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After 14 years of preparation, a new scientific wonder of the world opened for business Wednesday with the official startup of Europe's Large Hadron Collider.
The $10 billion particle accelerator is the biggest, most expensive science machine on earth, designed to probe mysteries ranging from dark matter and missing antimatter to the existence of extra, unseen dimensions in space.
Scientists, journalists and dignitaries watched from the control room at Europe's CERN particle-physics center on the French-Swiss border, near Geneva, as beams of protons were sent all the way around the collider's 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring of supercooled pipes for the first time.
"Today is a great day for CERN," the organization's director general, Robert Aymar, told the crowd in the control room as the startup process began.
Controllers checked the alignment of the beam as barriers were removed at each stage of the route. Applause and shouts greeted every report of progress along the 330-foot-deep (100-meter-deep) tunnel — climaxing when the beam made its first full clockwise circuit, less than an hour after it was turned on.
"It's a fantastic moment," Lyn Evans, the project leader for the Large Hadron Collider, said afterward. "We can now look forward to a new era of understanding about the origins and evolution of the universe."
As champagne flowed in the control room, former CERN chief Luciano Maiani noted that the money spent on the project over 14 years was a mere fraction of the $40 billion that China spent for this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing. "These are the Olympics of science," CERN spokeswoman Paola Catapano replied during a Webcast interview.
Hours later, the LHC's counterclockwise proton beam made its first-ever circuit. The next steps in the process will be to fine-tune the beams and bring them together for their first collisions. It will take weeks for the collider to go through its commissioning process, and the LHC isn't expected to reach full power until next year.
'First Beam,' first celebration
Even though the first scientific results are months away, CERN used Wednesday's "First Beam" events as a high-profile occasion for celebration. For the more than 10,000 scientists, engineers and other workers involved in the project, the Large Hadron Collider represents a revolutionary new research opportunity as well as an unprecedented engineering achievement.
"The combination of the size, scale, complexity and technology — well, the comparison I always use is the pyramids," Peter Limon, a U.S. physicist from Fermilab who played a part in building the device, said during a pre-startup walkthrough. "This is what we do today comparable to the pyramids of 4,000 years ago."
The LHC is designed to do things the pyramid's builders never imagined.
Once the machine is in full operation, two streams of invisible protons will be whipped up in opposite directions around an underground racetrack to 99.999999 percent of the speed of light. When the two waves of protons slam into each other, scientists expect particles to melt into bits of energy up to 100,000 times hotter than the sun's core — a state that should replicate what the entire universe was like just an instant after it came into being.
How can the Large Hadron Collider possibly perform such feats? That's where the wonder begins.
Going down ...
No one was allowed in the underground tunnel for Wednesday's maiden run, but a visit during the final phases of the LHC's construction provided an inside look at the wonder at work.
During the seven-year construction phase, components of the collider and its detectors had to be lowered down piecemeal from CERN's assembly halls, then put together in underground caverns as big as cathedrals.
Although the scale of the project is impressive, these cathedrals are no gleaming shrines to science: Our trip felt more like going into the bowels of a well-worn power plant or subway system. That's because most of the facility was actually carved out in the 1980s for an earlier particle-smasher called the Large Electron Positron collider, or LEP. CERN has spent the past seven years remodeling the space for the Large Hadron Collider.
Steven Nahn, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted research at CERN during the LEP era. "They stole our tunnel, that's the way I see it," Nahn joked as Limon showed us around.
For years, Nahn, Limon and thousands of other researchers have pitched in on the design and assembly of the LHC's instruments, forsaking quiet laboratories for the din of the construction site — as well as the occasional industrial mishap.
The LHC tunnel: Misbehaving magnets
Limon is a veteran of Fermilab's Tevatron, which had been the world's most powerful collider but is being dethroned by the LHC. At full power, the proton beams at the LHC will run into each other with the force of two 400-ton bullet trains going 100 mph. That amounts to 14 trillion electron volts, or about seven times the Tevatron's maximum power.
To bend those subatomic bullet trains into a circular path requires a chain of more than 1,800 superconducting magnets that have been chilled so close to absolute zero that they're colder than the average temperature of outer space (1.9 Kelvin, or 456.3 degrees below zero Fahrenheit).
Some of those magnets have to be collimated to focus the beams precisely at the ring's four collision points, like a telescope focusing light onto its mirrors. Drawing on its experience from Tevatron, Fermilab was put in charge of providing many of those magnets. But back in March 2007, a design flaw led to a violent breakdown during a cooldown test. The supports that held the magnet in place came loose with a loud bang and a cloud of dust.
"Everybody ducked about two seconds after it happened," Limon recalled.
The LHC's scheduled startup had to be delayed 10 months to install and test a fix for the faulty magnets. Even with the fix, there's no guarantee that the magnetic field will always hold. A runaway proton beam could blast right through its helium-cooled pipeline and kill anyone who got in its way. That's why the tunnel is sealed off for each run. If anything goes wrong, a computer-controlled system will shut down the collider and send the errant beam down a blind alley within milliseconds.
However, if everything goes right, each pulse of protons will whip around the ring 11,000 times a second, traveling the equivalent of a trip to Neptune and back before they slam into the protons going the other way at four points around the ring. Four main detectors will watch what happens next.
ATLAS and CMS: What the detectors do
For millennia, people have studied how things work by breaking them apart and watching what happens to the pieces. Physicists started doing that with atoms about 90 years ago, confirming that atoms were composed of electrons, protons and neutrons — plus a menagerie of other particles they never expected to find. (After the discovery of the muon, physicist Isidor Rabi famously exclaimed, "Who ordered that?")
Physicists determined that protons, neutrons and many of the other particles were built up from even more fundamental constituents known as quarks. The particles built up from quarks are classified as hadrons, and that's where the LHC's name comes from: It's a large collider that smashes hadrons together.
So what will come out of those tiny, trillion-degree smash-ups? The LHC will look for exotic high-energy particles that supposedly came into existence just after the big bang — for example, the Higgs boson (which is thought to give other particles their mass) or supersymmetric particles (which may account for much of the universe's dark matter).
These particles can't be detected directly, because they interact so weakly with ordinary matter. Instead, the LHC's detectors will track how those particles decay into more easily detectable particles as they fly out from the collision point.
It's like reconstructing the scene of a crime from forensic evidence: Scientists will try to track down the usual suspects (or, they hope, the extremely unusual suspects) by analyzing the subatomic evidence that the culprits leave behind.
To solve their mysteries, the LHC's scientific sleuths will use the latest and greatest tools of the trade, built at a cost of billions of dollars. The two main detectors — ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) and CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) — are structured like the layers of an onion to spot different kinds of particles:
- Trackers: Both detectors have tracking devices at the center to follow the paths of short-lived particles.
- Calorimeters: The next layers are two different types of calorimeters that measure the energies of the particles given off. One captures electromagnetic energy, while the other captures the energy from particles such as protons, neutrons and pions.
- Magnets: Huge magnets are built into each detector to bend the paths of the particles so they can be identified by their charge.
- Muon detectors: The outer layers of the detector track the paths of muons, particles that can't be stopped by any of the inner layers.
Probing the smallest scales of matter requires some of the biggest machines ever devised. ATLAS is the largest of all detectors, measuring 151 feet long and 82 feet high — bigger than your typical apartment building.
"It has an awful lot of free space inside," CERN theoretical physicist John Ellis explained. "The reason for that is, they want to be able to measure particles which come out of the collision ... even if the interior of the detector is so clogged with collision products they can't measure them properly there."
Over on the other side of the LHC's ring, CMS takes up less than half as much space as ATLAS but weighs almost twice as much. It contains more iron than the Eiffel Tower, built into alternating magnetized layers with particle detectors like a metallic jelly roll. CMS' built-in magnets and its expensive fine-resolution silicon tracker are part of a different strategy to do the same things that ATLAS does.
"You get big arguments between the ATLAS guys and the CMS guys as to which is the best way to measure these particles," Ellis said. "ATLAS is going to bend them that way, CMS is going to bend them this way, and we'll see in a few years' time which is the better idea."
ALICE: The big bang in the machine
ATLAS and CMS get most of the attention, but the contraption that best merits the title of "Big Bang Machine" is about a mile (1.5 kilometers) down the road from ATLAS. The ALICE detector (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is designed exclusively to study the stuff that the universe was made of less than a millionth of a second after the big bang.
ALICE will run for only about a month out of every year, conducting experiments that will require the collider to switch over from smashing protons to smashing lead ions, which are 100 times heavier than protons. The high-energy collisions should blast those ions so thoroughly that, for just an instant, they turn into a plasma of free-flying quarks plus gluons, the particles that usually bind quarks together.
Past experiments indicated that the quark-gluon plasma behaved like a liquid. When ALICE gets up and running, "then maybe we reach the gas phase," said Jurgen Schukraft, CERN's spokesperson for the ALICE experiment. That would be something never before seen in the cosmic scheme of things.
LHCb: The mystery of antimatter
The fourth detector is also designed to answer a specific cosmic question. LHCb will study particles containing particular "flavors" of quarks and antiquarks, known as B mesons and anti-B mesons, with the aim of figuring out why matter has a huge edge over antimatter in our universe.
Earlier studies revealed that the particles and antiparticles decayed differently, which runs counter to the idea that matter and antimatter should be in symmetry. LHCb will follow up on those studies, using a battery of high-tech detectors that are lined up on one side of the collision point. Among those instruments are a tracker that can locate particles with a precision of 10 microns, or a tenth the width of a human hair.
Two smaller experiments round out the ring: LHCf, which studies cosmic-ray-like events near ATLAS; and TOTEM, which measures the effective size of protons using a detector near CMS.
The Grid: Getting out the data
The LHC is designed to produce as many as 600 proton collisions per second, and that creates a flood of digital data that gushes out from the detectors' wiring. If you were to put all the data from one of the main detectors onto CDs, the stack of disks would pile up to the orbit of the moon in six months. The challenge is to pick out only the most promising readings.
Each of the detectors uses "triggers" to pick out the good stuff. Only about 100 events per second are sent to thousands of computers and tape drives at CERN for storage. It's like narrowing down that moon-high stack of CDs to a stack that's only 6 miles high — which is still high enough for a transcontinental jet to run into.
To get the data out to researchers around the world, CERN has set up a multi-tier computer network called the Grid. Digital information goes out to the "Tier 1" data centers on a fiber-optic network at a rate of up to 10 gigabits per second — or roughly 1,000 times the speed of a typical cable Internet connection.
If the system works, it could set the model for future computing — not only for physics but also for other high-end applications such as climate simulation, genetic analysis and petroleum prospecting. Just as the World Wide Web was the best-known spin-off from CERN's LEP experiment back in the 1990s, the Grid could well become the LHC's most visible legacy.
Magnet for innovation
Who will benefit the most from that legacy? The Grid may distribute the data across the world — but it's hard to argue with the idea that Europe's 21st-century wonder of the world will serve as a magnet for innovation over the next decade.
That has sparked more than a few cases of "collider envy" among American researchers, and some worry about the prospects of a reverse brain drain. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York, is already noticing a trend in his colleagues' travel plans.
"They're going where the action is, and that is Europe," Kaku said.


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1. Getting Ahead of God (Acts 1:1-26)
The Importance of the Book of Acts
One can hardly overstate the importance of the Book of Acts or its contribution to the canon of Scripture. Let me mention just a few of the reasons why Acts—and thus our study of this book—is so important.
First, Acts (combined with the Gospel of Luke) makes up over one-fourth of the entire New Testament. Luke/Acts is really one work in two volumes (remember that only so much could be put on one scroll, just as only so much can be recorded on a cassette). If this one work makes up over one-fourth of the content of the New Testament, the principle of proportion alone tells us that it must be very important material.
Second, the Book of Acts provides us with a vivid account of the radical change which took place in the attitudes and actions of the disciples, who were passive and almost invisible after our Lord's death, as described in the Gospels. The Peter who would deny his Lord in the courtyard of the high priest, who would hide behind locked doors after Jesus' death, and who would "go fishing" after His resurrection, is a very different man in Acts 2, where he boldly proclaims Jesus to be the Christ and announces to his audience that they were guilty of His death and were facing divine judgment. The transformation of the Lord's disciples is evident in the Book of Acts.
Third, Acts is a crucial book because it is the only book in the New Testament which fills in the gap between the Gospels and the Epistles. The Gospels end in Jerusalem with no church, a few Jewish believers in Jesus, and a group of disciples who are still living, as it were, in the past. The Epistles, on the other hand, depict a growing number of churches made up of mainly Gentile believers and a group of disciples who are boldly proclaiming Christ as Israel's Messiah, and as the Savior of the Gentiles as well. Only Acts fills in the gaps, to explain how these changes took place. We would not understand the Epistles apart from the Book of Acts.
Fourth, Acts provides us with an inspired account of the transition of the gospel from a largely Jewish context to a gospel which is universal, not only embracing the Gentiles but becoming, for a season, a largely Gentile phenomenon. We begin in Jerusalem with a handful of Jewish followers of Jesus. The Book of Acts ends in Rome, with a number of Gentile churches having been founded, and a predominantly Gentile Christian community. The Book of Acts describes this transition: geographically, from Jerusalem to Rome; theologically, from Israel to the church; and racially, from Jews to Gentiles.
Fifth, the Book of Acts (in conjunction with Luke) gives us the history of the origin and nature of the opposition against the gospel by the Jews. One of the greatest and most frequent problems the New Testament church had to deal with was the opposition of the Jews, who resisted the gospel, and the Judaizers, who sought to pervert it. The Gospel of Luke (and the other Gospels as well) describe the roots of this opposition, which began as a resistance to Jesus' actions and teaching. The Book of Acts shows how this opposition continued on against the gospel and the church after the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord. What Paul does theologically in the Book of Romans, Luke does historically in the Book of Acts. We would never understand the nature of the problem which faced the church (which, incidentally, has its own forms today) apart from Luke/Acts.
Sixth, the Book of Acts provides us with a historical background for many of the churches which are dealt with in the Epistles of the New Testament. When we read the Epistles of Paul to the church at Thessalonica, or Ephesus, or Philippi, we know much about the church and how it started from the account which Luke has provided for us in the Book of Acts. Acts provides valuable background information for the churches that are addressed in the Epistles. It is often not difficult to understand the problems these churches are facing in the light of their birth and early years.
Seventh, the Book of Acts supplies us with some excellent examples of the apostolic preaching of the gospel. Gospel preaching is modeled in Acts. If we would follow the example of the apostles in proclaiming the gospel, then we will learn from Acts how it is done.
Eighth, the Book of Acts contains a dramatic portrayal of the power of God at work in the church through the Holy Spirit which began at Pentecost and which will continue until the return of our Lord. If the Gospels contain the account of God's working through Christ (empowered by the Holy Spirit), the Book of Acts depicts Christ at work in the church through His Spirit. The beginnings of the "age of the Spirit" are found in Acts, and only in Acts. A small, fearful, unpromising group of men and women become a revolutionary force, transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit (including the resurrection of Christ by the Spirit—cf. Romans 8:11).
Ninth, the Book of Acts is an account of the fulfillment of our Lord's promises to His disciples concerning the coming of the Spirit and His ministry in the world to and through them. During His earthly ministry, Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit. Near the time of His death, He spoke in much greater detail concerning the Spirit. After His resurrection, He commanded His disciples to "make disciples of all nations," but not until after they were endued with power, for which they were to wait. The fulfillment of these promises is recorded in Acts.
Tenth, the Book of Acts is a forceful defense of the apostleship of Paul. If one were to read the Epistles of Paul apart from the Book of Acts, one would wonder who he was and what right he had to speak with such authority. The Book of Acts not only contains the account of Paul's conversion (in three accounts), but it is an account of the way in which God appointed him as an apostle, in spite of the actions and early resistance of the other apostles. Acts provides Paul and his epistles with a credibility and authority which enhances their impact on those who would read them.
Eleventh, the Book of Acts describes how the purpose of God to save the Gentiles through Israel was accomplished, but in a way no one would have expected. It was not through the obedience of Israel that the Gentiles received the gospel but actually through their disobedience. The book gives us the incredible account of how God achieved the beginnings of a world-wide religion (rather than a small Jewish sect) by the opposition of the Jews, by their persecution of the saints, and even in spite of the actions and example of the Jerusalem church. It is an account of the sovereignty and power of God, using even men's sin to accomplish His purposes.
Finally, the Book of Acts is vitally important because it has become a battleground for evangelical Christians. Acts is unfortunately a battleground for Christians. The charismatic Christians make it their textbook, while anti-charismatics try to minimize it as merely transitional. My opinion is that neither position is totally correct. Christian living is intended to be more supernatural than many non-charismatics say, and it is not as continually miraculous as some charismatics maintain (Acts itself is not riddled with the spectacularly miraculous). Whatever the greater works are, it is not in the realm of the spectacular.
It is for these and other reasons that the Book of Acts is vital for our understanding and our practice of the gospel. I look forward to this study of Acts with great anticipation. I ask that you commence this study with much prayer for an open heart and mind to learn that which God has here for us. I urge you to read and reread this great book as often as possible. May God grant that we find our lives transformed by the truths of this book, and even more, that we be drawn ever more closely to our Lord Jesus Christ and to His Spirit who now dwells among and within us who are saved.
Introduction to Acts 1
As I approach the study of the first chapter of Acts, one question overshadows all others, and it is this: Just whose name would be on the foundation in place of Judas? Who was the twelfth apostle?
In the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation we read these words: The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Revelation 21:14).
In the first chapter of Acts we read of the selection of Matthias as the twelfth apostle, the replacement of Judas. Is the name "Matthias" the name which we will find on the twelfth foundation stone? Some would say, "Yes"; others, an emphatic "No!" Let us look at this chapter with this question in mind.
The Proportions of the Passage
Before we begin our study, I want you to take note of the proportions of the passage in light of the "principle of proportion." Allow me to spell out this principle here:
THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTION BEGINS WITH THE PREMISE THAT MUCH MORE COULD BE SAID ABOUT THE LIFE OF OUR LORD AND THE EARLY CHURCH THAN HAS BEEN SAID IN WRITING (cf. John 20:30-31; 21:25). THUS, THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE RECORDED ARE IMPORTANT, AND THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE GIVEN MORE SPACE AND ATTENTION THAN OTHERS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED MORE IMPORTANT. IN SHORT, THE SPACE DEVOTED TO ANY TOPIC OR DOCTRINE IS INDICATIVE OF ITS RELATIVE IMPORTANCE TO OTHER TRUTHS.
Look at the principle of proportion in action in Acts, particularly in chapter 1. Of the twenty-eight chapters of Acts, only one chapter (the first) gives an account of matters prior to Pentecost. The remaining chapters depict Pentecost (2:1-4), its impact (2:5-13), its interpretation (2:14-40), and its implications (2:41–28:31).
If only one chapter is devoted to pre-Pentecost matters, this tells us something. Of all that could have been said that fits into this category, Luke chose to take up the greatest part of the chapter with an account of the selection of the twelfth apostle. It would seem to me that this must be, in the mind of Luke (and of the Holy Spirit who inspired this book), a very important incident, at least as it relates to the unfolding argument of the book. Thus, I will focus most of my attention in this lesson on verses 12-26, because this is where Luke has indicated the emphasis should come, based on the principle of proportion. The mystery is that as important as this incident seems to be, Matthias is never specifically mentioned again. The rest of the Book of Acts, and the Epistles as well, virtually ignore Matthias. Why then is the selection of Matthias given such editorial priority? We will find the answer to this question at the conclusion of our study. We will, however, begin by making a few comments on the first eleven verses as they provide the background and the context of the episode of the choosing of Matthias as the twelfth apostle.
The Position of the Passage
While it may not be necessary to do so, let me underscore the importance of our text in chapter 1 by pointing out that the selection of the twelfth apostle is not only the only incident which Luke recorded during the ten-day period of the disciples' waiting, but it is the incident which immediately precedes Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, in chapter 2. If there is any importance by association—as there surely must be—then what comes in the immediate context of Pentecost must be important. The position of our passage is a clue to its importance.
Structure of Acts 1
The structure of Acts 1 can be summarized as follows:
- Luke's Introduction to His Second Volume (verses 1-2)
- Jesus' Post-Resurrection Ministry (verses 3-5)
- The Disciples' Question and Jesus' Response (verses 6-11)
- Filling the Vacancy of Judas (verses 12-26)
The Chronological Sequence of Acts 1
If we are to understand the events in Acts 1, it is important for us to gain a sense of chronological sequence. In verses 1 and 2 Luke referred to his previous volume, the Gospel of Luke, in which he covered a time span of approximately thirty-three years. That Gospel began a little before the birth of Jesus and of John, His predecessor. It gave some detail about the births of both John and Jesus. Only one incident in the childhood of Jesus was briefly mentioned, and other than this, the first thirty years of Jesus' life are virtually passed by. The major portion of that Gospel pertains to the three years of Jesus' public ministry, beginning with the introduction of John and the baptism and temptation of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke ends with the resurrection of Jesus and with an anticipation of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Luke's Gospel, then, covers a period of time somewhat less than forty years, essentially dealing with the life of Jesus from His birth to His resurrection.
The Book of Acts takes up precisely where Luke's Gospel left off. The first eleven verses of Acts 1 deal primarily with that forty-day period when Jesus was risen from the dead but had not yet ascended to the Father. Verses 12-26 are the only inspired account of that ten-day period of time (approximately)1 between Jesus' ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, some fifty days after the time of Jesus' resurrection. The actions taken by the disciples occur during that point in time much like the four-hundred-year period just prior to Messiah's coming to the earth. Jesus was now physically absent, and yet the Holy Spirit has not yet descended. It was during this period of time that Jesus had told His disciples to wait. They spent most of their time at the Temple (cf. Luke 24:52-53) or in that upper room, praying, and perhaps discussing the Scriptures. The one event which Luke chose to record for us was the selection of the twelfth apostle which, we must assume, was an event important to us, and most of all important to the development of the argument of this volume. Let us press on to see what we are to learn from this first introductory chapter.
Linking Luke and Acts
1 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen (Acts 1:1-2, NASB).
The Book of Acts is clearly a sequel, a second volume to be read in conjunction with the first, the Book of Luke. The author is the same, as well as the recipient, Theophilus. The content of the first volume pertained to the deeds and the doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ, ending with His ascension. Jesus' final words, Luke tells us, were orders to the apostles He had chosen. These orders were given, Luke includes, "by the Holy Spirit." Those orders were given in Luke and will be reiterated here shortly. The purpose then of Acts is to provide an account of that which Jesus continued to do through His church, by means of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus began to do and to teach, the Holy Spirit would continue to do, through the church.
A Review of Jesus' Ministry after His Resurrection
3 To these He also presented Himself alive; after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4 And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now" (Acts 1:3-5, NASB).
Verse 3 tells us something very clearly which is of great importance: Jesus set aside once and for all the doubts of the disciples concerning the fact of His resurrection. In the Gospel of Luke, the disciples are doubtful as to our Lord's resurrection to the very end. Mark's Gospel tells us most clearly that the disciples' unbelief was deep-seated and that Jesus found it necessary to rebuke them for it (Mark 16:14). Here, in Acts, Luke tells us the reason the disciples could be so entirely convinced about His resurrection. It was not just that Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief, but that He presented Himself alive to them on various occasions and over a period of forty days. This evidence was irrefutable. They were convinced. Never again does the issue of the fact of His resurrection arise with them. Indeed, from this point on they are the "witnesses of His resurrection," something which they will repeatedly and confidently affirm (cf. Acts 1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39-42; 13:31).
Verse 3 also informs us of the content of the teaching of our Lord during those forty days. It is summed up by Luke by the use of the phrase, "the kingdom of God" (verse 3). Jesus commenced His ministry by announcing that the "kingdom of God" had come (Mark 1:15), much the same as John the Baptist had been preaching (cf. Matthew 3:1-2). Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God and found it necessary to continually correct the misconceptions of Israelites and even of His own disciples. Now, after His resurrection, Jesus spoke once again of that kingdom, which was still future. It is not just a matter of the very distant future, however, but a matter of the present as well. While the promises of the kingdom of God have not been fulfilled in 2,000 years since the days of our Lord, there were some present aspects of that kingdom of which our Lord must have been speaking. Surely Jesus was not talking only of the distant future with His disciples, but He was teaching them the things which they needed to know pertaining to the near future and to their ministries in particular. Thus, the "kingdom of God" must have included the ministry and message of the apostles, which would commence with the coming of the Spirit.
Not separate from the teaching of our Lord and the kingdom of God was the matter of the "promise of the Father" (verse 5), for which they were to wait. It was a baptism which the Father had promised, and thus a matter of Old Testament prophecy, but it was also one of which our Lord Himself had taught ("which you have heard of from Me," verse 4). While Luke has some things to say on this matter, John's Gospel is the most thorough on the matter of the Holy Spirit (cf. 7:37-39; chapters 14-16). This promise was a "baptism," not one like that of John, but distinct from it. Jesus contrasted the coming of the Spirit and the baptism He (Christ) would perform through the Spirit, with that of John. Indeed, it was a contrast which John himself taught. John told his audiences that while he baptized with water, Jesus would baptize men with the Holy Spirit and with fire. This was the "promise of the Father" for which they were now commanded to wait. It would not be many days before this would come to pass.
The Disciples' Question and Jesus' Response
6 And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8 but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." 9 And after He had said these things, "He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was departing, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them; 11 and they also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:6-11).
One of the things about which Jesus must not have spoken was the timing of the coming of the kingdom. The disciples found it necessary to ask Jesus when the kingdom was going to come about. More specifically, they asked the Savior if the kingdom was to be established immediately.
It is the Christmas season as I write this message, and the poem, "The Night Before Christmas," somehow comes to mind in connection with this question of the disciples. Just as thoughts of Christmas and the "coming of Santa" filled the minds of children on Christmas eve, so thoughts of the kingdom seemed to be dancing in the minds of the disciples. I am not certain their motivation for wanting the kingdom to come was much different than it was during the earthly ministry of our Lord. Perhaps the disciples were still thinking of power and position and prestige. It isn't impossible. The resurrection of Christ need not have changed the attitudes and motivations of the disciples. As we shall see, even Pentecost will not produce all the changes which are yet to come in the lives of the disciples of our Lord. It would seem that the disciples were preoccupied with the kingdom, a "Jewish" kingdom2 ("restore the kingdom to Israel"), and an imminent one. How Acts will fill in the details here!
The timing of the kingdom was within the sovereign purposes of God, not to be known by the apostles. It is clear that knowing the time would not have been beneficial to them. What was within their realm of responsibility was to proclaim the good news of the gospel to all nations, and thus our Lord reiterated the Great Commission, not so much as a command, mind you, but as a prophecy of what was certain to come. The Holy Spirit would come upon them, bestowing power on them, and they would be witnesses to the nations. This was a certainty. It did not always happen consciously or voluntarily—even willingly—but it did happen. Acts is the historical account of how, in the wisdom of God, this was accomplished in spite of His disciples, as well as because of them.
It has often been noted, and rightly so I believe, that Acts 1:8 provides a geographical outline of the development of the preaching of the gospel and of the growth of the church, but also of the argument of the Book of Acts as well. The gospel will be preached in Jerusalem and Judea (Acts chapters 1-7), in Samaria (chapter 8), and eventually all the way to Rome (chapters 13-28). Luke gives us the key to the Book of Acts at the "front door" of this book, in Acts 1:8.
From the very outset of the Book of Luke, God's intention of saving Gentiles, as well as Jews, has been indicated. The angel Gabriel (1:30-33) spoke of the Lord Jesus in terms of fulfilling Israel's hopes; Mary spoke likewise (1:46-55). But the angel who spoke to the shepherds said, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people (Luke 2:10).
Jesus, in His first public announcement of His Messiahship in Luke 4, clearly spelled out that the salvation of the Gentiles was an inseparable part of the plan of God which He came to fulfill. Thus, Acts 1:8 spells out what Luke is going to report as the Book of Acts continues: The Holy Spirit will come on the disciples, empowering them to be witnesses of the resurrection and the gospel of our Lord world-wide, beginning at Jerusalem but extending to the ends of the earth.
The discussion ends with the ascension of our Lord. While they looked on, Jesus was taken up, into the clouds, disappearing from their sight. It seems as though the disciples must have stood there for some time, gaping into the clouds as though expecting Him to come back. The two angels who were present gently rebuked the disciples and sent them on their way with the assurance that the Lord Jesus would return in a similar way, but also informing them that their standing there, looking into the sky, was of no profit. No idle standing around waiting for the return of the Lord was sanctioned then. Surely such idleness is not of profit today either.
The Selection of the Twelfth Apostle
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. 15 And at this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together), and said, 16 "Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. 17 "For he was counted among us, and received his portion in this ministry." 18 (Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem; so that in their own language that field was called Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) 20 "For it is written in the book of Psalms, 'LET HIS HOMESTEAD BE MADE DESOLATE, AND LET NO MAN DWELL IN IT'; and, 'HIS OFFICE LET ANOTHER MAN TAKE.' 21 "It is therefore necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—22 beginning with the baptism of John, until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these should become a witness with us of His resurrection." 23 And they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias. 24 And they prayed, and said, "Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two Thou hast chosen 25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." 26 And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles (Acts 1:12-26, NASB).
Verses 12-14 give us a very general description of the activities of the apostles (and the broader group of disciples) during that ten-day "waiting period." They went back to Jerusalem, as commanded, and went up to the "upper room," where they, the eleven (verse 13), along with the women who had followed Jesus (cf. Luke 8:1-3; 23:49, 55-56; 24:1-10), Mary, the mother of our Lord, and His brothers (verse 14), waited. These men, who had not believed in Jesus during His life, had now come to faith.
There, in that upper room, this group of about one-hundred and twenty believers devoted themselves to prayer (verse 14). We are not told for what they were praying. It may well have included prayer that the kingdom of God would come (cf. Luke 11:2), but I suspect that it must have involved prayer for the coming of the promised Holy Spirit, based upon our Lord's words recorded in Luke 11:
"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Luke 11:13).
It was in the context of this prayer vigil that the twelfth apostle was chosen, as reported in verses 15-26. Many have debated whether this action should have been taken by the disciples. Below are some of the arguments for and against this action.
Factors in Favor of the Actions of the Apostles
(1) The action is taken by the apostles, of whom Peter is the leader.
(2) The decision is one that is concurred with by the entire group of one-hundred and twenty.
(3) The decision appears to be based upon a study of the Scriptures, prayer, and discussion by the entire group.
(4) There is subsequent mention of the twelve, which would appear to include Matthias (cf. Acts 2:14; 6:2).
(5) There is never any word of condemnation, rebuke, or criticism for the action which was taken here.
All of the above are reasons some would hold that the action taken by the group was appropriate. On the other hand, there are other factors which seem to question the wisdom of what was done. Among these are the following:
Factors Which Question the Actions of the Apostles
(1) The action taken was prior to Pentecost, before the Holy Spirit had come upon the apostles to guide them.
(2) The apostles were "taking action" when Jesus had specifically commanded them to wait, until the Spirit had come on them.
(3) Jesus had chosen all of the other apostles (cf. 1:2), and He had given them no command to choose a replacement for Judas.
(4) While there is a minimal reference to "the twelve" later on, Matthias is never again specifically referred to in the New Testament. Why is so much attention giving to the choice of a man who is then ignored throughout the rest of the New Testament?
(5) The context surrounding this incident does not suggest that it was a decision prompted by a command of the Lord, a biblical imperative, or the guidance of the Spirit. I have mentally labeled this section, "Doing What Comes Naturally." It seems that the apostles were, along with the rest, acting on their own, apart from any clear imperative or command. In the immediate context, the disciples seem preoccupied, and Jesus had to turn their attention toward things other than what they had in mind. The angels had to spur the group on, rather than to stand on the mount, looking into the sky. The immediately preceding context suggests that the apostles still had things out of focus, while the immediately following context (Pentecost) informs us that the Spirit's coming was not yet, and thus suggests that the apostles were acting on their own initiative, and not that of God.
(6) The motivation of the apostles might seem suspect, when considered in light of their past thinking and actions. You will recall from the Gospel accounts that the disciples were eager for the kingdom to come, but from a motivation of self-interest, from a desire for position, power, and prestige. They were even competitive with one another. Why then the urgency for the position of the twelfth apostle to be filled? It could be suggested that it was because the disciples felt the kingdom could not come until there were twelve apostles in place, so that there would be twelve thrones filled in order that the twelve tribes could be judged. This would be a reasonable conclusion, based upon our Lord's words to the disciples in Luke 22:30, spoken shortly before His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion.
(7) While Peter's interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures to which he referred may well have been sound, the inferences he drew from them are possibly more suspect. Jesus Himself linked Old Testament prophecy to His betrayal by Judas. He cited Psalm 41:9 in John 13:18 and 26. Peter seems to allude to the text in Psalm 41:9 cited by our Lord, but he specifically quoted from two passages from the Psalms. The first citation was from Psalm 69:25; the second was from Psalm 109:8. If Peter's interpretation of these two texts as being prophetic is correct, I am not certain his interpretation necessarily follows from them. In the first citation from Psalm 69, the text Peter cited is this, "LET HIS HOMESTEAD BE MADE DESOLATE, AND LET NO MAN DWELL IN IT."
(8) Now from the account of the fate of Judas, which Luke has given to us parenthetically in verses 18 and 19, who was it that made the homestead of Judas desolate? It was surely not the disciples nor was it anyone else who consciously did what they did in order to obey this prophecy. God fulfilled this prophecy. And so, when we come to the second statement, "HIS OFFICE LET ANOTHER MAN TAKE," should we assume that there is anything called for here on the part of the apostles? I think not. If God fulfilled the first "LET …" from Psalm 69, why should the disciples feel obliged to fulfill the second "LET …" from Psalm 109? If the second citation were fulfilled in the same way the first was fulfilled, the disciples would not need to have done anything. I am not certain the Old Testament text requires anything of the disciples, but Peter and the others felt it did.
(9) The process used to choose Judas' replacement seems somewhat suspect. At best, one can say that the selection of Matthias was carried out in an Old Testament fashion by the casting of lots. This method was never given to the disciples, nor is it ever found again in the New Testament as a means of determining who God has chosen to hold any office. The casting of lots allowed for a decision to be reached totally apart from divine intervention. Of course God can and does determine the outcome of the casting of lots (Proverbs 16:33), but is this the way God intended this decision to be made? The candidates were nominated, and the two candidates put before the Lord were chosen by the group, based on the requirements they themselves determined. They allowed God to choose between the two candidates. Somehow this seems sub-standard to me. The method employed by the group seems to put God in a box and to limit Him to the options men have placed before Him.
(10) Luke's argument in Acts seems to challenge this action, because in Acts Paul's apostleship seems to be affirmed at the expense of that of Matthias. Paul constantly stressed that his apostleship was the sovereign will and purpose of God, and not of man. He also spoke of himself as an equal with the rest of the apostles.3 And remember, Paul was also a witness of the resurrection of Christ, for he was stopped short by a vision of the Lord Himself, risen from the dead. If Paul's apostleship is affirmed and Matthias's apostleship is ignored, there is good reason to question the legitimacy of Matthias' apostleship. There is at least some evidence to challenge the action taken by the apostles due to this emphasis on Paul's apostleship.
Having presented the pros and cons of the legitimacy of this selection of the twelfth apostle by the one-hundred and twenty, we now must square off with the issue of who was right and who was wrong. Or must we? Notice that while we are preoccupied with this question, Luke does not seem to have been so troubled by the issue. Indeed, Luke presents evidence supporting both sides. And Luke never chose to pronounce on the "rightness" or "wrongness" of this action. Why? In my opinion, the answer is simply that it did not really matter, because it was not the real issue.
The feeling that we must pronounce on the "rightness" or "wrongness" of this selection of Matthias reveals a serious fallacy in our thinking. What real difference does it make whether the apostles were "right" or "wrong"? We seem to think it makes a great deal of difference. But does it? Do we believe the plans and purposes of God collapse when men fail to do the "right" thing? Do we really believe God's purposes are achieved only when we do the "right" thing? Then we are wrong, dead wrong!
If the Book of Acts underscores any truth, it is that of the sovereignty of God, who works all things in accordance with His will, whether or not men believe or obey. Much of what the Spirit of God accomplished in the Book of Acts was in spite of men. God can just as easily use the "wrath of man" to accomplish His will as He can the obedience of man. The Gentiles will hear the gospel, and many will come to faith on account of the Jews. Not because of their faith and obedience, mind you, but ultimately because of their stubborn unbelief. As Paul will clearly teach in Romans 9-11, and as Luke will clearly demonstrate in the Book of Acts, it was the rejection of Messiah by Israel that made the preaching of Christ to the Gentiles possible.
In the matter of the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the selection of the twelfth apostle, God was not obliged to use Matthias just because the one-hundred and twenty "rightly" chose him, any more than He would have been prevented from using him if they had "wrongly" selected him. I believe the account of the selection of Matthias is a key to the message of the entire work, the message that God was sovereignly at work, through His Spirit, to accomplish His will in ways in which men would never have conceived and which they would not believe even if they were told. In this way, God receives the glory, and not men. Is this not precisely what Paul concluded in Romans 11, after spending three chapters explaining the relationship of the Jews and the Gentiles to the gospel:
For just as you once were disobedient to God but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, in order that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! FOR WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? OR WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:30).
I believe Luke cites the incident of the selection of Matthias at the beginning of Acts because it is so typical of the way God will work throughout the book, and indeed, throughout the history of the church. Men may rightly or wrongly make decisions and take action, and God, in His sovereignty, is free either to use or to set aside their actions. God often sets aside the plans and purposes of men because they seldom, if ever, come up to the wisdom of God. That is precisely what Paul has concluded above. And it is what Acts will dramatically demonstrate for us as well. The Book of Acts is not the account of men so transformed that the growth of the church was inevitable. The Book of Acts is the account of the working of a sovereign God through His Spirit, by means of men, and in spite of them, to accomplish that of which men would never have conceived and in ways they would never have imagined. Acts is the account of the workings of a sovereign God, working through fallible men and women. This selection of Matthias is but the first of many of man's plans (good or bad) which God will set aside for a better plan—His plan.
If I were forced to make a choice as to whether the apostles were guided by God to select Matthias as the twelfth apostle, I would have to answer in the negative. If I were asked whether the apostles thought they we are doing the will of God and were acting on the highest human plane, I would say, "Yes." But that really is not the issue. It surely is not something on which Luke wants to pronounce, since he has simply reported what happened, without a word of commendation or condemnation.
To be perfectly honest, I believe many of the decisions we make and actions we take are of this same kind—they are based on our best understanding of the Scriptures and the situation, based on the best decision-making process we know, and done as though this were the will of God for us. Often times it will not be until much later that we will either see the hand of God at work in the matter, or we will not see it. While we do not always know, at the moment, whether God is in what we are doing, the really important thing is whether or not we are in what God is doing. When the purpose of God is evident, when God's Word gives us a clear command, and when God's Spirit has led the way, are we involved in what God is doing? The Book of Acts has much more to say about men getting in step with God's plan than about God getting in step with ours. That is because He is God, and we are men; He is sovereign, and we are finite and dependent.
What we are talking about here is not unique to the apostles in their day and time. It is a phenomenon which is typical in our own time. Have you ever come to the conclusion, after much thought, counsel, and prayer, that God's will for you was a particular line of work, or a particular mate, or a particular place, only to discover in time that such was not the case at all? Do you agonize over such decisions, or simply acknowledge that God's will and ways are beyond our comprehension, and that we must, at times, continue to wait on Him to reveal His will clearly to us?
What we experience on a personal level, we also see happening on a corporate level. As a church we believe it is necessary for us to have certain organizational structures in place and certain programs in operation. We, as elders, may pray and talk and plan. We can, for example, organize outreach programs which seek to spread the gospel to the lost in our neighborhood. While we are responsible, I believe, to do such things in obedience to the clear commands of Scripture, we must always be alert to the working of God in ways beyond our ability to predict, plan, or execute. And when we see that God has been opening new doors, we need to be quick to move in these new directions, perhaps even setting aside our plans and programs. It does not matter that we have been well motivated or that our actions are based on biblical principles. God is not obligated to use such plans and programs, though He may. But God may wish to use methods and means which will not only be more effective but which will give all the glory to Him. We cannot, therefore, take pride in our plans, our program, our obedience. This, as I understand it, is what the sovereignty of God means in practical terms.
Let us look at another illustration of what our text, in the context of Acts, may mean for us. I believe our nation desperately needs revival. I also believe that the sovereignty of God means that only God can bring revival, in His time, in His way, and using His divinely ordained means. We can and surely should pray for revival, but let us never think that if we but pray hard enough God will produce a revival for us. He will bring revival in His own good time and in His own good way. We should pray for revival because, I believe, this is biblical, but not because we suppose that our prayers will produce the results we desire. Prayer should leave the matter in God's hands and not presume He has put the matter entirely in ours. This does not mean we should be inactive, not doing anything at all. It does mean that when we actively seek a revival we wait for God's good timing, and we look for God to work in ways that we would not have predicted. We don't presume God will bring revival just as we have planned it or prayed for it. Prayer is the acknowledgment of our dependence on God. God is not waiting for us to be faithful or obedient enough. If He did, nothing would ever happen.
When it was time for God to bring revival to Nineveh, it was not because any Jews were faithfully praying for such an event. It was not because Jonah, a prophet of God, was eager for it to happen. It was not because Jonah was so obedient or because his preaching was so sincerely motivated. It was because God had purposed to save the Ninevites, by His grace. And because it was God's purpose to save Nineveh, God did so, in spite of the spiritual condition of Israel and in spite of Jonah's resistance and rebellion. This was a revival, and it was one that was the result of the plans and purposes of a sovereign God who is able to accomplish His plans, in His time, in His way, with or without our cooperation.
Quite frankly, little of the progress of the gospel among the Gentiles, as described in the Book of Acts, was the result of willing obedience on the part of men. The saints in Jerusalem were forced out of this city by persecution. It was not that they meditated on the Great Commission of our Lord and concluded that it was time for them to venture out to proclaim the gospel to Gentiles in far away places. It was that things became so unbearable in Jerusalem they had to flee for their very lives. Peter was jolted from his Jewish ceremonial cleanness, which practically forbade contact with Gentiles, to go the house of Cornelius, a Gentile (Acts 10). The Jerusalem church called Peter on the carpet for doing so in chapter 11, and even when they acknowledged God's purpose to save the Gentiles in this same chapter, they did not see practically preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. The evangelization of Gentiles did not come through the apostles (save Peter and a few brave souls who were the exception), but through others, like Stephen, like those bold men of Cyprus (chapters 8 and 11), and like Paul. It was not the church at Jerusalem that was the launching pad for foreign missions, but the church at Antioch. Here is the sovereignty of God in the salvation of Gentiles.
In the Book of Acts, then, we should expect the theme of the sovereignty of God to be a very prominent one. I believe we shall see this in two areas in particular. First, we shall see the sovereignty of God in the spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles and not just to the Jews alone. Second, we shall see the sovereignty of God in the salvation of Paul and in God's use of him as a chosen vessel (in contrast, perhaps, to Matthias) to carry the gospel to the Gentiles.
May God grant that our study of this great Book of Acts would prove to be a life-changing one, and that each of us may, in the power of His Spirit, be His instruments for the carrying out of the Great Commission in our day.
If you, my friend, have never heard this gospel which the apostles were to carry to all men, it is the same gospel which I bring to you today:
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, …" (1 Corinthians 15:3).
"And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name every one who believes in Him has received forgivenss of sins" (Acts 10:43).
May you believe in Him today for the forgiveness of your sins and eternal life.
1 It is a little difficult to be exact here. Pentecost occurred fifty days after the first Sabbath after Passover. It would seem that this would have been fifty days after the resurrection of our Lord, which was on Sunday, the first day of the week.
2 The disciples asked Jesus about His "restoring the kingdom to Israel." Jesus had, for forty days now, been speaking of the kingdom. Obviously, He had not dealt with timing. That was the disciples' preoccupation. But it was also their preoccupation with Israel; it was a Jewish preoccupation. What a surprise they were in for. And no wonder Jesus reiterated the Great Commission in response. While they had thoughts of Israel's restoration (where their glory was vested), Jesus purposed to save the world and thus the need to proclaim the good news to all nations. How little they grasped it. How slowly, in Acts, they actively pursued it (not until chapter 13), and then by a front-runner like Paul, who was persecuted for doing so (cf. Jerusalem church's reticence throughout--Acts 11, Acts 21:17ff.). Peter had to be virtually "booted out" to evangelize Gentiles, and he would eventually backslide (cf. Galatians 2:11ff.).
3 Below are the texts affirming Paul's apostleship in the New Testament:
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes (1 Corinthians 1:1).
1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? 2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 3 This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4 Don't we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas? (1 Corinthians 9:1-5).
And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? (1 Corinthians 12:28-29).
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me (1 Corinthians 15:7-10).
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia (2 Corinthians 1:1).
The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance (2 Corinthians 12:12).
Paul, an apostle--sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead (Galatians 1:1)
Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. 18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles--only James, the Lord's brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21 Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24 And they praised God because of me. 2:1 Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 8 For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:17--2:1, 8).
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:1).
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11).
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother (Colossians 1:1).
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope (1 Timothy 1:1).
And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle--I am telling the truth, I am not lying--and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles (1 Timothy 2:7).
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, . . . 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher (2 Timothy 1:1,11).
Related Topics: Introductions, Arguments, Outlines

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Bachelors of the world, be advised: Pippa Middleton is single and ready to mingle. She and boyfriend Alex Somethingorother have split up. Suddenly, thanks to that famous bottom and her connection to Princess Shinylocks, Pippa is the most eligible bachelorette on planet Earth. And since getting married is the most important thing a woman can do with her life, the media will be tracking Pippa's dating life and road to the altar. Prince Harry, are you ready to step up? [Daily Mail, People, Page Six]
Pippa and Prince Harry have "chemistrry," sources say. Recently, the two had afternoon tea together at a pub in Chelsea, and Harry reportedly "interests" Pippa. It is on, people. On. (Chelsy Davy is off partying in Ibiza.) [Now Magazine]
Pippa was an English Literature student when she attended Edinburgh University, but even more important: She wore interesting clothes in fashion shows. Here are some old modeling pictures! [Daily Mail]
Here, Pippa is called "Her Royal Hotness." Part of me hopes she shaves her head, gets a few piercings and falls in love with a plump half-Jewish, half-black lady named LaToya Rosenberg. Just so we could witness the haughty Brit publications (and the royal family) go completely apoplectic. [Herald Sun]
Bonus royals news: Prince Harry and Prince William faced off in a polo match on Saturday. William's team won. This is the part in the fairy tale when the new Duchess turns on Harry, shouting, "Off with his head." Also: Will Pippa date a loser? [People]
Oh. An aside: Kate Middleton, Duchess Of Cambridge has been "recycling" her favorite clothing. As in, she sported the same dress twice. Something we mere mortals call "wearing what's your closet." [Today Show]
Sadness: Famed E Street Band saxophone player Clarence Clemons has suffered a stroke. [Rolling Stone, Radar Online]
Lady Gaga just finished the Monster Ball tour — which grossed over $250 million (to become the highest-grossing tour by a debut headlining act and one of the biggest grossing tours of all time) — and is now planning a Born This Way Tour. She says: "If you're running a marathon, and you're about to cross the finish line, you don't stop and say, 'Oh, once I cross it, it's over.' You run as fast as you can to get there as quickly as you can. So I guess, for me, it's about how many marathons can I run? How many dreams can I make true? Now, not for me, but for my fans." She plans to start rehearsals by the end of the year and begin the tour in 2012. [ONTD via MTV UK]
Also, Gaga writes songs in a dream state: "I just have to [write songs]. Sometimes in the middle of night when I'm falling asleep I have a lot of ideas, then wake up and record them into my phone and send it to my producers and then I fall asleep." [Contact Music]
Kim Kardashian's lawyers are drafting a defamation lawsuit against Bret Lockett, who claims he and KK had a sexting relationship. Lockett said that he'd hooked up with Kim, but now he admits that he's never met her. Although that doesn't men there was no sexting! [TMZ]
Speaking of Kim Kardashian, it says here that her proposal was "caught on camera." Can you imagine that? There just happened to be cameras! What luck! [Daily Mail]
- Look, it's not like just because you're rich and famous you don't have any problems. But if you are rich, famous, happily married, with a superstar husband and superstar kids, why do you need $10,000 worth of healing crystals? Just curious, Jada Pinkett Smith. [Radar Online]
- Jennifer Hudson came in seventh on American Idol, won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Grammy, but she's being paid $1 million for her "weight-loss memoir." [Page Six]
- Rihanna and Drake went to dinner together in Montreal. [Just Jared]
- Katie Holmes will play a teacher on Glee because Ryan Murphy hates us. [Showbiz Spy]
- Demi Lovato is having a rough year. She may have left rehab, but her mom, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, just entered a treatment center. In addition, Demi has broken up with Wilmer Valderrama. Actually that might be a good thing. [Page Six]
- Another Disney Darling down: Selena Gomez was rushed to the hospital last week. Rumor has it she is pregnant with Bieber spawn, but that's not true: She has blood pressure issues. [TMZ, DListed]
- Selena Gomez is out of the hospital, BTW. [Us Magazine]
- Snooki stumbled out of a bar in Italy and skinned her knee. [Radar Online]
- Lily Allen's wedding dress was pretty. [People]
- Denise Richards has written a memoir. Of course Charlie Sheen is in it. Denise proves she is a master wordsmith when she eloquently says: "People have only gotten the rotten stuff so, you know, there was a beautiful love story between he and I and I know that it went the way it went, but I talk more about how I felt during that time because I feel like a lot of women can relate to that, going through a divorce and custody and being a single parent and trying to work and all of that stuff." [Showbiz Spy]
- Adele is supposedly going to take singing lessons? [Digital Spy]
- The Game got tattooed while playing video games. [TMZ]
- The Book Of Mormon won a whole mess of Tony Awards. [People]
- Blind item! "Which hot young actor has a collection of naked photos in his iPhone that he accepts from adoring fans? What the ladies don't know is that he sends a roster of the hottest shots to all of his pals every week." [Page Six]
- "The devastating repercussions of hate-filled language manifest in very real ways for today's LGBTQ youth. I've known Tracy for two years, spent many long hours with him on set, and I want to believe that this behavior is not at the core of who he is. I'm incredibly disappointed by his actions, and hope that his apology is sincere." — Cheyenne Jackson on Tracy Morgan. [Out]
- "The costumes are very elaborate, so different and shocking. There are a lot of surprises in this show. It's probably one of the most exciting shows I've ever done." — For some reason, we're not buying that Britney Spears is super enthused about her new tour. [The Sun]


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Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Hunter Walk who spends way too much time researching 1980s hair metal bands on Wikipedia. His obsession with Wikipedia is unrelated to his day job leading the consumer product team at YouTube.
Wikipedia is the world's 5th largest website, runs no ads and, depressingly, seems to be perpetually on the fringe of solvency. Google for "Jimmy Wales personal appeal" (Wales is Wikipedia's founder) and you'll see that there are 32,000+ results, which gives you a sense of the fundraising requirements for this user-generated encyclopedia. The question of whether they'll ever run ads in order to break this cycle is an ongoing debate. In fact there's a Wikipedia page devoted to this topic with discussion about ads, opt-in ads, search ads, etc.
At 400+ million users worldwide, any of these options could certainly raise considerable funds used to support the technical and philosophical mission of this non-profit. But to date, Wales has been reluctant to introduce any advertising. So where do we end up? After hitting its 10 year anniversary this January, the question is: can Wikipedia sustain itself for another 10 years without a significant change to its business model?
In my mind there's a simple solution previously unexplored which would cover their fundraising goals of $16 million annually without any visible change to the site or behavior of its authors and users: simply insert affiliate codes into relevant links on Wikipedia. When I'm reading about the film Twilight, give me a link to buy the video at Amazon and Wikipedia will collect up to 8.5% of any transactions as an Amazon Associate. Or from the Hawaii page, a simple Orbitz affiliate link will produce $3 for each plane ticket sold, 3-5% for a hotel reservation, and so on.
How much money could Wikipedia make from this small change? How about $16,422,000 annually from just their US traffic, roughly 2.7 billion monthly pageviews (25 percent of Wikipedia's total pageviews). Multiplying those pageviews by a .50 revenue per 1,000 page views yields a total which amazingly just exceeds the $16 million target. [note: the .50 eCPM is an estimate gathered from web experts in affiliate monetization. Oliver Roup, CEO of Viglink, a technology which helps web publishers monetize their site in the manner I suggest for Wikipedia, told me they see some eCPMs up to $5 within their network but suggests a more conservative estimate like mine for Wikipedia.]
Three simple steps can make this happen and preserve Wikipedia as a vibrant, free service:
1) Jimmy Wales needs to say "yes!"
Although I've heard Jimmy talk about his views on advertising, I haven't located any comments regarding affiliate programs. Unlike ads, affiliate links require no change to the site or conflict of interest. However today Wikipedia maintains strict policies on outbound links which forbid affiliate programs. Accordingly, Wikipedia would need to relax their policies on outside linking.
2) An Affiliate Marketing Partner needs to be selected
Viglink and Skimlinks are two of the leaders in the affiliate monetization space. Although specifics would need to be worked out, Roup offered Viglink's support: "We've helped thousands of publishers monetize their content, including a few of comparable scale and we're proud of the meaningful role VigLink revenue now plays for them. We'd be honored to similarly assist Wikipedia in continued pursuit of their mission." That sounds like a deal waiting to happen!
3) Participating Merchants need to honor Wikipedia affiliate clicks
Affiliate programs exist to generate incremental sales and merchants reserve the right to limit payment to partners based on a variety of conditions. This is why you don't see Twitter just append their own affiliate code to all Amazon links shared via their site — Amazon would likely say "bug off." However, in this case, given Wikipedia's non-profit status and the massive amount of traffic this would help unlock for participating merchants, merchants would likely welcome the affiliation. And those who don't? Well, there's always another merchant who will or how about a people-powered boycott by the Wikipedia community? :)
By embracing a smart affiliate program technology, Wikipedia could readily remove the questions around their solvency and redirect all that fundraising energy to activities more directly productive to the wikipedia corpus. So c'mon Jimmy, what do you think?
Disclaimer: I work for YouTube, which is owned by Google, which has a group called Google Ventures which made an investment in Viglink, however I've got no agenda here other than Wikipedia's future.


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There Is Actually Nothing Better in the World Than Talking About Yourself
Harvard psychologists have found that people are so desperate to share random bits of information about themselves (their habits, their likes and dislikes, what, all bullshit aside, they really think of Girls), they are willing to give up ACTUAL FREE MONEY to do it.
As mentioned here, in the LA Times, authors Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell recently devised a series of five experiments to determine whether the process of disclosing one's own thoughts was intrinsically rewarding.
In each experiment, participants were asked either to discuss their own beliefs and opinions ("self" aka AWESOME questions), to speculate about the beliefs and opinions of another person ("other" aka WAY BORING questions), or to answer a true or false trivia question ("fact" aka LOL RANDOM questions).
Here is an example of each type of question:
Self: How much do you enjoy winter sports such as skiing?
Other: How much does Barack Obama enjoy winter sports such as skiing?
Fact: True or False: Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.
Using MRI scans, the psychologists found that the regions of the brain associated with reward lit up like a Christmas tree—that you remember from childhood and maybe you would like to share a personal story about it now?—when people got to talk about themselves.
Never mind that a discussion of how much you personally believe Barack Obama enjoys skiing is still, in a roundabout way, talking about yourself.
Tamir and Mitchell also discovered, after assigning monetary values to the questions, that particpants would actually turn down money just to have the opportunity to disclose information about themselves.
That is, they would rather make 1 cent for telling a researcher that summer is their favorite season than make 4 cents speculating on whether Joe Biden prefers flip flop or snowshoe weather. The rewards they were giving up weren't big money by any means—on average, participants only ended up giving up fractions of a cent—but they translated to between 17 and 25% of their potential earnings depending on the specific experiment.
And, honestly, the psychologists probably weren't even dreaming big enough. They could have asked their research subjects to cut them blank checks in exchange for the privilege of being grilled about their favorite member of One Direction (main kid is too smarmy—looking for my taste), and used the resulting millions to fund a thousand more psych experiments. That's called therapy.
Here's the amazing sentence in which the authors summarize those results:
"Just as monkeys are willing to forgo juice rewards to view dominant groupmates and college students are willing to give up money to view attractive members of the opposite sex, our participants were willing to forgo money to think and talk about themselves."
In their paper, Tamir and Mitchell point out that, while most primates don't attempt to communicate to others what they know, the human propensity for oversharing starts young. By age 9 months, human children "begin trying to draw others' attention to aspects of the environment that they find important," because babies think we're so freaking interested in the shit they have to point out.
A baby trying to show you anything is like a friend telling you about an awesome new song he just heard by this guy named Gotye, which, to bring the conversation back to me, I do not even particularly enjoy.
I'm okay with it up until that first chorus and then I'm just like "Haha, wow, things are getting intense. I'm out."
By the time those cool-hunting babies can talk, 30-40% of their speech is devoted "solely to informing others of their own subjective experiences."
By the time those babies are old enough to create their own HBO original series, 100% of their output is devoted solely to informing others of their own subjective experiences.
Furthermore, the authors estimate that 80% of posts to social media sites (like Twitter) consist of announcements about one's own immediate experiences, for example: "I just read on Gawker that people love talking about themselves LOL #SMH."
On a related attention whore-y note, Tamir and Mitchell found that people enjoyed themselves more and were willing to give up more money when they thought their answers (either about themselves or others) would be shared with another person than when they were told their responses would be kept absolutely private.
In the paper's conclusion, the authors speculate that proclivity for talking about oneself may have adaptive advantages: it strengthens social bonds, and, when others do it to you, eliminates the need to learn firsthand what others already know, saving lots of time and energy.
Most importantly, it lets people know about you and how you're feeling and what you're thinking and do you like it or not like it and what's going on with your life lately, what's up with you.
Bonus crazy psychology article cited in the paper: Apparently, there's slight evidence to indicate people are extra likely to adopt professions and live in cities that resemble the sound of their own name (Dennis is more likely to become a dentist than Phillip, who is more likely to live in Philadelphia than Dennis.).
What is your name and do you like it and do you think it would make a good name for a city or state? How much do you enjoy winter sports such as skiing? How much does Barack Obama enjoy winter sports such as skiing? What is your favorite thing about yourself and also what did you have for dinner tonight?
I had Dunkaroos, but that's just me.
[ Harvard Psychology Department via LA Times // image via Shutterstock]


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TV Aerials.Biz a company built on trust.
Tel 0800 652 8083 Mobile Click to Call Txt aerial to 07534524684 for callback
Ask for Andy or BoB email@example.com
Welcome to TV Aerials.biz.
You have come across our website as you are looking for help with a new Digital TV Aerial in Whittle Le Woods, repair of existing Aerial or help with satellite or some other reception issues.
Who we are.
TV Aerials.biz was setup by Andy owner of Aerial-tek ex Armed services with 25 yrs in the Aerial industry, and Bob who has 35 yrs in the game. This website will help people of the North West make the right choice when it comes to installation of any Aerial or Satellite issues. The internet is full of online companies all offering services, many of which are misleading and offering free quotes onsite with the intention of making as much money out of a customer as possible.
Our Engineers work to the same code offering fixed price installations quoted over the phone. Any experienced engineer with a good knowledge of areas should be able to quote this way, however not everyone lives in an ideal reception area, but we will discuss any issues you may have and offer advice along with solutions and prices.
We currently have 4 engineers that work and live in the North West area, myself Andy along with my partner Bob, Ethan and Phil.
For a Quality fixed price TV Aerial installation in Whittle Le Woods look no further than TV Aerials.biz. Have a look at our Gallery page with pictures and videos of how we work.
Before you contact us have a quick look at our Q & A towards bottom of page it maybe of help first.
All DIGITAL TV SERVICES COVERED
TV Aerial installations.
All new Digital Aerial installations include the following..
HEAVY DUTY WALL BRACKETS ( no soffits or facia mounts )
TV Aerials.biz offer a comprehensive repair service to all makes of tv aerials, digital aerials, extra tv points, aerial sockets, aerial cable, coax, sky dish, freesat dish, digibox, set top box and all aspects of tv and satellite equipment. So if you have an aerial problem or satellite tv fault call us for immediate service.
Multiroom installations
TV Aerials.biz can install a multipoint tv system into your property allowing you to watch digital tv channels on FREEVIEW, FREESAT, BT VISION OR SKY on any tv in your home. We can install multiple tv points from the one Digital Aerial. Signals in most areas of the North West being good enough for up to 6 rooms, with no amplifier to go wrong. All multiroom installations consist of a masthead splitter with all cables running from the roof down.
Freesat Installations
With over 140 channels, Freesat is growing every day. Freesat is becoming a great alternative to Freeview. With free High Definition viewing and with more and more channels being added every day, it's proving to be popular in areas where digital coverage is poor. For the unlucky few that really do live in the middle of nowhere, Freesat is now both an affordable and effective alternative. With our team of certified satellite and aerial installers, we can get you up and running in no time. Whether it's to watch Sky, Freesat or even another service, our team of expert Installers can provide you with everything you need.
Customers Questions and Answers
Q Are all TV Aerials Digital ?
A There is no such thing as a Digital TV Aerial but all new Aerials are Wideband meaning they can pick up Digital signals on all frequencies.
Q Is my old cable any good ?
A New TV Aerial cable is shielded to stop interference sometimes if your cable is fed under a floor etc we can use this to stop any disruption to flooring etc.
Q What price is a new Digital Aerial installation ?
A Here at TV Aerials.biz we offer a fixed price Aerial installation service, i have been doing this for 25 yrs so i can offer you a reasonable price with an excellent service and all quoted over the phone.
Q Do i need a TV Aerial for BT VISION, YOU VIEW, EE or a Smart Television?
A All these services require a connection to a TV Aerial for live freeview services although some content is streamed online.
Q Whats the benefit of a bigger TV Aerial ?
A Here at TV Aerials.biz we will not install an Aerial with more gain than necessary as too much signal is as bad as not enough.
Q How many connections can you take from one aerial ?
A Here at TV Aerials.biz we offer fixed price multiroom tv aerial installations, signals in the north west within 20 miles of Winter Hill are high enough to run upto 6 points depending on location etc.
Q Will putting an Amplifier in make it any better ?
A Many customers buy amplifiers that arent needed when reception deteriorates and make things worse you are just amplifying the problem if the signal is good coming in then you shouldn't have a problem.
Q What is 4g interfence ?
A Some mobile transmitters are on similar frequencies and cause disruption to television channels so if your tv aerial is new its worth doing a simple check by following this link https://at800.tv/im-sure-received-postcard/ its a free service and they will supply you a free 4g filter.
Q What are the main TV Aerial faults ?
A The main faults we encounter are Water Ingress, cracked or split cables, aerials out of alignment or general DIY failures.
If you have any other questions feel free to contact TV Aerials.biz we are here to help,
Thanks Andy and Bob
Tel 0800 652 8083 Mobile Click to Call Txt aerial to 07534524684 for callback
Ask for Andy or BoB


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The Customer Advisory Panel program is free to join and complements our 900 independent Oracle user groups, executive boards and councils, and social forums. These programs are part of Oracle's broader efforts focused on understanding customer experiences across channels, touch points and interactions. Built on Oracle's best-in-class CRM and CX solutions, the Customer Advisory Panel program integrates feedback to provide a holistic view of our customer's experiences. This approach provides actionable insight needed to drive improvements across our lines of business and focus investments in the areas that deliver the most value to you.
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Metro's contemporary design, durablility, craftsmanship, and precision make it a great choice for a billiard club or home use. Brushed aluminum accents enhance the look. Gully return available. Matching Wall Rack Sold Separately.
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Matching Cue Rack:
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text:
To understand what went wrong in the American auto industry, one book and four videos will get you a long way
- Who killed Vincent Chin?
- Who killed the electric car?
- This Consumer Reports review of the Tesla S (which scored 99 out of a 100, the best review for a car ever)
- And the book "Sixty to Zero: An Inside Look at the Collapse of General Motors–and the Detroit Auto Industry Paperback," by Alex Taylor III
Who killed Vincent Chin? is narrowly a story of racism and murder, but broadly its a depiction of the unionized, schlerotic, and dead-end workforce that Detroit had bred even by the early 1980s. Who killed the electric car? veers toward conspiracy at times, but is really a story of the incompetence of the management and workers — of GM and the AW — when it came to adopting new technology.
This theme of incompetence is emphasized by Sixty to Zero. It's written by what is known as a "friendly" or "captive" journalist, basically, a shill paid in access by the industry and in dollars by a periodical. There are plenty of shills across many industries, and this shill's (Alex Taylor's) Zhou Enlai-level debasement before the great and powerful allowed him much greater access to Detroit management than he would have otherwise had.
No individual leader, no specific reform initiative, seems that bad in retrospect. But they all were either defensive (reacting to change instead of making it), treating changing economic-political conditions (the market share popularity of small cars, and the political popularity of efficient cars) as irritants to be managed rather than as opportunities to drive profits in other areas.
The Tesla has a non-unionized workforce, outsells comparably priced BMW and Mercedes models, and has received political largess from both political parties. This more than a decade after GM's bewildering attempt with the EV1. Instead of building up a business and reaping political benefits, GM's bad management and political unpopularity led it into bankruptcy and now being shut out of the electric vehicle luxury market.
The importance of internal corporate politics, and the inability to recognize new markets, is not unique to GM or the American auto industry. Even generally laudatory books such as histories of Google, Apple, and IBM reveal these issues below the surface. But in GM, you had a company so captured by these problems that progress required waiting for the company ( and union) to burn down financial and regulatory until bankruptcy, to allow new competitors to be born.
Without the context of the films and videos, Sixty to Zero is a list of names, dates, and personalities. But Sixty provides a context for these films and videos, a skeleton for the flesh, a reason for America's auto industry's descent into the ashes, and (in Silicon Valley) a promise of rebirth.
I read Sixth to Zero in the Nook edition. You can read an excerpt at NPR.


text:
How to pair my Apple iPhone 4S with a Bluetooth headset
Click each step to see the action. You can also click the picture or use the arrow keys.
- You can pair your Apple iPhone 4S with Bluetooth® accessories such as headsets and speakers. Here, we show you how to pair with a Bluetooth headset.
- 1. Touch Settings.
- 2. Touch Bluetooth.
- 3. If Bluetooth is off, touch the Bluetooth slider to turn it on.
- 4. Make sure the headset is in pairing mode and in range.
Touch the name of the Bluetooth headset.
- 5. If requested, enter the PIN number for the Bluetooth headset.
- 6. Touch Pair.
- 7. The Bluetooth headset is now paired and connected.