Watch out for the pride of Ephraim in yourself after you make some progress in your spiritual life — it might just want to destroy the humble desire to learn and follow the truth — the very thing that actually gave you victory in the first place.

Gideon and his men now carry on chasing the Midianites, trying to capture their kings, Zebah and Zalmunnah. They cross the Jordan river and come to Succoth and Penuel - two border towns near the edge of the land of Canaan.

Chasing the Midianites into this region seems to represent really trying to drive the selfish love of pleasure for its own sake (which is what is represented by Midian) right the way out of our lives — even out of our more external thoughts and habits.

Here they encounter resistance. They’re exhausted and they ask for bread to sustain them and the people of Succoth and Penuel mock them, saying, “Oh, so we should give you bread because you’re just about to capture Zebah and Zalmunnah? Right… No — not going to happen.” It’s a picture of cynicism. They’ve got elders and princes - people who’ve been around the block a few times, and a tower with well-established defenses.

There’s part of us that doesn’t believe that we can actually change our external behaviour too. But, “Jehovah said to Gideon, ‘By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and give the Midianites into your hand’” (Judges 7:7). They were going to capture the Midianites because Jehovah said so and they didn’t have to have any bread from Succoth and Penuel to do so.

Gideon and his men go on, attack the camp of the Midianites, “while the camp felt secure” (8:11) and capture the kings. Then they go back to Succoth and Penuel, and Gideon does something that to us seems totally brutal and unnecessary: “And he took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he made the men of Succoth know. Then he tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city” (8:16-17).

I think that spiritually this is a picture of actually bringing order to our external life. The power of eagerness for the truth can tear down our cynicism. Using thorns and briers to make “the men of Succoth know” sounds like an echo of the many other times in the Word where Jehovah says, “…and then they shall know that I am Jehovah.” Jehovah is the one with the power, in case that wasn’t already clear.

Once Gideon is done with Succoth and Penuel, he deals with the kings of Midian. As we work on fighting against an evil in our lives, we gradually see more and more of what it has done to us. Gideon talks with them and this is the first time we hear that they had killed Gideon’s brothers. In the Word brothers are a symbol of charity—of love for our fellow man. How many times have we been given an opportunity to help someone and we’ve decided to do something fun instead? And so they need to be killed.

Gideon’s son, Jether, can’t do it—he’s too young— and our younger self can’t quite bring itself to really make an end to the love of pleasure for its own sake. Gideon can, though. His name means hewer or chopper.

In the positive sense this is him living out his potential—chasing the Midianites down and cutting them down. And because of this, a little further on, it says, “Thus Midian was subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted their heads no more. And the country was quiet for forty years in the days of Gideon” (Judges 8:28).

Can’t we stop the story there? We have to look at what happened after the battle.

After the Battle They Want Gideon to Rule Over Them

Remind me, who was it that won the battle? Jehovah, using Gideon and the 300 men who lapped. Without Jehovah, Gideon would still be cowering in a winepress somewhere while the Midianites overran the land. Jehovah didn’t need the 32 thousand men. He didn’t need the 10 thousand men. He needed 300 that were eager to follow Him, to listen to Him, to lap up His teachings.

Jehovah in Hebrew means the One who Is. The teachings of the New Church explain the meaning of this name of God in this way (from Secrets of Heaven 1735, from John Elliot's translation):

"Jehovah… [is] Love itself, to which no other attributes are appropriate than those of pure Love and so of pure Mercy towards the whole human race, that Mercy being such that it wills to save all people, to make them eternally happy, and to impart to them all that is its Own—thus out of pure Mercy and by the mighty power of love to draw towards heaven… all who are willing to follow. That Love itself is Jehovah…."

The Lord’s pure love is what won the battle for Gideon, what wins the battle against selfishness in us. It’s the driving force, the motivation, the strength, the endurance. If we didn’t have love from the Lord to want to be a good person, to care about other people, to live for something more than ourselves, we would still be nowhere, having done nothing.

But the people want Gideon to rule over them. And then his son. And then his son’s son. And on forever. Really, Gideon without Jehovah is not something you want to rule over you. To take Gideon and his line of sons after him and ask that to rule over you is to take one thread of the truth and make it everything. A hewing and chopping approach is good for some things, like getting rid of Midianites, but it's not good for everything, especially once it’s been separated from Jehovah.

A branch that abide in the vine bears much fruit but if a branch stops abiding in the vine—no matter how much fruit it bore in the past—it’s going to wither and die because there’s no life in it (John 15:4-6). The people want Gideon to be king because it looks like he’s the one who gave them victory. It looks like what made us successful was a certain approach that we took that worked in that circumstance. Our lazy selves like simple—we like one size fits all solutions.

But that is not the kind of solution that the Word provides. The Word of God is frustratingly complex at times. In one place it says, “Beat your ploughshares into swords….” (Joel 3:10). And we say, “Got it! Take the fighting approach!” But, in other places it talks about people beating their swords into ploughshares (Isaiah 2:4 ; Micah 4:3 ).

It can be hard to keep going back to the Word with eagerness to learn what it has to say. It takes patience. It take intellectual humility to say, “I don’t get it.” It takes a willingness to hear something different than what we might want to hear. When we don’t want to do that work we want Gideon rule over us instead of Jehovah and he makes us an ephod to worship.

Gideon Makes an Ephod

Gideon requests that the people give him the golden earrings from their plunder and he makes some sort of golden ephod out of it. An ephod is a priestly apron and, functionally, in the Bible they were used to get answers from God (1 Samuel 23:9-13; 30:7-8). They are symbolic of the literal sense of the Word where we get answers from God. Gideon's making an ephod for himself means giving people a substitute for the Word to get answers from. This is when we feel like we’ve had some success in becoming a spiritual person and we feel like we’ve got a good enough grasp of the Bible that we don’t actually have to read it.

To get a feel for what this looks like in real life I want to read you something from a fascinating book called Stages of Faith by James W. Fowler in which the author attempts to describe 6 different stages of development that a person’s faith can go through. Here are a few quotes from one of the many interviews that Fowler had conducted as part of his research. This an interview with a teenage girl about her faith that Fowler says is typical of Stage 3—Synthetic-Conventional Faith:

“I feel like I’m not afraid of anything now because I know what I believe in and I know what I want to do in life, and nothing could really set me off course. …. Before, if we moved… I got into people, different people, and I sort of changed as the people went. But I have learned that just the best thing is to be yourself” (p155).

When asked what she thinks God is she says, “God is different to a lot of people….I don’t go exactly by the Bible. I think you should try to make… people happy and at the same time enjoy yourself, you know? In a good kind way….” (pp155-156).

When asked what she thinks will happen to her when she dies she says, “I have this feeling, like, when I die I’m going to go to heaven because I’ve tried on earth to be good to people and I believe in God and I’m a follower” (p156).

When asked what it means to go to heaven she said, “I guess I’ll find out sometime. But, see, I don’t want to ask too many questions like that. …. I never wanted to go that much into it. I just want to do what the Bible says” (p157).

She knows what she believes and that she’s going to heaven and she just wants to do what the Bible says but she also doesn’t “go exactly go by the Bible” or want to really go that much into it. She’s got her ephod - her version of the truth which is “the best thing is to be yourself” and “try to make people happy and at the same time enjoy yourself… In a good kind way.”

That’s pretty much what the Bible says, right? The point of this is not to make fun of this teenage girl but to recognise this exact same tendency in ourselves. Beating the Midianites only gets us this far - that is, not very far at all in the big scheme of things. What about the Philistines, and the Assyrians, and the Babylonians all still to come?

The teachings of the New Church say:

If after temptation a person does not believe that the Lord alone has fought for him and brought him victory, the temptation he has undergone is merely external. Such temptation does not extend into him deeply or cause anything of faith and charity to take root. (Secrets of Heaven 8969)

At this stage, while we think we’re worshipping God, we will also be playing the harlot with this idol at the same time. And it can be a snare to us, just like it was to Gideon and his house. During Gideon’s life, “the country was quiet for forty years” (Judges 8:28) and it sounds like the people were at least still worshipping Jehovah alongside of this ephod. But, we read, “So it was, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned back and again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-Berith their god” (Judges 8:33).

Worshipping the Baals was the real problem in the first place. If the children of Israel had been worshipping Jehovah, the Midianites never would have been a threat. It was because they were worshipping the Baals that they were vulnerable to attack. The problem with this ephod version of the Word of God is that it can be a stepping stone right back to worshipping Baal again. And worshipping Baal is not just loving pleasure above all else: it’s “worship from the evils of the love of self and of the world” (Apocalypse Explained 160:2). It’s embracing hell, while still thinking that we’re somehow God’s chosen people.

The particular Baal that they made their god was Baal-Berith which means “lord of the covenant.” The covenant was meant to be an agreement between Jehovah and His people that they would follow His commandments and He would bless them. To worship a Baal of the covenant would seem to be a corruption of that idea - to make God and His covenant with us into our own image. To say, “I’m a good Christian and that means that I can live however I want and God is going to look after me and give me whatever I want.”

If we stop the story here with Gideon’s death and the people’s return to idolatry, it’s a pretty depressing picture. But, of course, the bigger story doesn’t stop here, there are more judges to come - more amazing victories over seemingly overwhelming odds and, too, more terrible decisions by the people who are supposed to be following Jehovah.

But the story doesn’t stop with the judges—there are the stories of the kings, good and bad, and prophets, and eventually the story of Jesus Christ and His life and death and resurrection and eventually Him calling us to be with Him in the Holy City New Jerusalem.

As we look across that whole storyline, with a willingness to acknowledge the defeats as well as the victories, one message that seems to come through is, “Don’t stop your story where you are.” Don’t think that you’re done. Keep striving to worship only Jesus Christ (who is Jehovah come down into this world to save us). Remember that is the Lord’s love—and only the Lord’s love—that will give you victory over your enemies. Remember that the Lord will save you, by the 300 men who lapped. Ignore the pride of Ephraim that wants you to think the power is in your intelligence. Destroy the cynicism of Succoth and Penuel who don’t believe change is possible. And keep going back with urgency to the Lord in His Word—stay thirsty for the truth, eager to learn, willing to follow and the Lord will give you victory and keep leading you towards a happy end.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 3021 [1-8])