In | Cities and Apostles, Part 2

While Paul was not one of the original twelve disciples, a vacancy among the Twelve was left after Judas betrayed Jesus. The disciples in Acts 2 select Matthias. However, the Lord in Acts 8 chooses another apostle—Saul. We can’t be sure whether Saul/Paul is to be viewed as the legitimate twelfth apostle or whether Matthias is the twelfth apostle and Paul is a separate “apostle to the gentiles,” as he calls himself (Romans 11:13, Galatians 2:8, ). Paul clearly becomes the most prominent apostle in the book of Acts, and we don’t hear again of Matthias.

Some of the twelve disciples selected in Luke 6:12-16 are not mentioned in Acts because Acts follows the geographic spread of Christianity—from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to Greece finally to Rome. According to tradition, many of the original disciples went to other regions of the world.