{"id":22638,"date":"2025-04-03T12:09:40","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/?p=22638"},"modified":"2025-04-03T12:09:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:09:40","slug":"luke-2433-34-to-galilee-or-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/luke-2433-34-to-galilee-or-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 24:33-34 – To Galilee or Jerusalem?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Problem:<\/strong> Three times in the gospel of Matthew, the writer recorded where certain disciples of Jesus were instructed to meet the Lord in Galilee after His resurrection. During the Passover meal that Jesus ate the night of His betrayal, He informed His disciples, saying, \u201cAfter I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee\u201d (Matthew 26:32). Three days later, on the day of Jesus\u2019 resurrection when Mary Magdalene and the other women came to the empty tomb of Jesus, Matthew recorded how an angel told them to notify the disciples of Jesus\u2019 resurrection, and to tell them exactly the same thing they were told three days earlier: \u201cHe is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him\u201d (28:7). Then, only three verses later, as the women were on their way to inform the disciples of Jesus\u2019 resurrection and the message given to them by the angel, Matthew recorded how Jesus appeared to them and said: \u201cRejoice!\u2026 Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me\u201d (28:9-10). Sometime thereafter, \u201cthe eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them,\u201d and \u201cworshipped Him\u201d (28:16).
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\nSolution:<\/strong> According to Matthew, Jesus unquestionably wanted to meet with His disciples in Galilee following His resurrection. However, some skeptics and sincere Bible students have asked why, according to Luke, Jesus met with His disciples in Jerusalem (24:33-43), and then commanded them to stay there until they were \u201cendued with power from on high\u201d (24:49). Does Luke\u2019s account contradict Matthew\u2019s? According to one Bible antagonist,<\/p>\n

Matthew, Mark, and John have Jesus saying the disciples are to rendezvous with him in Galilee, northern Israel, about three days journey away. In contradiction to this, Luke\u2019s two books\u2014The Gospel of Luke and The Book of Acts, have Jesus planning to rendezvous in Jerusalem\u2026.<\/p>\n

In the real world, people cannot be in two places at the same time, and to claim otherwise is to be caught up in a contradiction\u2026. The Bible, like the cheating husband, has been caught in a contradiction, exposed as a liar, and therefore can\u2019t be trusted to tell the truth (Smith, 1995).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is the skeptic right? Is the Bible at fault in this instance? Does it place the same people in two different places \u201cat the same time\u201d? Where exactly did Jesus intend to meet with His disciples\u2014in Galilee or Jerusalem?<\/p>\n

The truth is, Jesus met with His disciples in both places, but He did so at different<\/b> times. One of the reasons so many people allege that two or more Bible passages are contradictory is because they fail to recognize that mere differences do not necessitate a contradiction. For there to be a bona fide contradiction, not only must one be referring to the same person, place, or thing in the same sense, but the same time period<\/b> must be under consideration. If a person looks at a single door in the back of a building and says, \u201cThat door is shut,\u201d but also says, \u201cThat door is open,\u201d has he contradicted himself? Not necessarily. The door may have been shut at one moment, but then opened the next by a strong gust of wind. Time and chronology are important factors to consider when dealing with alleged errors in the Bible.<\/p>\n

Consider another illustration that more closely resembles the alleged problem posed by the skeptic. At the end of every year, the professional and managerial staff members at Apologetics Press travel to Birmingham, Alabama, for a two-day, end-of-the-year meeting. Suppose the Executive Director reminds us of this event three days beforehand, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t forget about our meeting in Birmingham beginning Thursday,\u201d and then calls our homes on the morning of the meeting as another reminder, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t forget about our meeting today in Birmingham.\u201d Would someone be justified in concluding that our Executive Director had lied about the meeting if, on that Thursday morning, all of the staff members at Apologetics Press (including the Executive Director) showed up at work in Montgomery, and carried out some of the same tasks performed on any other workday? Not at all. Actually, on the day the staff at Apologetics Press leaves for the end-of-the-year meeting, it is common for everyone to work until about 10:30 a.m., and then depart for the meeting in Birmingham. If someone asked whether we went into work in Montgomery<\/b> on Thursday, one honestly could say, \u201cYes.\u201d If someone else asked if we traveled to Birmingham<\/b> on Thursday for a 2-day meeting, again, one could truthfully say, \u201cYes.\u201d Both statements would be true. We met at both places on the same day, only at different<\/b> times.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Jesus met with His disciples both<\/b> in Jerusalem and in Galilee, but at different times. On the day of His resurrection, He met with all of the apostles (except Thomas) in Jerusalem just as both Luke and John recorded (Luke 24:33-43; John 20:19-25). Since Jesus was on the Earth for only forty days following His resurrection (cf. Acts 1:3), sometime between this meeting with His apostles in Jerusalem and His ascension more than five weeks later, Jesus met with seven of His disciples at the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee (John 21:1-14), and later with all eleven of the apostles on a mountain in Galilee that Jesus earlier had appointed for them (Matthew 28:16). Sometime following these meetings in Galilee, Jesus and His disciples traveled back to Judea, where He ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives near Bethany (Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:9-12).<\/p>\n

None of the accounts of Jesus\u2019 post-resurrection appearances contradicts another. Rather, each writer supplemented what a different writer left out. Jesus may have appeared to the disciples a number of times during the forty days on Earth after His resurrection (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1-7), while the New Testament writers mentioned only the more prominent instances in order to substantiate the fact of His resurrection.<\/p>\n

Still, one may ask, \u201cWhy did Jesus command His apostles to \u2018tarry in the city of Jerusalem\u2019 on the day of His resurrection until they were \u2018endued with power from on high\u2019 (Luke 24:49), if He really wanted them to meet Him in Galilee?\u201d Actually, it is an assumption to assert that Jesus made the above statement on the same day that He arose from the grave. One thing we must keep in mind as we study the Bible is that it normally is not as concerned about chronology as modern-day writings. Frequently (especially in the gospel accounts), writers went from one subject to the next without giving the actual time or the exact order in which something was done or taught (cf. Luke 4:1-3; Matthew 4:1-11). In Luke 24, the writer omitted the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in Galilee (mentioned by both Matthew and John). However, notice that he never stated that Jesus remained only<\/b> in Jerusalem from the day He rose from the grave until the day He ascended up into heaven.<\/p>\n

According to Luke 24 verses 1,13,21,29, and 33, the events recorded in the first forty-three verses of that chapter all took place on the very day of Jesus\u2019 resurrection (cf. 24:1,13,21,29,33). The last four verses of Luke 24 (vss. 50-53), however, took place (according to Luke) more than five weeks later (cf. Acts 1:1-12). But what about verses 44-49? When were these statements made? The truth is, no one can know for sure. Luke gives no indication (as he did in the preceding verses) that this particular section took place \u201con the first day of the week\u201d (24:1), or on \u201cthe third day\u201d since Jesus\u2019 crucifixion (24:21). All we know is that verses 44-49 took place sometime before He ascended into heaven (vss. 50-51). Simply because Luke used the Greek conjunctive particle de<\/i> [translated \u201cand\u201d (ASV), \u201cthen\u201d (NKJV), and \u201cnow\u201d (NASV)] to begin verse 44, does not necessarily denote a close connection between the two verses, but only a general continuation of the account and a brief statement of what Jesus said. Even though many twenty-first-century readers assume that the events recorded in Luke 24:44-49 occurred on the very day Jesus rose from the grave, the text actually is silent on the matter.<\/p>\n

The burden of proof is on the Bible critic to verify his allegation. Although the skeptic quoted earlier compared the Bible to a \u201ccheating husband\u201d who \u201chas been caught in a contradiction,\u201d one must remember how equally deplorable it is to draw up charges of marital unfaithfulness when there is no proof of such. In reality, the Bible should be likened to a faithful husband who has been wrongfully accused of infidelity by prejudiced, overbearing skeptics whose case is based upon unproven assumptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Problem: Three times in the gospel of Matthew, the writer recorded where certain disciples of Jesus were instructed to meet the Lord in Galilee after His resurrection. During the Passover meal that Jesus ate the night of His betrayal, He informed His disciples, saying, \u201cAfter I have been raised, I will go before you toContinue reading →<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22,8,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-errors","category-bible-study","category-bible-teaching","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}