Shall We Cast Lots? Identifying "Biblical Patterns"

(First published at SI, June 6, 2006)

Pitfalls in the Pursuit of Biblical Patterns

In Scripture, casting lots is routine. Some might even say it’s the normal way to decide a difficult question. The OT 1 contains 24 references to “cast lots,” “casting lots,” and “the lot fell.” Two of these are in Proverbs where lot-casting is highly recommended.

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord (Prov. 16:33).

Casting lots causes contentions to cease, and keeps the mighty apart (Prov. 18:18).

In addition, the Urim and Thummim (probably a form of lot-casting) have a prominent place in Mosaic Law. All in all, the OT is very pro-lot.

The NT seems to be in favor of the practice as well. Casting lots is mentioned there eight times, and one of them refers to the selection of an apostle to replace Judas (Acts 1:26). So if we have frequent favorable references to lot-casting across both Old and New Testaments, do we have a “biblical pattern”? Should we be casting lots in our churches rather than voting? After all, the Bible contains no direct command to vote on anything (some might argue that voting is the brainchild of humanistic philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his ilk).

Issues and Biblical Patterns

I’m not attempting to launch the Cult of the Cast Lot here, but if we shouldn’t cast lots in our churches, why not? The question is not merely academic. Though lot-casting is a non-issue, the process we use to weigh the biblical evidence for it is very similar to the one we must use in handling many hotly debated issues.

Should moms ever work outside the home? Should the children of believers ever attend government schools?2 Should sons and daughters find spouses by arrangement of their parents?3 Should we remove all age-grouped teaching from church life?4 Should churches observe the Lord’s Table every Sunday? Should they meet only in homes5 rather than in church buildings? Those who answer these questions in the affirmative usually make their case using some type of “biblical pattern” reasoning.6 The lot-casting question provides a good test case for examining what constitutes a binding (or “normative”) biblical pattern.

Common Problems with “Biblical Pattern” Interpretation

Sometimes a pattern of behavior in Scripture does reveal a blueprint for God’s people in any age. But we can easily concoct a “biblical pattern” where there actually isn’t one, even when our intent is to be faithful to what is written. Four errors are common in efforts to derive normative patterns from Scripture. We can test for these errors by applying four questions to our thinking.

1. Am I drawing unintended meaning from incidental details?

Biblical pattern reasoning usually relies heavily on narrative, the story and history portions of Scripture. But we often neglect important factors when we handle narrative. In the case of casting lots, the narrative evidence is widespread and clearly shows God using the lot to reveal His will. The lot determined land assignments in Canaan, identified Achan as the offender after the Ai fiasco, and enabled Jonah’s fellow travelers to expose him as a wayward prophet. Nehemiah used the lot to assign various priestly duties (Neh. 10:34). In Acts 1, even the apostles employed the lot.

But the narrative evidence for a normative pattern of casting lots is weak, just as the narrative evidence is weak for many other alleged biblical patterns. The reason is that history has a dual purpose in Scripture. First, it establishes a record of what actually happened. Second, it teaches us what to believe and to do (Rom. 15:4). But sometimes we confuse the two purposes. In the teaching category, a historical account (or fictional story, like a parable) usually has one point.7 This one main point is what the story is really about.

However, in the process of making that point, the narrator includes details that help us feel the reality of the events and take the message to heart. These details are not what the story is about, and the passage doesn’t usually teach anything important about those details.

For example, the fact that David selected five stones when engaging Goliath in combat may suggest important things to us about his attitude and intentions, but the story is not about using slings and doesn’t teach that we should face our foes with five weapons or five principles, etc. The story is about courageously fighting for what’s right, as God directs, and God’s faithfulness in controlling the outcome.

The same is true of the many stories that involve casting lots. In general, people were seeking direction from God in situations for which they had no other way to discern the truth. When the lot was used obediently, the action expressed commitment to do as God willed. The method used was not an emphasized feature of the story.

2. Am I assuming a particular evaluation of events in a story?

Not only does narrative contain incidental details, but sometimes it also records events without any evaluation from the writer. So we learn that Rahab lied to the authorities in Jericho, but we aren’t told whether that specific act was good or bad. And when Abraham dispatched Eliezer to choose a wife for Isaac, we aren’t told whether that was a good policy or if Abraham should have gone himself. We aren’t even told whether the social custom of parents arranging marriages was good or bad. What is clearly good in the story is God’s faithfulness in sustaining His promise to Abraham into the next generation and Eliezer’s commitment to faithful service.

Even the record in Acts 1 falls short of teaching that church leaders should cast lots to make major decisions. The record reveals that the choice was not a popularity contest, but Luke doesn’t comment one way or the other on the merits of seeking God’s will by means of the lot. (The fact that the apostles often made decisions other ways shows that we were not meant to see the lot in Acts 1 as a superior method.)

3. Am I confusing quantity with weight?

Years ago, a polemicist against the NIV painstakingly documented thousands of differences in wording between the NIV and the KJV. It was a tragic waste of time, not because his conclusions were wrong, but because the thousands of examples proved nothing more than what a dozen would have proved: the NIV and the KJV are different.

Sometimes “biblical pattern” builders make the same mistake by thinking that a large number of examples adds weight to the claim that a normative pattern exists. But quantity and evidential weight are not the same thing. The frequency of references to casting lots proves only that doing so was routine. If the number of occurrences were doubled or tripled, we would still have no evidence of a normative biblical pattern, a blueprint that God expects us to follow today.

4. Am I reading the pattern back into Scripture rather than deriving the pattern from it?

We are all influenced by personal bias when interpreting the Bible. When we search for answers, there are always some answers we, at some level, hope to find or not to find. The art of building biblical patterns is especially vulnerable to this kind of unwitting distortion.

In the case of casting lots, there have been no church splits or denominations formed over the issue (to my knowledge). If the matter had that kind of history, many would turn to the references to lots in Proverbs and see conclusive proof of a normative biblical pattern. Absent some form of bias, however, we can easily see why the statements in Proverbs don’t establish such a pattern.

It’s widely recognized that Proverbs express principles that are broader than the details of ancient culture described in them. So proverbs commend casting lots but also commend just weights, a rod for the fool’s back, etc. The call to use just weights expresses the principle of honesty in business, and the rod for the fool reminds us that fools often need punitive discipline. Similarly, the proverbial praise for lot-casting teaches us that there is really no such thing as luck (Prov. 16:33) and that some form of unbiased arbitration is often the best way to resolve a dispute (Prov. 18:18). The method named in these proverbs is not the point.

Conclusion

Sometimes scattered biblical references to a practice prove nothing at all. Rarely, in other cases, they add up to only one reasonable interpretation. Most of the time, however, they suggest a handful of possible conclusions. The result is that, more often than not, a potential biblical pattern helps us form an opinion on a matter of conscience but falls short of establishing a biblical mandate. If we have no biblical pattern requiring us to cast lots, some of our other “biblical patterns” are probably imaginary as well.


Aaron Blumer, SI’s site publisher, is a native of lower Michigan and a graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He, his wife, and their two children live in a small town in western Wisconsin, where he has pastored Grace Baptist Church (Boyceville, WI) since 2000. Prior to serving as a pastor, Aaron taught school in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and served in customer service and technical support for Unisys Corporation (Eagan, MN). He enjoys science fiction, music, and dabbling in software development.

Discussion

What I TOTALLY get out of this thread is the idea that we cannot pick and choose at our convenience which Biblical principles we are going to apply as mandates and which ones are simply descriptive. I am weary of hearing teaching about betrothal but yet women working outside the home isn’t touched on- why not? Why can the father who believes he is to choose a mate for his daughter also put that same daughter to work at the corner grocery because the family has fallen on hard times, pulling out the Bible to support the first choice with Scripture and then say ing”Mind your own business” about the second? If you employ the same kind of hermeneutic you would be compelled to come to the same conclusion about women having careers as you would the role of the father in choosing a spouse. Ditto clothing styles and home churches. There are some Biblical practices that have a time and place, but there are some topics about which I seldom see Scriptural balance and they tend to result in extreme lifestyles and cult-like churches.

Hi Greg and Aaron,

If you want to pursue this matter, I’m happy to, but we’ll do it by the Book. What’s “practical” by your definition may actually be harmful.

To show you this, and just to get things going, Aaron, in 1 Cor. 5, the only decision the congregation is to make is to obey the apostle Paul. The church is commanded, not to vote, but to put the man out (v. 13). For them to vote would have been to dismiss the command of v. 13 - what’s to vote on when God commands you to do something? The idea of voting on whether to put the sinful man out or not would only be further evidence of their arrogance (c.f., v. 1).

So Aaron, let me bind you to a little hypothetical for a moment (in love). If you had been in Corinth and had led the church to vote on putting the man out, what would you have done with all those in the church who voted against putting the man out? All those members would have been guilty of publically disobeying the command of God in God-breathed Scripture, right? Wouldn’t your obedience to Christ at that point require you and the church to faithfully follow the steps of confrontation for sin in Matthew 18? Hence, those who stubbornly remained impenitent for their sinful vote would themselves need to be put out of the Corinthian Church, right? But you are the one who tempted them into this act of rebellion by holding the vote in the first place. You tempted them into this disobedience by asking them to vote on an explicit command in Scripture.

What seems “practical” can actually be spiritually dangerous.

Hey Greg, feel free to disagree, brother, but check out “voting” or “vote” in your computer concordance. You’ll find one instance, Acts26:10 - and it’s not exactly something that is being held up as worthy of our imitation.

So, without any positive teaching on church voting, isn’t it a topic we should consider? The NT teaches a far better way of shepherding the church of His redeemed.

Ted, just one quick example. 2 Cor. 2:6-7: For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

How do you suppose they determined the will of the “majority”?

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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)

Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA

Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University

[Ted Bigelow]…. but check out “voting” or “vote” in your computer concordance. You’ll find one instance, Acts26:10 - and it’s not exactly something that is being held up as worthy of our imitation.

So, without any positive teaching on church voting, isn’t it a topic we should consider? The NT teaches a far better way of shepherding the church of His redeemed.
Acts 6:5, “And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch,”

ἐξελέξαντο ….

A multitude participated in a selection process! And it is “something that is being held up as worthy of our imitation.”

Choosing, selecting, and voting are not always synonymous. “Eklegomai” is the same word used for both Acts 6:5 and Luke 6:13- Jesus choosing the disciples- who were most definitely not ‘voted’ into that position. In Acts 15:22 the apostles and elders and the whole church agreed to send “chosen men” to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas… but I think we too often assume that “chosen” and “selected” means a secret ballot or “Raise your right hand if you’re in agreement- those opposed please use the back door and don’t let it hit you in the rear on the way out”.

For example, we discuss things and make choices as a family, but we mostly agree to agree with Mr. Raber. :)

I think arguing the veracity of voting/casting lots is taking this thread on quite the rabbit trail…

Ted… yeah, what Greg said. Don’t have anything to add to that at the moment.

Susan… on “Picking and choosing”—I’ve got another one for the list: cremation. The argument I’ve heard against it is basically twofold

a. The pattern in Scripture among believers OT and NT is burial

b. Cremation came from the pagan East

And some add…

c. Christians have replaced cremation w/burial wherever they’ve encountered it for thousands of years… i.e., tradition.

Now b. and c. actually resonate with me more than a little.

But I don’t think a. proves anything at all except that they didn’t normally burn bodies. We’re not told why or that we should follow their example, etc. There are many things they normally did like wear tunics, robes and sandals; fetch water from wells; shear sheep; tread grapes; eat in a half-lying position; use something stone for a pillow (OK, I’m not completely sure how common that one was, but there are lots of ancient Egyptian artifacts depicting stone headrests).

(All that said, I think I’d prefer to be buried just to buck the trend and thumb my nose at all those corpse-burning religions. Seems like a nice way to make a statement after all the other statements have been made.)

Edit: The thread kind of begs for rabbit trails—the article just mentions a bunch of topics in passing—so maybe a little tangent here and there is OK. For a while.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Dear Susan, Jim, Greg, and Aaron,

The fault for the rabbit trail is all mine. My only mea culpa is that I asked Aaron if Sharper Iron would consider another topic along the same lines as casting lots and its relationship to hermeneutics and practice. But then I baited him, so the fault is certainly mine.

Jim, I need to respond to Greg first. He questioned me on 2 Corinthians 2:6-7. Perhaps I can respond to Acts 6:5 at another time.

This is a blurb from my upcoming book, The Titus Mandate. I’ve shortened it a bit for the blog entry, but it is still about 900 words…

Greg:

On the suface, the use of the word “majority” in 2 Corinthians 2: 6 appears to support one of the key tenets of congregational polity: majority rule. As a result, “it seems quite clear that a church vote took place” (Akin, “The Single-Elder-Led Church,” in Perspectives on Church Government, p. 33). As is true in many churches, a majority vote is required to censure or dismiss impenitent members. This is what many believe happened to the man referred to in this verse: he was removed from the Corinthian church through a majority church vote.

But this is unfair to the text, for nothing is said about a majority vote. It would be just as fair to claim that a majority of the church closed a door in his face, issued a restraining order, or stayed away from his meat business. It’s all pure conjecture. The claim that a vote was taken only reads into the text what one hopes to prove.

Thankfully, there is no need for conjecture, for Paul tells us exactly what the majority did. They gave a “punishment” (v. 6). The word translated “punishment” occurs 30 times in the New Testament and always refers either to a strong spoken reproof or to a strong spoken warning (epitimia, “punishment, reproof”). This word never refers to a written reproof, group censure, and certainly not a vote. The meaning of “majority” then is quite simple. The majority of the congregation church gave the man a spoken reproof. This reproof accords perfectly with the Lord’s command in Luke 17:3: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”

Rebuking a brother is part of church discipline. Jesus taught that members of the same church should reprove each other if they refuse to heed the prior reproof of two or three witnesses (Matthew 18:16–17). Jesus’ words, “if he refuses to listen even to the church” (v. 17) show this. When Jesus describes a person who “refuses to listen,” He is speaking of one who refuses to respond appropriately to a spoken reproof. Therefore, the “punishment by the majority” (2 Corinthians 2:6) was a set of spoken reproofs from the majority of the Corinthian congregation. This is consistent with the third stage of church discipline, which occurs prior to removing unrepentant members from the church.

But now, having received many reproofs from the majority, the man in 2 Corinthians 2:6 was sorrowing under the spiritual pain of the withdrawal of fellowship from the majority of the church (1 Corinthians 5:11 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14–15). They wanted to know from Paul if they should continue to withhold from him Christian fellowship, even though he was sorrowing for his sin (v. 7), or if they should restore him to full fellowship. Paul’s answer in verse 8 is to immediately restore him in love.

This explains why the man was not called to any appropriate deeds of repentance by Paul in order to be restored to fellowship with the church. Rather, Paul told the church twice to forgive him (2 Corinthians 2:7, 10). Notice that not everybody in the Corinthian church went to confront this man as they should have according to Matthew 18:17, but only a “majority” went. There were still people in the Corinthian church who weren’t willing to obey Christ on this point, and as a result they weren’t able to forgive the man and enjoy reconciliation. In other words, this was a sorrowing and hurting man who had nothing left for which to ask forgiveness or repent. For this reason, it does not make sense to regard this individual as the immoral man of 1 Corinthians 5. That man did not personally sin against Paul as this man had (vv. 5, 10). Before being allowed back into the Corinthian church, the immoral man of 1 Corinthians 5 had to leave his father’s wife. He also had the responsibility to ask forgiveness of the church for his sin of hard-heartedness against them all. Sorrow alone would not have been enough for him to be restored into the church. It seems certain that this sorrowing man in 2 Corinthians 2 is not the immoral man of 1 Corinthians 5.

Now, if as some claim a church vote took place, then it was a horribly cruel act against him. Removing a man from the church who is sorrowing for his sin violates the love that Christians are to have for each other. Such removal would have dishonored Christ’s teaching in Matthew 18 and would have received strong reproof from Paul to the Corinthian church. But Paul did not reprove the church, and nothing in the text implies that the man was dismissed from the church, so Paul’s words assure the church that they can immediately comfort, forgive, and reaffirm their love for the man without any required deeds of repentance from him (2 Corinthians 2:7–8).

This explanation supports a simple reconstruction of the events behind 2 Corinthians 2:5–11. The Corinthian church was waiting for Paul to instruct them on how to treat this man who had sinned against both him and the church. The majority of the church rebuked him and, in spite of his sorrow (which had come about because of their reproof), they were still withholding fellowship from him. Paul gave his personal affirmation in this passage to immediately restore this grieving man to full fellowship, as he was still a part of the Corinthian church (Kent, A Heart Opened Wide, 46, Garland, 2 Corinthians, 130, Hodge, Second Corinthians, 35-36).

[Ted Bigelow] The meaning of “majority” then is quite simple. The majority of the congregation church gave the man a spoken reproof. This reproof accords perfectly with the Lord’s command in Luke 17:3: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”
How, exactly, do you picture the church doing that, Ted? In unison? “All together, now, anyone who wants to censure our brother do so on the count of three…” Or was it one at a time? Was each person forced to give a censure? What if there were some who didn’t think it necessary?

The bigger picture is that I believe congregationalism is shown all throughout the NT. And if the congregation is going to determine its will on a matter, it must have some way to do so. Certainly it could do so by trying to reach a consensus, and that’s fine. But I see nothing wrong, and many things right, with voting on a matter. Voting (and congregationalism, for that matter) can be done poorly and in the flesh. But so can every other form of church governance.

-------
Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)

Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA

Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University

[Greg Long]
[Ted Bigelow] The meaning of “majority” then is quite simple. The majority of the congregation church gave the man a spoken reproof. This reproof accords perfectly with the Lord’s command in Luke 17:3: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”
How, exactly, do you picture the church doing that, Ted? In unison? “All together, now, anyone who wants to censure our brother do so on the count of three…” Or was it one at a time? Was each person forced to give a censure? What if there were some who didn’t think it necessary?
Hi Greg, thank you for your question, brother. I like your passion.

In my last post above, I wrote toward the end:

“Therefore, the “punishment by the majority” (2 Corinthians 2:6) was a set of spoken reproofs from the majority of the Corinthian congregation. This is consistent with the third stage of church discipline, which occurs prior to removing unrepentant members from the church.”

Perhaps I should have expanded on this. In the NT, the Lord Jesus teaches how the congregation is to respond to Him in cases of unrepentant members in their church. In Matthew 18:17, our Lord says, “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” In that passage, the church is instructed to go to the unrepentant person, even as the first person did in v. 15, and as the witnesses do in v. 16. I could have been clearer in my words above; instead I simply said “a set of spoken reproofs.” Jesus did not intend for the members of the church to stay in church and reprove the man from church, but to go seek him out as a lost sheep (see Matthew 18:10-14), to personally reprove him, and to call him back to fellowship with Christ and themselves.

The church vote frustrates the will of our Lord in this matter, hinders the Christians from obeying Christ’s revealed will for them (i.e., to go to the offender), and tempts people to all kinds of behaviors that are fleshly. This is one reason why the apostles never taught or advocated church voting.

Thank you for your interaction, Ted. I don’t think we’ll convince each other here in this forum. I did notice on your church’s web site that you appreciate the ministry of 9Marks. I agree with much of what Dever has to say about church governance. I think he offers a biblical balance between elder leadership and congregationalism. In fact, I was just at his church two Sundays ago for a conference. We conference attenders witnessed the church voting to excommunicate a man from the fellowship in the spirit of and after the pattern of Mt. 18 and 1 Cor. 5.

-------
Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)

Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA

Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University

[Ted Bigelow] The church vote frustrates the will of our Lord in this matter, hinders the Christians from obeying Christ’s revealed will for them (i.e., to go to the offender), and tempts people to all kinds of behaviors that are fleshly. This is one reason why the apostles never taught or advocated church voting.
I see the sense in this- I’ve seen way too many church votes that were just popularity contests. It’s hard not to vote someone in for a position/ministry that is family or friend. And I’ve seen teaching and ministry positions given to people as a training ground, and even as rehab- as if the pressure of ministry would help them get their heads on straight and force them to mature spiritually.

Newsflash- the congregation (including the children) is made up of sheep, NOT guinea pigs. But this also speaks to the spiritual immaturity of a congregation if they allow/vote in people who are not qualified to such positions of authority and influence.

I don’t think this particular rabbit trail is unproductive, but this thread is of interest to me because it is an issue that has reared its big ugly head in my own life quite recently. So on some of the other examples- women having careers, betrothal/patriarchy, home education, age segregation, home churches, cremation… you could also add things like birth control and the use of the rod for corporal punishment to the stack- are they precedence, examples, or mandates? Betrothal/patriarchy is huge in homeschool circles, and the whole argument is based on OT practices, with a slight nod to 1 Cor. 7:36-38.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with someone seeing a principle or practice in Scripture and saying “Hey- this is what I need in my life”- but that is a far cry from preaching that principle from the pulpit as a mandate and making it a matter of fellowship. For example, one of the reasons we home educate is verses like Psalm 1:1, Deut. 6:7, 1 Cor. 15:33, Heb. 5:14, Prov. 13:20, Eph. 6:4… but in spite of the combined weight of these verses, I couldn’t tell someone they weren’t ‘right with God’ for putting their child in a public school, even though I could not do so in good conscience, and I have friends who have their kids in public school that are doing just fine.

If, after wading through the article and comments, it seems to me that the intent was not whether to argue for casting lots or not but using the issue of casting lots as a platform for a larger discussion on identifying biblical patterns and determining what is descriptive or prescriptive. Casting lots seems to be a good choice, here, because it can easily be misinterpreted and has been.

BTWIMO I do not view the casting of lots for the replacement of Judas, simply because of its historical record, as having divine license. That is another topic for another day and not meant as a comment on lots themselves, but just a side note that this method of choosing a replacement Apostle, while recorded in Scripture and while giving the appearance of satisfaction in the minds of Peter and those participating, is or was necessarily settled in the mind of God.

Part of the problem is that people are often not content with wisdom arguments. By ‘wisdom argument’ I mean making the case for a practice that basically says something like this:

1 We are called to pursue wisdom

2 This practice is not forbidden in Scripture

(2b the practice might even have lots of examples in narrative details)

3 The practice seems to effectively accomplish goals God has called us to

This is quite a bit different from a ‘biblical mandate’ argument:

1 This practice happens alot among the people of God

2 This practice is what the Bible teaches

(Often also… 3 The alternatives are unbiblical, 4 The alternatives have some kind of unsavory origin, 5 The alternatives have bad resutls, etc.)

But people are often not content with a wisdom argument. I’m not entirely sure why. I think one reason is that it sounds like “pragmatism.” It isn’t really (people use the P word very selectively I’ve noticed!) though, because we are called and obligated to employ good sense to solve problems we encounter in the pursuit of God’s goals, especially when He has not revealed particular solutions.

Another reason people tend to reach for a biblical mandate case when they should be content w/a wisdom case is that it sounds more compelling. If you feel really really strongly about the practice, you want to enlist others in it and “the Bible teaches this” has alot more punch than “this seems to work well.” … and sounds so much more spiritual.

(Edit: There is a third reason that is kinder- often I think people are driven to reach for nonexistant biblical mandates out of a genuine desire to “be biblical” in everything they do. The problem there is how to properly “be biblical,” and a failure to recognize that the use of practical wisdom is being biblical)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Alex Guggenheim] BTWIMO I do not view the casting of lots for the replacement of Judas, simply because of its historical record, as having divine license. That is another topic for another day and not meant as a comment on lots themselves, but just a side note that this method of choosing a replacement Apostle, while recorded in Scripture and while giving the appearance of satisfaction in the minds of Peter and those participating, is or was necessarily settled in the mind of God.
Hi Alex,

One of the points I made in one of my posts was that Matthias is certainly the replacement apostle. “The twelve” is a technical term for Jesus’ chosen ones for apostolic ministry by Luke in his gospel about 6 times, and he continues that use in Acts 1:26 and 6:2. Most important is Paul’s own statment in 1 Cor. 15:5 - Jesus’ post resurrection appearance to “the twelve.” That twelve had to inclde Matthias. Thus, Paul accepted Matthias as one of the twelve when he wrote 1 Corinthians, about AD 55.

Blessings, brother.

For the sake of avoiding detracting from the article I will only say that the verses you cited are all historical references and I do not find them sufficient to qualify as divine commentary regarding the validity of the method used for selecting Matthias or the actual Apostleship of Matthias. But I do understand your use and its intended support. Maybe another day for another thread.