Travelling with the 500

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

1 Corinthians 15:6

These are the words of the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, a part of his simple gospel presentation. When Jesus rose, He appeared to Cephas, then to the core group of disciples (“the Twelve”, although they were short one at the time), and then he appeared to over 500.

Have you ever wondered about that number – 500? Why not just 11? Why not 10,000?

Of course, Jesus focused most of His teaching on the Apostles, such as Peter, James and John. These would be the key teachers of the Faith, as the Spirit reminded them of what Jesus had taught (John 14:26).

So why not just appear to the core group? Well, the purpose of the appearances was that there would be witnesses (Acts 13:31). So, of course, there are limits when there are only 11. They can build a foundation, and do the deep teaching, but they can only be so many places at once. Fair enough.

But why not 10,000? I mean, Jesus could have appeared to as many as He wanted to. We could suggest that there were only 500 believers at the time, but that’s rather unsatisfactory. After all, Jesus chose the believers (John 15:16). In fact, even when He appeared to people after his resurrection, some doubted their own eyes (Matthew 28:17). So if Jesus had wanted to appear to 10,000, He certainly could have.

So here’s a theory to think about. These 500 witnesses started travelling after Pentecost. They shared the gospel to the four winds, across borders and seas. So Paul could say with confidence – “Over 500 people saw Jesus alive – his body, living! If you’re not sure, go find one of these people. Sure, a few have died, but they’re mostly still around!”

Great. Now, here’s the problem. If someone tells me he saw Jesus walking around after He was crucified, why should I believe him? Ok, there are miracles happening, but let’s say I’m really skeptical. Or let’s say there are false “miracles”, and people are being deceived. What would be a great safeguard against any Joseph or John claiming to be a witness, and teaching a false gospel?

Well, who were these 500? They were probably generally disciples. Not the Twelve, of course. But people who had spent time with Jesus, travelling with Him, learning from Him. So not only did they know Jesus, they also knew each other.

In other words, 500 is a manageable number, where generally speaking most of them would have known most of them. So if some guy wanders around saying that he was one of the 500, he would be identified as a liar by several others. Right?

If Jesus had appeared to 10,000, there would be no such safeguard. You could have 100,000 people going around claiming to be somebody, teaching their own ideas. With 500, there was a large enough number that they would be accessible if they travelled in different areas, but not so many that their testimony would become uselessly diluted by false teachers.

Of course, false teachers did infiltrate the Church. But Jesus provided many safeguards so that they could be identified. I think that this was yet another one – a specifically and strategically chosen number of witnesses, for the task of starting the Church.

I don’t think 500 just happened to show up. This was intentional on Jesus’ part. Maybe that’s one reason why.