Sorry to be Captain Obvious, but every time I’ve read through the New Testament I’ve been struck by just how human the apostles actually were. Despite the way they were always revered as these spiritual superstars in church, Bible college, and even seminary, in the pages of Scripture I don’t see ’em knocking the ball out of the park. Instead I see the apostles habitually:
- Failing to grasp Jesus’ basic teaching to the point of exasperating Him,
- Misunderstanding Jesus’ teaching,
- Misapplying Jesus’ teaching,
- Putting words into Jesus’ mouth,
- Falling asleep on the job with a complete lack of empathy,
- Lashing out with physical violence,
- Idolizing legalistic certainty,
- Exuding racist and sexist snobbery,
- Putting their egos first,
- Jostling for power in the coming kingdom,
- Putting geo-political kingdom-building above God’s eternal Kingdom,
- Betraying the Lord,
- Denying the Lord,
- Being restored by the Lord,
- Wrestling with the new community’s emerging beliefs,
- Reimagining their connection to the earlier Jewish story,
- Fumbling about with how to tell this new overarching story,
- Reinterpreting the spiritual practices of this new faith,
- Struggling with how to interpret mystical experiences,
- Withdrawing into the desert to meditate on this stuff,
- Confronting one another for basically being condescending jerks,
- Acknowledging that one another’s teachings are difficult,
- Dividing because of interpersonal conflict,
- Figuring out that their first missionary methods weren’t working out too well,
- Adapting to evolving circumstances,
- Straight up disagreeing with one another,
- Making compromises on what’s essential and what’s not, and
- Continuing to reinterpret and retell the Story decades out,
What a bunch of miscreants. As Colonel Willie Sharp put it in Armageddon, “Talk about the wrong stuff.” Seriously, though, it’s almost like Jesus intentionally picked a group of unwise, uneducated, chronic screw-ups in careers with bad PR to make the wise look foolish and totally subvert the expectations of this world…
Were they discipled for three years by Jesus? Most of ’em were, yes. Were they indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit? That seems to be the point of Pentecost. Did they develop spiritual wisdom? Agonizingly slow at times, but yes. But were these guys perfect? Definitively not. Did they routinely make mistakes and get things wrong? Yeah, sure, you betcha.
The apostles were, indeed, all too human. I don’t mind saying they got some things wrong because the evidence is painfully clear to any literate person: These guys were anything but inerrant or infallible. And you know what? I believe that was precisely the point. They provide the template of God’s grace for idiots and assholes like you and me.
