21 May The Humanity of Apostles
When we think of the apostles, we think of people who are almost super-human, living on a higher plane than we do, and floating over failure and mistakes. That actually isn’t the case.
A search for the mistakes of Bible apostles reveals they were not just human, but faulty humans. For example:
- Jesus rebuked them for little faith. (Matt 8:26)
- They argued between themselves about who was greater. (Mark 9:33-35)
- They tried to dissuade Jesus from going to the cross. (Matt 16:22)
- They couldn’t stay awake in prayer meetings. (Matt 26:40-41)
It was these disciples who couldn’t cast out a demon, argued not only with themselves but with Jesus, who disbelieved what he said, and even ran away when Jesus was crucified. Peter denied Jesus three times and it was the women who were faithful to Jesus in his most difficult moments. These were the apostles.
Were they human? Yes, but more than human, they were faulty humans.
The reality is that Jesus was a human, so our Saviour has humanity, but his humanity was without error. For all other humans, there is no absence of error, even apostles. But God uses weakness, and through that his strength appears. This much is evident from the Bible stories of his greatest servants like Moses, Paul, David and even John the Baptist.
What the Lord did was work through their humanity. Peter’s brokenness over his three-fold denial resulted in a person who didn’t trust Himself, but did trust the Lord. God used their circumstances, and their experience of seeing him resurrected, and then filled with the Spirit to mould people he could use and trust, even though they were human and weak.
There can be no exception to this. All people called by the Lord are human, apostles included. But the Lord seeks to mould people who are broken, who don’t trust themselves, but do trust Him, and rely on Him, and who despite their weakness lean on the strength of God.
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