Act 1 The commission of the kingdom ministry and the choosing of Matthias

Jesus shared the vision of God’s kingdom with His disciples. Yet, they were still focused on their own Jewish kingdom. V3-6. Jesus declined giving out more information about its restoration but commissioned them with ***a global kingdom mission made only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Btw - The witnessing of Jesus’ resurrection is so that Jesus can be recognized as the Christ, the King of God’s kingdom. The power of the Holy Spirit is #1 to witness the resurrected King (as shown here), #2 bless people so that they can experience the “welfare” of God’s kingdom (as shown later).

Therefore, the disciples did not start their work right the way but rather waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit. While, the 11, together with the whole congregation, were waiting on God and praying, Peter, based on the scriptures, recognized that they were missing one out of the team of the 12 witnesses and (may be) that was the reason for why the Holy Spirit has not come. The Holy Spirit was to anoint all the witnesses but they had not yet assembled together properly. Therefore, Peter motioned the nomination of possible candidates based on a reasonably requirement, that is these candidates had to be with them the whole time in order that they could be eye witnesses for Christ’s resurrection (But what is “the whole time”? Peter further defined it as the period from John the Baptist to Jesus’ resurrection. There was absolutely no ambiguousness). Agreed by the whole congregation, they nominated Joseph and Matthias (because they both met the objective requirement). Acknowledging their inadequacy for the task of discernment, surrendering to God’s providential control, they casted lot for Joseph and Matthias.

Recently, there was a deacon election and I struggled with how to fill out the election ballot and had no peace in my heart. It would had been much less stressful if I had read this passage again to remind myself of the more important to-do, which is not so much to discern the candidates but to pray for God’s providential control.

There are 3 points in my reflection for the whole passage:
1. Does the Church have clear enough qualification requirements to screen out all the misfits for a specific task?
2. Do I trust God enough that I would focus on praying rather than to use my own energy to “help God” in the church elections?
3. How can the church realize and execute purposefully (understanding the purpose behind what they are doing) “the utmost important step” in the whole leadership election process, which is praying for God’s providential control? E.g. during the Sunday Services, we can have 2 minutes of noisy/audible prayer on one’s own seat, with the following prayer requests on the screen:
a. For a self-surrendering attitude and a humble spirit before God,
b. For guidance and peace from the Holy Spirit in filling out the ballots
c. For God’s providential control in the whole election
d. For our submission/support to the result

I prayed that the church will effectively apply Biblical principles into its daily affairs, which will result in blessings and prosperities so that it will have the contagious power to encourage others to do the same thing in their daily lives.