As you read through the Gospels, Acts and New Testament epistles you become familiar with Jesus’ disciples – their callings, personalities, failures and faith. But one area that the Bible doesn’t elaborate on very much is their excruciating deaths as martyrs. Indeed, Jesus predicted they would be hated (John 15:18-21), persecuted (Matt. 5:11-12) and killed for His name (John 21:18-19). The classic volume, Foxe’s Book of Christian Martyrs, tells us that after Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples traveled all over the world preaching the Gospel and all but one of the original twelve died at the hands of hostile enemies.
The only apostle whose death the Bible records is James, son of Zebedee and brother of John (Acts 12:2). King Herod Agrippa had James “put to death with the sword,” likely a reference to beheading.
Peter was crucified upside-down in Rome, because he did not consider himself to be worthy to die in the same way as His Lord.
Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.
Nathanael was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed in present-day Turkey and was flayed to death by a whip. Andrew was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Greece. After soldiers whipped Andrew severely, they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: “I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.” He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he died.
The apostle Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church there.
James, the brother of Jesus (who initially denied Jesus’ deity, John 7:5), was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was thrown from the southeast pinnacle of the temple (over a hundred feet down) when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a club. This is thought to be the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the temptation (Luke 4:9-12).
The apostle Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero in Rome in AD 67.
John, son of Zebedee, was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos where he wrote his prophetic book of Revelation. The apostle John was later freed and returned to what is now modern-day Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.
The deaths of the apostles is an important piece of evidence related to the veracity of their claims about the resurrection. There are lots of religious fanatics who are willing to die for what they believe to be true but few who are willing to die for what they know to be a lie. As the saying goes, “men will die for conviction, but not a concoction.” The fact that the apostles were willing to die horrible deaths, refusing to renounce their faith, is tremendous evidence that they had truly witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Chuck Colson, former aide to President Nixon and founder of Prison Fellowship, went to prison over the Watergate scandal. Comparing his experience to that of the apostles, he wrote:
“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”[1]
The disciples testified to the resurrection of Christ with their own blood. What more could eyewitnesses do to prove they were telling the truth! -DM
[1]
Norman Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist
(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 292-293.
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