Acts 1:15-20
In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) 16 and said, “Brothers and sisters,[a] the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”
18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
20 “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms:
“‘May his place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in it,’[b]
and,
“‘May another take his place of leadership.’
Verse 15 Luke records that there were about 120 believers there. The church began with only a few people. It is good for us to remember this. You may be the only Christian in your family. Or you may be the only Christian in the place where you work. There may be only a few Christians in your country. But God will use you to spread the good news.
Verses 16 -17 Jesus had chosen 12 disciples to work with him. The number 12 was important because there were 12 important families in Israel. Now there were only 11 disciples. So, they needed to replace Judas.
Verses 18-19 Peter did not speak the words in these two verses. Everyone in the room knew what Judas had done. Luke probably heard this story when he went to Jerusalem in AD 57. He tells it to us here.
‘His wicked act’ happened like this. Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests. They wanted to arrest Jesus. They gave Judas 30 pieces of silver and he led them to Jesus. He greeted Jesus with a kiss. In this way, he showed the people whom to arrest. (Luke 22:3-6; 47-48).
In Matthew’s Gospel, we can read about Judas’s death. The details are not exactly the same as they are in Acts. But we can be sure that Judas killed himself (Matthew 27:1-10).
Verse 19 Here, ‘their language’ means the Aramaic language.
Verse 20 Here, Peter began to speak again. He used scripture from Psalm 69 and Psalm 109. The famous king David wrote these psalms. Peter had said that ‘ it is written in the Book of Psalms ’ (verse 16). David wrote them many hundreds (100s) of years before. But they are about Judas. In his Gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus helped the disciples to understand the scriptures. He taught them these things after his resurrection (Luke 24:25-27, 32, 45-49). They began to understand that the Old Testament had many prophecies about the Messiah. Psalm 69 is about Jesus. We learn this from 5 verses in the New Testament (John 2:17; John 15:25; Romans 11:9-10; and here, Acts 1:20).