The Story of the Twelve Apostles | Full Movie | Joseph Steven | Dennis Dotson | Sam Gantous

reach across time and see yourself and you stand tall against terror lying animation you build masterpieces and break down barriers rush of the future and your past at every moment the official net worth of every millennium the History Channel where the past comes alive individually they were nobodies a handful of fishermen an angry fanatic a tax collector but together they started a revolution Andrew James John Philip Bartholomew Jude Thomas Matthew James the less Simon Judas Iscariot and Peter Pan chosen by a charismatic Jewish preacher to complete a daunting mission tell no less than the entire world about God's plan for salvation but controversy surrounded the group considered by many to be an outlaw cult facing persecution in death the 12 men risked their lives building the foundation of what would become a worldwide religion billions of believers have come to revere the courage and perseverance of Christianity's founding fathers the Twelve Apostles [Music] at the dawn of the first century the center of the world's Jewish religious life was the holy city of Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judea Jerusalem was a very happening place at that time anything that happened happened in Jerusalem people and the rabbi's they boarded rabbis lived there the courts of law were there and so was the core of Jewish resistance for hundreds of years Palestine with its population of about 1 million Jews had been groaning under the heel of foreign rule by the Persians the Greeks and since the Year 63 BC by the Romans for the Jew in Jerusalem it meant having Roman symbols around the temple which was a grievous offense of course to their sense of religion in their sense of faith in their sense of God in their sense of what was holy a fervent desire for independence forced some Jews into action a group of fanatical rebels the zealots were known to kill Romans and any who collaborated with them other Jews awaited the arrival of a messiah Hebrew for The Anointed One the Messiah is a very old Jewish concept it's part of the whole concept of a covenant between Jews and their God that said that if the Israelites repent the wrong ways God will bring about that person that would lead them into Redemption and salvation the Messiah was clearly a national political figure that is to say what he was going to bring would transform Israel politically in the first instance and would take Israel to Jews out from under Roman rule and establish a sovereign state a prosperous state a state of peace and security sometime between the years 7 & 4 BC a child Jesus was born several miles outside of Jerusalem in the town of Bethlehem [Music] according to the bible persian astrologers in the east noted an unusual star they believed it was a sign that a savior the king of the jews had been born this fulfilled the prophecy in Jewish Scripture of a coming Messiah the liberator of Israel in the first century around the year 27 some Jews believed a man named John the Baptist was the Messiah the son of a temple priest John was a fire and brimstone Crusader in a desolate area just north of the Dead Sea with his cry of repent the kingdom of God as at hand he was regarded with awe and fear by his Jewish brethren they came to be baptized by John in order to have their sins forgiven they would confess their sins they would repent of their sins change direction and they were baptized as a sign of the this transformation from a previous type of existence to a new kind of existence one of those who came to John asking to be baptized was Jesus of Nazareth a carpenter's son in his 30s with an impressive knowledge of Hebrew Scripture the ritual took place in the Jordan River some scholars have even argued that Jesus might have been a follower of John the Baptist and he wanted to identify with the movement that was calling Israel to repentance I think that's the basic reason he went to John the Baptist to be baptized and so it is sort of the for Jesus the moment of his messianic realization and his commission for his public ministry among John's followers witnessing Jesus baptism was Andrew a fisherman from the Northern Kingdom of Galilee John identified Jesus as the Lamb of God a messianic term and encouraged his followers to speak with Jesus whose ideas were different even radical Jesus talked about God in an intimate loving way and he challenged people to love each other even the human rejects of society tax collectors lepers and prostitutes Andrew had been impressed with Jesus and immediately told his older brother Peter about him all three men at the Sea of Galilee according to biblical scripture Andrew and Peter had caught nothing after many hours but Jesus told them to cast their nets again and soon they were full of fish however should the men leave the nets and become his disciples Jesus told them he would make them fishers of men Jesus wants the disciples to put their nets around human beings through this message and draw them into the kingdom of God into Andrew and Peter knew the sea well enough to know that there was no natural explanation for their extraordinary catch convinced that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah they left fishing and became two of his earliest followers Jesus began his ministry sometime in the year 27 it was centered on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum where Peters house served as headquarters the overriding theme of Jesus was that the kingdom of God on earth long foretold by the prophets of Israel was dawning at last what he's talking about is that God's rule should affect our lives that God's way of doing things is the way we should be living rather than doing business as usual rather than treating people as we normally do in Capernaum Jesus began to cure people with seemingly incurable illnesses and even restored a dead girl to life the home of Peter and his wife Perpetual became a hotel an auditorium and a hospital visited by people with all sorts of diseases they came to be healed and to hear the wonder-worker from Nazareth soon Jesus had many disciples he had word of mouth in a time when there was no CNN no internet no Oprah show to go on and become famous and overnight or for 15 minutes Jesus could attract extraordinary numbers of people certainly his ability to work wonders to do miracles perform miracles was part of it but then it must have ultimately come down to his being an extraordinary personality from the disciples Jesus singled out Twelve Apostles who will carry his message to far-reaching places consecutive pasal can simply mean a representative an emissary almost like an ambassador in the New Testament the word apostle outside of the Gospels almost is equivalent to the word missionary someone who represents the gospel in an itinerant way but a very special class disciple always means a follower of Jesus and can include a much larger group than the small group of apostles the number of apostles Jesus chose held special significance early Christianity wants to set up a kind of epic story of itself as the new Israel and so as there were twelve tribes of Israel so you have 12 apostles who were sent out eleven of the Apostles were from the kingdom of Galilee it was a rural area largely of farmers and fishermen who like Jesus were mainly poor and without any formal education in building a popular movement Jesus drew mostly from this crowd they aren't powerful they were average people and it spoke to the notion that the meek shall inherit the earth I think he chose them because they were not professional theologians because they didn't have any theological preconceptions he wanted men that were teachable among the first apostles of Jesus was the fisherman Peter he was a natural leader although initially his faith would prove superficial but Peter ultimately enjoyed a special relationship with Jesus Andrew was Peters amiable brother and fishing partner a devout Jew he had yearned for the coming of the Messiah for years brothers James and John were middle-class fishermen and may have been cousins of Jesus along with Peter they were close to Jesus especially John he was thought to have been the Beloved Disciple especially close to Jesus and to have had a very high vision of Jesus divinity Philip and Bartholomew were good friends and followers of John the Baptist Thomas was a poor fisherman something of a skeptic to him seemed was believing James the less was so-called because it was younger or shorter than John's brother James Simon was a roman hanging zealot Jude Thaddeus was perhaps a nephew of Mary the mother of Jesus about Andrew Bartholomew Jude Thaddeus James the lesser know distinct profiles emerge they teach Orthodox teaching they do miracles they convert people in their field of mission Matthew was a Roman collaborating tax collector by accepting Matthew a traitor to his own people Jesus made it clear that he would not reject any Jew who chose to seek salvation by accepting his message the 12th apostle Judas Iscariot was the only Judean among the group he was committed to the expulsion of the Romans from Israel and thought Jesus would help [Music] over time Judas would become deeply disappointed in Jesus they may have been average nobodies but the events surrounding these twelve men and their leader in a far-flung corner of the Roman Empire would change history from the years 27 to 30 the Apostles wandered with Jesus throughout Israel in a kind of travelling seminary during this brief period their faith and their notion of the Messiah were radically changed by Jesus teachings and miracles the Apostles saw him heal the sick turn water into wine see the crowd of thousands with a bit of fish and bread and bring a friend Lazarus back from the dead I think the apostles were amazed when they saw what Jesus did they of course had stories about miracles in the Old Testament but they had not seen anything quite like this or heard of anything quite like this I think they were blown away by what he did Jesus performed signs and wonders to give some authority to what he was doing in relationship to the Apostles to show them what they were then going to go out and do the things that I do you can do and you'll do greater things than this and as a sign to the people calling their attention to his essential message of the kingdom of God the stories of the miracles of Jesus were passed on by word of mouth and years later were written down in narratives now known as the four Gospels the question is often asked did the 36 miracles mentioned in the New Testament really happen or are they just legends if you accept that these books are true that's your evidence we have no other evidence the Gospels are books that were written documents that were written at a time not as journalism not as history not as the biography of Jesus but they're documents written to justify faith the Bible is a book of faith not a book of history as firsthand witnesses of the miracles of Jesus the Apostles were in awe of his power but often were puzzled by what he taught love your enemies as yourself and turn the other cheek when against the feelings of anger and mistrust most of the Apostles held for their Roman rulers seeds of doubt began to grow in the twelve but especially in Judas about the Messiah's ability to rid Israel of the Romans some people have assumed that Judas was a member of the zealot party the zealot party was a division or a group of radical Jews who wanted to overthrow the Romans and that Judas felt that Jesus was going to use his supernatural powers to zap the Romans and and set up the the Kingdom of Israel that he was hoping for Jesus caught the apostles off-guard by teaching that the Sabbath is made for man not vice-versa in fact he healed people on the Sabbath which infuriated Jewish religious authorities in Israel known as scribes and Pharisees [Music] what the observation of the Sabbath is one of the 10 commandments it is the fifth commandment and it is very clear that nobody is allowed to do any labor any work on that day James the less a strict observer of the Sabbath law must have been shocked when Jesus ignored it still he was probably surprised and frightened when the scribes and Pharisees reported Jesus to the supreme governing body of the Jewish people located in Jerusalem called the Sanhedrin it was made of rabbis 70 who actually constituted a court of law and were in charge of making decisions based on the observance of the breach of religious law that Jesus had been reported to the Sanhedrin were sobering for the Apostles especially after they learned the local ruler of Galilee Herod Antipas had beheaded John the Baptist it became clear to the Apostles that the secular and religious authorities wouldn't tolerate charismatic holy men in Israel but if they pled with Jesus to keep a lower profile it didn't work they continued teaching sometimes using extreme measures to make the Apostles examine their belief in him [Music] in a boat on the Sea of Galilee Peter and the others ran into rough waters Matthew's Gospel says that as a figure approached them walking on the surface of the sea they thought they were seeing a ghost when they heard what sounded like Jesus voice Peter asked the figure to help him walk on water knowing that if he were really Jesus no harm would come to him he put his life on the line and stepped out of the boat onto the sea walking until he lost his nerve stopped crusting and began to sink in the Gospels Peter is always the one who has this initial burst of faith and then wavers for example he's the one who decides to follow Jesus walking out on the water then he looks at the waves around him and starts to sink she holds out his hand and Peter Peter somehow gets back into the boat it would not be the last time Peters faith in Jesus would be tested challenged by what Jesus said and did the Apostles continued to wrestle with a critical question is Jesus the Messiah and if so what kind at the beginning of his ministry they were convinced that he was the Messiah but they thought of him as an earthly Messiah [Music] people who are in a messianic mode generally look for some deliverance at a physical level Jesus drew upon the themes of messianism but then did a twist on them and offered them instead a salvation that was much more intangible spiritual that defined the kingdom of God not in terms of the establishment of a rulership in Jerusalem on earth but a kingdom of God that was in a transcendental sphere a heaven [Music] Jesus asked his apostles who people believed him to be that came the standard replies of Elijah or some other prophet apparently the substance of Jesus message had not made much of an impression on his listeners but what did the Apostles think only one of the twelve Peter answered that Jesus was the Messiah the son of the Living God here at last was a man who might carry on the work after Jesus was gone for his profession of faith Jesus bestowed on Peter a great honor so now I save you you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven that statement of Jesus has led to the thought of Peter kind of being at the gates so that he will open the door with his keys to let people in if they deserve to get into heaven or we'll keep the door closed if they don't deserve to get there blunt inquisitive and often courageous Peter was Jesus choice not only to decide heavenly matters but earthly ones as well Peter would become the leader of Jesus Church entrusted with judging law and discipline around the year twenty nine after two years of training Jesus sent the Apostles throughout Galilee giving them the authority to cast out demons cure disease and to proclaim the kingdom of God and they were not to take money they were supposed to carry a staff a spare tunic sandals in their bag and that was basically it then they were supposed to rely upon the the kindness of strangers as they went along the way to to feed them clothe them house them the Apostles returned to Jesus enthused by their success and pleased with their newfound powers but James and John were angry over a village that refused to accept their message and wanted Jesus to use his power to set it on fire they also demanded places of honor in his kingdom they had forceful aggressive personalities they were anticipating an earthly Kingdom and they wanted to be the top men in that Kingdom Jesus chastised the brothers Competitiveness warning them that the Messiah's reign was not political but spiritual and could be achieved only through his death the twelve challenged his gloomy prediction especially Peter this wasn't the victorious fate he had projected for the Messiah Jesus was furious with him for not understanding the deadly price of their mission to prove his point Jesus invited James John and Peter to join him in climbing Mount to bore which towers above the countryside in lower Galilee according to Mark's Gospel the three apostles watched in terror as Jesus was mystically transfigured his face became radiant and his clothes dazzling white the figures of Moses Judaism's great lawgiver and Elijah its mighty prophet stood beside him and from out of a cloud a voice spoke this is my beloved son listen to him the disciples now are to see Jesus in an utterly new and different light and that new and different light is tied to the heart of his mission and that is that his identity is bound up in his death and separate and apart from the death of Jesus mark maintains you really cannot know the true identity of Jesus but the three apostles misinterpreted revision again they believed it was all about fame and glory again Jesus tried to warn them of his true purpose by reminding them that John the Baptist had been decapitated for speaking the truth and that he too would be killed for the same reason that was something they couldn't comprehend even though at least three times Jesus predicted that he would have to suffer and die they thought perhaps that this was meant figuratively in some way they just couldn't comprehend that God's Messiah was going to be defeated at least to all human appearances by his enemies [Music] around the Year 38d Jesus and his 12 apostles traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate the week-long feast of Passover the Feast of the Passover celebrates the tradition of the accidence celebrates the redemption for the liberation of the Jewish people and therefore the festival of the Passover can have both a political and a theological aspect to it as was the custom during Passover Jesus in the twelve when it wants to pray at the temple the central shrine of Judaism and the exclusive place of worship ordained by tradition and the Torah the group was shocked at stalls where animals were being sold at exorbitant prices for ritual sacrifice Jesus angrily overturned tables driving away merchants and moneychangers and in the process sending into motion events that would change the Apostles lives [Music] the implicit criticism of the temple is that the temple is no better than a place where people store their loot and that the temple authorities are no better than the brigands and thieves that store the loot so it's a very damning kind of indictment of the authorities so you have Jesus going to Jerusalem levelling the most serious charge of the authorities and that it's not surprising that he gets the kind of response that he did the temple priests and the Sanhedrin indignantly confronted Jesus questioning his authority in temple matters as well as his messianic claims as the dispute turned bitter Judas became upset at Jesus he was alienating the very people who support he would need to free Israel from Roman rule Judas I think begins to doubt that this is the Messiah and doubt that this is the one he wants to commit his life to perhaps the religious authority sense this because according to Matthew's Gospel they soon sent an emissary to Judas with a proposition if he would help them quietly arrest Jesus without causing a disturbance among his numerous supporters they would give him thirty pieces of silver the equivalent of about twelve hundred dollars perhaps tempted by the money Judas thought it over [Music] on Thursday evening of Passover week Jesus in the twelve gathered on Mount Zion in a friend's house ancient tradition honors this room as the place where they shared their last supper with Jesus he began the meal by doing something that surprised the Apostles as a sign of humility Jesus washed their feet a duty normally performed by household slaves to juris this was not a proper role of a powerful Messiah and may have been the moment when he decided to betray Jesus sensing this Jesus told him to quickly do whatever he was going to do without saying a word Judas got up and left Peter perhaps protesting the reaction of Judas told Jesus that he would die for him but Jesus disagreed before the crows you will deny me three times it's true that Jesus knew what Judas would do and what Peter would do that Peter would deny Jesus and that Judas would betray him that's clear but Jesus is not about to violate the free will of anyone the Passover meal was a solemn occasion in which Jesus again foretold his death distraught and confused John rested against Jesus as if afraid to let him go when the Supper was finished Jesus led the apostles outside to the foot of the Mount of Olives and a quiet garden called Gethsemane overcome with anguish he asked Peter James and John to pray with him but instead they fell asleep [Music] tradition has it that on this rock now surrounded by a church jesus wept and prayed [Music] while under this olive tree the Apostles slept [Music] here they are being touched by someone extraordinary yet they cannot rise to this very simple request to stay awake so on one level it's very simply their humanity it's their frailty it's their weakness it's their inability it's also Jesus's complete aloneness in his last days Jesus woke his sleeping apostles just as Judas arrived with a group of armed temple authorities alerting them to the identity of Jesus Judas kissed him on the cheek a typical Middle Eastern greeting Jesus asked Judas do you betray the Son of man with a kiss the treachery of Judas has provoked some speculation over motives in John's Gospel the devil made Judas do it but in Mark's Gospel Judas went to the chief priests to betray Jesus before being offered a bribe suggesting that he had some other motive besides money perhaps Judas thought if I can put Jesus in a situation where he is arrested by the authorities then maybe he will act as a messiah should from Judas's point of view ie with power and strengths but that was not to be the case as Jesus was dragged away to confront his accusers Peter and John followed at a distance and in a courtyard a servant approached Peter and accused him of being one of Jesus's followers three times Peter denied knowing Jesus then the crowed Peter realized what he had done and wept bitterly he knows that Jesus life is probably coming to an end he knows that if he is identified with Jesus he himself is in deep trouble and he's afraid I think that's simply why he would deny Jesus within 24 hours Pontius Pilate the Roman governor of Judea condemned Jesus to death for inflaming the Jewish religious authorities by claiming to be the Messiah [Music] on the day Christians now called Good Friday Jesus was crucified [Music] surprisingly the Gospels make no mention of the Apostles being with Jesus as he was dying except for a reference in John's gospel to a disciple at the crucifixion known as the beloved some believe this was John the other apostles remain hidden from Roman and temple authorities somewhere in Jerusalem my close identification with Jesus they might also lose their lives I think they probably also devastated here is the person in whom they had placed a lot of trust about what it meant to follow God as representatives of Israel and they may feel that the Romans have overtaken this dream and that everything that they had hoped for is lost according to Scripture Judas realized his betrayal of Jesus was a mistake when and why he had this change of heart is unclear in the Gospels the ultimate fate of Judas isn't clear either in Matthew's Gospel a remorseful Judas repents returns the money to the priests and hangs himself the priests take the so-called blood money to buy a field of blood in which foreigners would be buried but another biblical account tells a different story in second version of Judas's death he is false and isn't as disemboweled and it doesn't really say how he falls or whether he fell from a great height or whether he just fell down and cut himself but two very different versions of his of his demise there are very significant differences between the four Gospels but is it possible to determine how Jesus felt about Judas did he forgive his betrayer perhaps his sins will be forgiven in the future we can't say that but all we know is that he was a man who was filled who went to the very bottom and could do nothing other than take his life the death of Jesus dealt a severe blow to the faith of his disciples some totally disillusioned with their crucified Messiah left Jerusalem and despair for most people the fact that Jesus was executed as a common criminal proves that he can't be the fulfillment of their expectations as to who would be the one to set them free but at least one disciple remained loyal Mary Magdalene a Galilean woman who had been close with Jesus and helped support his ministry medieval Christian traditions falsely identified her as a prostitute and sinner Mary Magdalene becomes identified with every unnamed sinner woman in the Gospels the sinner woman who annoys Jesus's feet with her tears the sinner woman who is caught in adultery in John 8 and so this very I want to say shady ok portrait of Mary Magdalene develops I think precisely over against this portrait of her as a leader we think of Mary Magdalene is outside the twelve but many of our early attacks from the second and third century really show us Mary Magdalene as in that inner circle as in the inner circle of the most trusted in John's Gospel account of the first Easter Mary visited Jesus's tomb two days after she watched him die it was empty suddenly a man seemed to appear out of nowhere and when he called her she realized it was Jesus seeing him gave her a unique status Jesus Commission's her to go and tell the other disciples that he has been raised from the dead so Mary Magdalene's role in the gospel tradition is as the first witness of the resurrection and since the resurrection is perceived of as the central core of the gospel that makes her a very important person when Mary Magdalene told the Apostles she had seen Jesus they thought she had lost her mind maybe that because she was a woman her word was less reliable that was certainly a common male view in that culture however when Peter and John raced to the tomb to see for themselves it was empty just as Mary Magdalene said it would be [Music] during the next few days after his resurrection Jesus made a series of appearances to his followers [Music] the Gospels report that some were not convinced he was alive so by portraying Jesus earliest followers as themselves being skeptical it tends to add a kind of authenticity to the experience itself eventually most of the Apostles became convinced it was Jesus by his words of peace and forgiveness but Thomas who was elsewhere when the others saw Jesus refused to believe in his resurrection and Thomas says I I don't I won't believe that he's resurrected in his body until I put my fingers in the wounds Jesus finally appeared to Thomas [Music] Jesus appears to him and says put your fingers and the woman's here put your hand to my side and then Thomas falls to the ground and says my Lord and my god thus claiming Jesus's bodily resurrection the resurrection is the vindication of all the Jesus had said and had done and of his personal identity as the unique son of God however Thomas would later be called the doubter for demanding physical proof of the resurrection of Jesus it has also become common to refer to a skeptic as a doubting Thomas Thomas has gotten a bum rap in Christianity because we have this impression that he's the only one who doubted well if you look at the Gospel accounts very carefully you will see that all of the Gospels tell us that people doubted the disciples doubted the message of Jesus being raised from the dead and isn't that rather natural I mean if you saw your grandmother or some best friend who is already deceased come back to life wouldn't you be a little bit skeptical at first Jesus appeared to his apostles a final time before he was carried up to heaven as the Bible says the Chapel of the Ascension in Jerusalem hunters the place where Jesus commanded his followers to take his message also called the gospel meaning good news to the entire world the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus that's the heart of their message but the Apostles didn't have a clue how to preach to the whole world until 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus something extraordinary happened that's described in the Bible's book of Acts suddenly there came from heaven assumed as of a violent wind which filled the entire house and there appeared to them tongues as a fire the separated and came to rest on the head of each of them they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak different languages as the Spirit gave them power to express themselves today Christians call this miraculous event Pentecost the Spirit is an intangible reality that comes upon the disciples suddenly people are speaking in tongues in other people's language is not their own language and the significance here is that it is the work of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit which will unite humanity in this one great fellowship of all nations all nationalities whether there really were flames or some kind of another question I think it's more of a of a kind of symbolic description of what was a unique event the birthday of the church really [Music] on this day the Apostles could be understood by people from many different countries enabling them to spread the gospel at once they began to preach fearlessly about Jesus the resurrection and Pentecost confirmed their faith and gave them a clear impression of him so much so that after Peter spoke 3,000 converts were reported they realized that he had come to earth to die and take upon himself all the sins of the human race and that his kingdom was not of this world that we live in this world in preparation for the Messianic Kingdom which is in the next world the early church grew in Jerusalem as a clearer society in which everyone voluntarily pooled material goods an apportioned wealth according to members needs the movement was called the way since no one had yet coined the word Christian [Music] the first generation wouldn't have considered themselves Christians they would have considered themselves Jews who believed that the Messiah had come after Pentecost the early church underwent a complete reorganization it's going from being a group of people centered upon this man Jesus who walked around among them to a group of people now centered upon the risen Christ who was present to them in spirit now the apostles are their embodied leadership during this period Peters leadership was especially important Peter was in charge after Jesus was gone it was he that that rallied these these straggling followers and and and and inspired them so that the the church grew by leaps and bounds during those first few years at Peter's urging a young man named Matthias was elected to replace Judas as one of the twelve little is known about Matthias except that he met the qualifications established by the others for becoming an apostle he was one of the early followers of Jesus and a witness of his resurrection if the book of Acts is an indication there are at least a hundred and twenty followers of Jesus who stayed true through the crucifixion in the resurrection into the very earliest moment of the church so Matthias was one of those persons [Music] the Apostles carried on an increasingly aggressive evangelizing campaign throughout Jerusalem they preached the gospel that Jesus was indeed the Son of God the long-awaited Messiah by believing in his death and resurrection the Apostles said humanity would achieve salvation this enraged the Sanhedrin the Jewish religious council it denounced the Apostles as blasphemers for implying that an executed criminal was actually God's chosen one it's one of the major reasons why Christianity was attacked and the suspicion how can historical person considered as a criminal crucified be the manifestation of God Judaism believed nobody could be a son of God okay there was one God you know it had no carnal existence in there for anybody defining himself or somebody else as the Son of God was were steaming if you broke the Jewish law you were brought to trial in front of a Jewish court Peter and John were arrested twice jailed flogged and nearly executed by the religious authorities but the Apostles refused to heed the warnings and considered it a privilege to suffer as Jesus had suffered they were seen as a not so much outlaw in the political sense but outlaws in a religious sense and that's why in the very early days before we can even call them Christians they were being hunted down prosecuted and even persecuted by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem around the year 37 the rift between the Apostles and the Jewish religious authorities exploded a liberal-minded man named Stephen who supervised the division of goods among the ways members had gained a reputation in the community for rejecting conventional Jewish theology Stephen had this ability to see that that we had now reached a new era and this new era can involve for us a new freedom with respect to the law and the temple [Music] Stephen was hauled before the sanhedrin for speaking against the temple Stephen said God did not dwell in a temple made with hands of a temple in Jerusalem was incredibly important to Israel to Jewish people and it was perceived of is the dwelling place of God and I think because Stephen was perceived of his attacking the temple he was seen as a blasphemer pressed to renounce the perceived sacrilege Stephen remained unyielding was condemned as a blasphemer by the Sanhedrin and stoned to death outside the city gates [Music] he became the first martyr of the new religious movement and his death prompted an all-out assault on the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem Peter fled north to Samaria and baptized new converts while other disciples escaped to cities in Syria where the early church began to flourish but in Jerusalem the persecution proceeded relentlessly led by a Jewish fanatic named Saul under the leadership of Herod Agrippa the Roman appointed ruler of Judea persecution of Jesus's followers in Jerusalem heated up after the year 37 Christians were harassed put on trial and in some cases executed around the year 44 the Apostles mourned the death of one of their own James the brother of John who was beheaded by Agrippa James's alleged crime instigating sedition by identifying Jesus as the Messiah Herod Agrippa felt that Christians were subversives if they believed that Jesus was their king then they would not have full allegiance to him he wanted I would imagine people who were totally loyal to him into his rule [Music] among the most ardent persecutors of the Jewish Christians was a Jew Saul of Tarsus he believed that members of the way were blasphemers and to lacks in their observance of Jewish law the law of Moses that regulated such things as Sabbath observance and temple devotion Mosaic law comes from the Ten Commandments and their derivatives that were given to the Israelites after Exodus while they were wandering in the wilderness there was a period of time forty years according to the Hebrew Scriptures where they were instructed in the law in direct violation of the law the Apostles often performed healings on the Sabbath as Jesus had done at the same time some members of the way began to distance themselves from the temple the central religious symbol of Judaism it is undoubtedly true that the early church developed very quickly a disinterest in the temple and the early church moved in the direction ultimately meant within 20 years calling the church itself the spiritual temple saw however believed that salvation could be achieved only through zealous adherence to the law his righteousness had been cultivated as a teenager when he studied with Gamaliel the most famous Pharisee of his generation he says that among his contemporaries he was the best student in his class as it were so saul was a very devoted Pharisee he identifies himself also with that religious party after the stoning of Stephen saul was given authority by the temple's high priest to arrest followers of the way in damascus syria for blasphemy [Music] but according to the book of Acts Saul experienced a transforming vision on the road that brought about a dramatic change of heart as a bright light flashed around Seoul and struck him blind he fell to the ground and heard a voice I am Jesus and that experience saw believed that he had seen the risen Lord Jesus and in his own letters he considers that the formative experience of his life as an apostle of the churros and some we're not clearly identified in his early life in the church he took up his more Roman name Paul rather than his more Jewish name Saul as his primary identification [Music] the newly renamed Paul believed that Jesus had commanded him personally to spread his message of redemption within two or three years Paul's skills at evangelizing in the vicinity of Damascus had won many converts so many in fact that Paul's efforts antagonized the government and friends had to smuggle him out of Syria Jesus invented Christianity and Paul marketing it because Paul was a one-man show around the Year 39 Paul went to Jerusalem to meet with Peter probably to get practical advice on the finer points of preaching the gospel of Jesus Paul however wasn't given a warm welcome since he had been a vigorous enemy of the early Christians Paul has an uphill battle with the twelve all the time it seems to me he is a late comer and his apostolic credentials are therefore suspect right from the start it seems as though he has always to fight for his apostolic identity the question of Apostolic identity is still debated from the scholarly point of view the term apostle is a very difficult until today there are discussion is the origin of the title a Greek origin meaning just someone who is sent or in a metaphoric way to be the ambassador of God and I think the term apostle is broader than for the twelve it would be wrong to say that as a puzzle we had only the twelve because Paul would not be included Mary Martin would not be included a conflict emerged between Paul and the others concerning adherence to Jewish law the twelve insisted that membership in the way required for reasons of ritual cleanliness that all males be circumcised that followers abstain from eating certain foods and that they not associate with non-jews known as Gentiles the first followers of Jesus like Jesus himself were all good Jewish boys for the most part and they believed that to follow Jesus you had to follow all of the Mosaic law that had been laid down part of the 2000 year old tradition that that every Jew of that time believed in and was expected to follow however after Paul's conversion faith in the resurrected Jesus was more important to him than strict adherence to Jewish law he decided that the those laws that restrict the Jews from associating with Gentiles had become superfluous and no longer valid the new Jewish community that he had in mind was to be a community that was a universal community ie a community that included Jews and Gentiles Paul left Jerusalem to preach throughout the Roman Empire but his notion of a Christian community including Gentiles may have haunted Peter according to the book of Acts as Peter slept in Jaffa a town north of Jerusalem he had a prophetic dream [Music] Peter sees all of the food that is forbidden to Jews coming down out of the sky and he takes that to mean that indeed we don't have to follow these strict dietary laws and that means we can go out and and preach to some of these others soon afterwards Peter baptized a Roman army officer a Gentile named Cornelius without requiring his adherence to Jewish law I think it's very interesting that the one who goes to Cornelius who inaugurates the Gentile mission in the book of Acts is not Paul but Peter it's very important because it had Paul initiated the Gentile mission of living for ever suspect but when Peter goes there he's the prime apostle and this in a sense validates the mission Peter eventually came to trust Paul but the controversy over the so called Gentile mission didn't die down especially in the Syrian city of Antioch it had been home to many followers of Jesus since the Year 37 in fact it was an antioxidant or Christian meaning the party of Christ in the year 47 Paul travelled to Antioch where a serious dispute was brewing between two Christian factions a group of Jewish Christians was demanding that a Gentile Christian group submit to Jewish law and consent to be circumcised this trouble call Paul's own view is what I would call egalitarian he has a fundamental view that everybody is equal in the sight of God so he has this famous baptismal slogan in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free male and female everyone is one in Christ Jesus in the year of 49 a council was convened in Jerusalem to decide the issue of who could be a Christian known later as the Apostolic Assembly the council included the 11 remaining apostles what shall we do with a large number of Gentiles and this is discussed in acts 15 and the conclusion is from that council is that there is no need to require Gentile Christians to be observers of the Mosaic law with the council's ruling the church gradually began to distance itself from Judaism the New Testament indicates that over the next nine years Paul's mission was especially important in helping the church grow by bringing large numbers of Gentiles to the new faith Paul became the great proponent that Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to become Christians but he held perhaps the most radical position along that line but it was a position that ultimately is what made Christianity maybe a world religion itself [Music] Paul preached fearlessly about Jesus in spite of persecution from Jews and Romans the book of Acts notes that he was imprisoned and tortured many times and nearly killed by an angry mob in Jerusalem they're Paul's efforts landed him a jail sentence in Israel's northern port city of Caesarea where he languished for two years finally in the year 60 he won the right to take his case before the Roman Emperor Nero the book of Acts ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome preaching and writing letters to the churches he had established surprisingly the Bible doesn't say what happened to Paul or to any of the remaining 11 apostles with the exception of Paul the New Testament says very little about the evangelizing missions and the deaths of the apostles in fact most of the twelve disappear entirely from the Bible's pages without a word we don't really know too much about where the Apostles went it's certainly no reference to that in biblical literature even though a great many Christians think so most information on the Apostles missionary activities and their deaths began as oral tradition and legend by the second century literature devoted to the lives of the apostles began to appear among Christians throughout the Roman Empire as the church grew and looked to these apostles as their founder there was a natural inclination to build their life story and to say more about them than the few facts that we know about most album thus apocryphal stories begin to be generated the collection emotionally anonymously written stories about the travels deeds and deaths of the apostles has come to be known as the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles the main reasons the apocryphal books were written were to instruct to entertain to propagate the Christian faith and even to fortify the status of the Apostles [Music] we have acts of many of the Apostles Peter Paul John Thomas Andrew Thaddeus Bartholomew nearly all of them eventually develop acts about them telling about their lives they were translated into other languages very early from the early third century onwards into such languages as Latin Arabic Old Church Slavonic they they were extremely popular at the end of the fourth century church authorities decided that the writings lacked theological integrity and excluded them from the Bible one reason the apocryphal acts were excluded from the New Testament if you will is they're very popularity the popularity among groups that were thought to be heretical and by dint of its popularity with the wrong people the church rejected it [Music] zealous Apocrypha writers often turn the Apostles into non-stop wander workers and embellish stories with fantastical details while these writings cannot be trusted as biography they do provide valuable insight into the early Christian experience and the revered stature of the Apostles they provide us a window not into the past of the apostle but they are actually tapestries of the life of early Christians in the second century and what not to be overlooked as evidence of what it was like to live as a Christian in the second century many apocryphal acts begin with the Apostles drawing lots to determine where each will evangelize outside Jerusalem the tradition headed that John went to Ephesus that Peter was destined to go to Rome that Thomas went to India that Andrew went to Greece Matthias went to City murmured onea and several of the apocryphal acts begin with such our land distribution and then tell the stories of how these apostles went throughout the world preaching so I become the pioneers in country after country settling the church and each country then as it becomes a Christian country looks back to one of the Apostles as their origin and this also historically connects them to Jesus as they grow and become a large Christian Church one apocryphal travelogue is instructive for anyone tempted to resist the Apostles message of salvation it concerns the mission of the apostle Matthias Judas's replacement to a mythical spot inhabited by cannibals called mermen donea ostensibly on the south coast of the Black Sea Matthias goes there and he's not very successful in fact they gouge out his eyes and put him in prison to eat hay like an animal the Apostle Andrew goes to rescue Matthias but he too is thrown into prison [Music] he commands a local statue to spew a flood which sweeps the most offensive Myrmidon straight to hell [Music] andrew was to come back and raise them back to life and they would tell everyone what they saw and then the MER batons would convert because they had witnesses who had gone to hell and saw the torments of the unrighteous many stories are about healing miracles the acts of Peter tells of a healing contest in the Roman Colosseum it's a showdown between Peter and a magician named Simon Magus the acts of Peter is about the Christian congregation of Rome they were initially converted to Christianity but then magician named Simon came and he led them all astray into his form of belief so they all fell away from the Christian faith and the big question here is whether they could be readmitted to the Christian Church after becoming apostate after denying their faith Peter wins back the congregation by using his miraculous powers of faith to prove he's better than Simon had raising a dead boy Peter goes over and says raise up and he gets up Peter says that's how the dead are raised they stand up they take off the burial class they talk they move it's all about his power being stronger than Simon's power and therefore it it shows that the way the Christians thought about the Apostles some apocryphal stories are amusing such as the wilderness encounter in Turkey between Paul and a talking lion who asked to be baptized so Paul acquiesce is and perhaps against his better doctrinal judgment baptizes the lion and lose his life out heavily later Paul is arrested and thrown into an arena where he's about to be eaten by a hungry lion now who do you think this line would be except the one that he baptized in the wilderness and of course the lion won't do anything against him while it's entertaining this Christianized version of Aesop's fable Androcles and the lion has a point the message is that the Apostles are bringing good news that will redeem not only human beings but all of creation the entire natural order is supposed to be changed because of the message of Jesus even the animals are supposed to follow suit eventually it's it's a new world that is being announced stories focusing on healings miracles and talking animals are really all about instruction muddy apostles to reinforce Christian faith and win converts even heathens in Turkey couldn't resist John's call after witnessing the power of his prayers he was able to cause the destruction of their temple honoring the pagan goddess Artemis [Music] these apocryphal acts then contain perhaps not historical truth but at least a very early tradition about the Apostles and I think they do preserve useful historical information in defining where it was that the Apostles went for their missions and how and where they died in stark contrast to the apocryphal acts display of redemption in humor is the reoccurring theme of violence from the 2nd to the 4th centuries martyrdom stories found in the apocryphal acts of the apostles were a source of great inspiration to early Christians systematically persecuted for their opposition to worshiping the emperor Christians sustained their faith by reading about the Apostles heroism in the face of death to know what kinds of persecutions they lived with to be bound in chains or crucified upside down or burnt at the stake gave those Christians who were facing such difficult times courage to live their lives and to be even martyrs in some cases for the faith the climax in each apocryphal act is the testimonial of faith given by the Apostle as he's about to die his desire for fellowship with Christ and God endowed him with fearlessness in each case someone says don't do this you don't need to die and they say yes death is important I want to die this is what I should do the apostle Andrew Peters brother followed this tradition in the acts of Andrew a Greek official sentences Andrew to death for converting his wife to Christianity instead of protesting Andrew insists on being killed and twice refuses the opportunity to escape during his crucifixion on an x-shaped cross Andrew urges the crowd of onlookers to be constant and faithful to Jesus Andrew was on the cross for four days speaking a great length and with remarkable power Andrew goes on at length that his soul is speeding home to his true fatherland that he sailing past desires he encourages others to sail with him on into the blue [Music] in the martyrdom narratives it's difficult to distinguish historical fact from devotional legend are they true we don't really have an answer absolutely did they occur and how did they occur the best that we can ever do is offer reconstructions of history and so we do know that elements of legend did creep in in the retelling of stories although it must be considered speculative popular tradition holds that following James's beheading in Jerusalem 10 apostles including Peter and Paul died violent martyrs deaths thomas was tortured in india with red hot plates and pierced by four spears philip was crucified in Turkey Jude Thaddeus was slain with a battle axe in Persia along with Simon who was cut to pieces Matthew was brutally murdered while celebrating the Lord's Supper Matthias was killed in Ethiopia James the less may have been thrown from the temple in Jerusalem and stoned to death and in Armenia Bartholomew was skinned alive in undergoing usually a violent death at execution the Apostles were imitating Jesus Christ who also underwent a similar fate and the imitation of Christ was so important for Christian piety all through Christian history that the Apostles have played a central role in this as well some sketchy historical evidence exists for Peter and Paul dying in Rome during the first official persecution of Christians it began in the year 64 under emperor Nero towards the end of his life he started having a reputation of getting a little crazy ancient Roman historians tell us that narrow actually set fire to a portion of the city of Rome and eventually to get the blame off of himself he blamed the Christians they were thought of as very strange people they were considered a superstition because they didn't accept the Roman gods they only worshipped their one God and their one Savior Jesus and so Nero decided to make a big spectacle and to show these Christians a lesson and so apparently there were wild beasts and dogs unleashed there were crucifixions that were scheduled and that occurred and there were also Christians dressed in flammable dress and set on fire whether or not Peter and Paul were among them was not specifically listed if they were there at the time in the area chances are very good that they were included in this persecution in the apocryphal acts of Peter the Apostle is converting Roman wives when they're angry husbands complained to Agrippa the Roman governor Peter's death is ordered Peter is about to leave Rome because the church urges him to do so they think he's going to be arrested and executed imminently and they tell him to flee and his as he's on the way out of Rome he meets Jesus and he asked Jesus where are you going my Lord which is Quo Vadis in Latin and Jesus looks at him and says I'm going to Rome to be crucified again and then Peter recognizes that Jesus is symbolically saying to him that he Peter is going to undergo martyrdom and will imitate Christ in following him in martyrdom so Peter turns around and goes back into Rome Peter asked to be crucified upside down because he doesn't feel worthy of being crucified in the same way as Jesus after declaring his love for Jesus whom he calls my everything Peter dies Nero is responsible for Paul's death in the apocryphal acts of Paul Paul says Christ will come this King will come and he will destroy all of the kingdoms including you and yours while Nero then decides that he must do away with Paul and has him beheaded but instead of blood coming out of the won't milk issue was a very interesting image it could mean for example that Paul was nurturing having bad calls his churches his children according to Christian Apocrypha the Apostle John and Mary Magdalene were spared torturous deaths Mary Magdalene rest of her life in the desert as a hermit hardly recognizable anymore as a woman very famous for her sanctity when she died then it was discovered and they retrieved her body that she was a woman and that she was indeed this this Saint John died of natural causes at the age of about 100 in Ephesus Turkey at the close of the first century his last words to his disciples are said to have been little children loved one another by depicting one of Jesus's own disciples and a beloved one at that dying of old age without a martyr's death demonstrates to the reader that they can be witnesses to Jesus without martyrdom there was a powerful story added to the acts of John that his grave and Ephesus was one in which he actually wasn't dead but he was sleeping and that as he breathed dust would come out of his tomb and that anybody who took this dust and mixed it with water and drank it would be healed the concept that tombs bones and relics of the apostles could transmit healing or holy power was accepted by Christians perhaps as early as the second century and they began to Revere the remains of apostles the idea of the Holy being part of the physical body of a saint is an interesting idea that may not be easy for modern people to understand but it was it was critical a physical contact with the Holy wisc was critical in the ancient world early Christians often built churches or monuments over the spot where apostles were thought to have died or been entombed in Rome what many believe is the tomb of Peter lays beneath the most famous apostolic monument st. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican built in the 16th century to replace an earlier 4th century structure it may be Christian um's holiest shrine it's one of the grandest churches on earth proclaiming Peters presents from miles around as the first Bishop of Rome the Vatican became extremely important in Christian history it began as a monument to the death of the Apostle and in that sense it was a very holy place already from an early time in Christianity 2,000 years after the Apostles deaths Christians are still in awe of their holy power by the year 300 AD Christianity had spread over the entire Mediterranean Basin from Rome to Carthage Athens to Alexandria and throughout Asia Minor despite Roman persecution the foundation of the Christian Church created by the Apostles remained strong the Apostles are of supreme importance for the early church in the sense that they provide continuity with Jesus and they provide a center of authority that the church can rest on so the church is built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles later in the fourth century no less than Constantine the Roman Emperor himself converted to Christianity a momentous occasion that may well have stunned even the Apostles had they lived to see it toleration of Christianity became the norm and by the year 325 the religion for which the Apostles fought so hard and gave their lives had become the dominant religion of the Roman Empire massive numbers of people converted and began to learn what Christianity was and accepted and and truly this was the beginning of the explosive phase of growth [Music] today two billion people nearly 1/3 of the world's population are Christians the essentials of their doctrine derived from the teaching of the Apostles the Apostles are so important because they were of course the first generation of disciples who were with Jesus they were the ones who saw what Jesus did they were the ones who heard the teachings the parables the proclamations of Jesus and so they were the first generation of the long tradition that has passed on from generation to generation they are you know as close as we can get to Jesus and of course some of the first generation passed it on to people who wrote down what we call the New Testament the New Testament is the most frequently published and most widely read book in history and its center are the four Gospels that relate the story of Jesus's life and teaching while biblical scholars continue to debate who wrote those in the second century authorship of the Gospels began to be attributed to the Apostles Matthew and John to mark and disciple of Peter and to Luke a disciple of Paul the New Testament is a crystallization of the apostolic tradition where several people wrote down the teachings and the actions of Jesus so that they've been passed on from generation to generation for 2,000 years now [Music] what has not changed much in 20 centuries is the discord caused by the breach in faith between Christians and Jews the Apostles suffered greatly from the tension between their faith in Jesus and the verdict of the religious authorities that Jesus was a criminal in the New Testament Paul admitted this division caused him distress a sentiment that is echoed by some but not all contemporary Jews on the one hand you would have the ultra-orthodox community that continues that kind of attitude towards Jesus in terms of looking at him as somebody who is one of our own and split off and founded the church and the church is looked at as an enemy of course on the other hand you have the more mainstream and liberal Jewish communities that are now in the post Holocaust era very interested in in cooperation with their churches and are also interested in learning more about Jesus and his followers and how this whole split between Christianity and Judaism became possible diversity is characteristic among some 20,000 worldwide Christian denominations that today honor the memory of the Apostles in different ways for Catholics the Apostles still play a very important role as guardians of the tradition of course the entire point of the papacy is that it's a direct lineal descent of leaders of the Roman Church from Peter [Music] in contrast Peters brother the Apostle Andrew is revered as the founder of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople modern-day Istanbul the Catholics and Orthodox basically have their center in those countries that revere the Apostles as their founders and they also have a cult of saints that are very important to them so in the Roman Church and in the Eastern Orthodox churches there is a special reverence given to the Apostles that one would not find within the more secularized Protestant churches in the Protestant churches the Apostles are revered because their biblical characters and they are the people who we look to as having written books of the Bible but we don't ascribe to them any special sainthood from a cult of Outlaws to cultural icons the Apostles notoriety hasn't diminished over time [Music] they are a topic of media scrutiny the subject of music composition and of great art their names great schools hospitals and churches Christians are still moved by the example of the Apostles lives and their message of redemption modern day pilgrims from around the world trekked to the Holy Land of Israel to touch hallowed ground where the twelve walked with Jesus they wade in the waters in which a miraculous catch of fish turned the Apostles into fishers of men they offer prayers on the spot where Peter James and John glimpse the divinity of Jesus and they Revere the place where the Apostles spent their last moments with the Son of God the Apostles made a profound effect in the world by the way in which they lived up to their name apostle to be sent out they did go out and spread the word of Jesus Christ his life and ministry and that made a profound difference in the lives of the people that heard their stories the Apostles ordinary men called to greatness or became selfishness and fear to create a religious revolution one that continues to unfold some 2,000 years after it first began [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Vision Video

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Keywords: Christian Videos, Christian Films, Christian Movies, Religious Movies, Films, Movies, Entertainment, Feature Films, apostles, acts, twelve apostles, Peter, James, John

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Length: 91min 20sec (5480 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020