The Division of the Apostles

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Division is often a negative thing. Usually, it signals a break between people caused by a disagreement and inability to reconcile, as when Paul and Barnabas could not agree on whether John Mark should accompany them, and so they split up (cf. Acts 15:36-40). But today, when we observe the feast of the Division of the Apostles, we do not celebrate something inherently negative. We celebrate a positive division—a division commanded and foretold by our Lord at the end of St. Mark’s Gospel. There, He told the apostles:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

And the very last verse of the Gospel tells us how the apostles did just this after Christ’s Ascension:

And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen (Mark 16:20).

So it is that Holy Scripture informs us of the apostles’ obedience to their Lord’s command. Indeed, they did go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. In the Acts of the Apostles, we are provided with only a summary or excerpt of how the apostles went about accomplishing this. But the fact that they fulfilled our Lord’s command is not up for debate. And it is necessary that the apostles fulfilled the Lord’s command to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. For Christ extends salvation to the world through the word and work of the apostles.

Now, this feast of the Division of the Apostles is one of the more obscure dates on the liturgical calendar. In fact, if you look in any modern lectionary book, including our Lutheran Service Book or the Roman Catholic lectionary, you will not find this feast listed. It is a some-what obscure feast which was added to the church calendar sometime in the middle ages. When the church calendar was revised by the papists after the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the feast of the Division of the Apostles was removed. But the Lutherans—especially the German-speaking ones—continued to celebrate the feast of the Division of the Apostles because it commemorates the important fact of Christ sending His Gospel out to the ends of the earth through the word and work of the apostles. Admittedly, no one knows for sure precisely when the apostles divided. The fourth-century historian Eusebius records the places that some of the apostles traveled. For example, Thomas went to Parthia, Andrew to Scythia, and John to the Roman province of Asia, which is modern Turkey (cf. Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, paragraph 1). No one knows precisely when the apostles divided or the exact details of their travels. But still, it is fitting to commemorate their division as a reminder of how the Lord works through ordinary men and ordinary means to bring His salvation to the ends of the earth.

In today’s Epistle, the Apostle lays out for us the theology of salvation. He tells us that the salvation of a man consists of two things: belief and confession. Belief (or faith) is where the heart lays hold of the truth of Christ crucified and risen. Confession is where the mouth speaks what the heart believes. Confession is the necessary completion and complement of faith. One who believes will naturally speak of what Christ has done. For this is the message of Christianity: That Christ is the only hope of sinners, as we considered on Sunday. He has become our sacrificial Lamb. Though our sins and offenses against God are great and innumerable, yet the love of God knows no limits. The person of Christ is the embodiment of God’s love. His love for you is so deep that He poured out His life upon the cross so that your sins might be atoned for, that you might be made right with God, and that you might be given the hope of eternal life.

So that this good news and great hope might be yours, Christ has instituted means by which you might come to believe in Him and thus be saved. The Apostle asks:

How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? (Romans 10:14b-15a).

For you to believe the Gospel of Christ and have the forgiveness of your sins, someone needed to preach that message to you. Or, to say that in more common language, someone needed to tell you about Jesus and the cross before you could believe. In order to have faith in Jesus, you needed to hear about Him. But also, there had to be someone to tell you, and that person had to be sent in the first place.

This is why the Division of the Apostles matters—because it is the practical fulfillment of Christ’s desire that all men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Christ could have made it so that salvation came through a thought implanted into the human mind directly from the Holy Spirit. But instead, He has ordained that the means of salvation is through the work of a man, speaking and acting on Christ’s behalf, who shares the message of salvation with you. Christ extends salvation to the world through the word and work of the apostles. This means that you first came to faith because Christ sent the apostles to the ends of the earth so that our pagan ancestors in Germany, England, Scandinavia, or wherever else might hear of Christ, and eventually you in turn might hear the Gospel and believe. But it is also true that Christ continues to send out men throughout the world to preach the Gospel, not only so that new converts can be made, but also so that ordinary Christians like you can be sustained and kept in the faith.

This is why we should continue to pray to the Lord of the harvest to raise up more workers for His harvest. Pastors aren’t particularly special in and of themselves. But they are the means Christ has appointed to carry on the work that He started with the apostles. For a pastor’s work, in short, is to take the apostolic words of Scripture and preach them to the present generation so that faith might be kindled and sustained. Everyone—both now and into the future—everyone needs a pastor. So, let us first give thanks for the men through whom Christ has worked and sustained salvation for us and our ancestors. And let us also pray that the Lord of the harvest would continue to supply His Church with faithful pastors who will carry on the work of the apostles both for our sake and for the sake of future generations.

God grant it.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.