Considered in the context of all gospel accounts of the resurrection, the meeting in Galilee (Matthew 28:16) is often pitted against Luke 24:49, where Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they were 'clothed with power from on high.' If they were commanded not to leave Jerusalem, how could they have met Him on a mountain in Galilee?

The answer lies in understanding the chronological compression present in the Gospel narratives. If we read with wooden literalism, Luke also seems to indicate that the ascension occurred on the same night as the resurrection (Luke 24:42-50). However, in Acts 1:3-5, Luke clearly notes that Jesus offered 'many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days' before commanding them to tarry in Jerusalem.

The command to tarry, according to Acts, didn't take place until 40 days after the resurrection. The 40-day gap fits at the end of Luke between verses 24:44 and 24:45. The appearance in Galilee lies somewhere within those 40 days and is one of the 'many proofs' Jesus offered of his resurrection.

Luke does not mention the 40 days in his Gospel, telescoping the events for the sake of brevity. He likely arranged things this way in order to emphasize Jerusalem as Jesus' destination, and in Acts, as the center for the spreading of the Gospel. We are dealing with ancient literary practices, and the perceived contradiction is merely the result of forcing a wooden, modern chronological reading onto the text.

One question that skeptics frequently ask regarding various events in the Bible is “Why?” Why did God create the Sun on day four after creating light on day one? Why did God command the Israelites to walk around Jericho one time a day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day before the city was destroyed? Why did Jesus choose Judas as an apostle if He knew that he would betray Him? And so on. Since skeptics are unable to find legitimate internal contradictions about various occurrences in Scripture that seem peculiar to them, they simply ask questions beginning with “Why…?,” in hopes that doubt will take hold of the Bible reader—seeds of doubt that they hope eventually will grow into full-fledged disbelief in the trustworthiness of the Bible.

One question I was asked by a skeptic is why an angel (and later Jesus) informed Mary Magdalene and the other women who came with her to the tomb of Jesus on the day of His resurrection, to tell the disciples to go meet Him in Galilee? If Jesus was going to meet the disciples in Jerusalem that very day anyway, why did He instruct the women saying, “Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me” (28:10)? Allegedly, “If Jesus was going to meet with the disciples at Jerusalem first, then there was no need for Jesus to tell Mary to remind the disciples about the scheduled meeting (cf. Matthew 26:32) in Galilee. Jesus Himself could have informed them about the Galilean meeting when He appeared to them later that evening in Jerusalem.”

Although Christians are not obligated to answer knowledgably every single question beginning with “Why…” (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 11:33), most of the time either the Scriptures or reason reveal(s) logical answers. Such is the case with the question concerning why Jesus commanded Mary Magdalene and the other women to tell the disciples to go meet the Lord in Galilee when the Lord was going to appear to them that evening in Jerusalem anyway.

Before consulting Scripture to answer this question, consider the following illustration. Your boss informs you at your house on a Thursday night that he has scheduled a meeting for you, your ten coworkers, and numerous others the following week beginning on Monday in Atlanta. However, on Friday morning, you awake to hear on the news that your boss was in a terrible accident on his way home from your house the previous night. He was run off of the road by a drunk driver, after which his car rolled down an embankment while he was thrown out of the front windshield. Reports are that he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. On Sunday afternoon, however, your son returns from visiting a friend in the hospital who just had knee surgery. He informs you that, to his surprise, he saw your boss checking out of the hospital—alive! Your son says: “He told me that he would meet you in Atlanta tomorrow.” What would your reaction be? Although your son is a trustworthy teenager, how could your boss really be alive? And even if somehow he was resuscitated from an apparent death, surely he would not be checking out of the hospital already? Surely your son was just mistaken. And surely the meeting is not still going to occur?

If your boss got word about your unbelief in his well-being, do you think it would be appropriate for him either to contact you, or visit you, and show you firsthand that he is well? Of course it would. Even though he indicated to you on Thursday night, and to your son on Sunday, that he would meet you in Atlanta for a business meeting with dozens of others, it still would be appropriate for him to contact you (again) and let them know that the meeting is still on schedule. No one would see his “repetitious” testimony and presence in your home as something superfluous considering the ordeal he had just recently experienced.

If the skeptic can see the rationality of this illustration, one wonders why he cannot see the rationality of Jesus appearing to the disciples in Jerusalem, even after informing Mary Magdalene to remind them to meet Him in Galilee? The disciples had just seen their Lord arrested, tortured, and crucified. They were scared for their own lives. Some of the disciples even “forsook him” during His arrest in the garden (Mark 14:50; cf. 14:27). Peter denied knowing Him three times, just a short while later (Mark 14:66-72). And, on the day of Jesus’ resurrection, John recorded how the disciples (except Thomas) met behind closed doors “for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). These men obviously were traumatized by all of the events of the past 72 hours. “They mourned and wept” for the loss of their leader (Mark 16:10). They were mentally and emotionally troubled.

Then entered Mary Magdalene and the other women who told the apostles (and those who are gathered together with them) that they had seen Jesus—alive (Luke 24:9-10)! Sadly, the disciples rejected the women’s testimony. Luke recorded: “Their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them” (24:11). The apostles doubted that Jesus was alive (cf. Luke 24:38). Later on that same day, Mark wrote that two other disciples informed them of Jesus’ resurrection, but “they did not believe them either” (16:12-13). In fact, when Jesus appeared to the apostles (except Thomas) on the evening of His resurrection, He said: “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:38-39, emp. added). The apostles later reported Jesus’ appearance to their fellow apostle, Thomas, who had missed the opportunity to see, touch, and eat with Him. Like his fellow apostles, who previously had rejected the eyewitness testimony, Thomas responded, saying, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25, emp. added).

Multiply many times the doubts you would have of seeing your employer for a meeting three days after he was ejected through the front windshield of his car and reported on the news to be dead. Only then might you come close to the frazzled mindset of the unbelieving apostles.

Why did Jesus appear to the apostles in Jerusalem before meeting with them (and many others—cf. 1 Corinthians 15:6) a three-days’ journey away in Galilee? Both common sense and the Scriptures indicate that it was due to their unbelief in His resurrection. Jesus wanted to ensure that they believed He had risen!

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, “After I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee” (Matthew 26:32). Three days later, on the day of Jesus’ 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’ resurrection, and to tell them exactly the same thing they were told three days earlier: “He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him” (28:7). Then, only three verses later, as the women were on their way to inform the disciples of Jesus’ resurrection and the message given to them by the angel, Matthew recorded how Jesus appeared to them and said: “Rejoice!… Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me” (28:9-10). Sometime thereafter, “the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them,” and “worshipped Him” (28:16).

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 “endued with power from on high” (24:49). Does Luke’s account contradict Matthew’s? According to one Bible antagonist,

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’s two books—The Gospel of Luke and The Book of Acts, have Jesus planning to rendezvous in Jerusalem….

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…. The Bible, like the cheating husband, has been caught in a contradiction, exposed as a liar, and therefore can’t be trusted to tell the truth (Smith, 1995).

Is the skeptic right? Is the Bible at fault in this instance? Does it place the same people in two different places “at the same time”? Where exactly did Jesus intend to meet with His disciples—in Galilee or Jerusalem?

The truth is, Jesus met with His disciples in both places, but He did so at different 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 must be under consideration. If a person looks at a single door in the back of a building and says, “That door is shut,” but also says, “That door is open,” 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.

Similarly, Jesus met with His disciples both 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).

None of the accounts of Jesus’ 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.

Still, one may ask, “Why did Jesus command His apostles to ‘tarry in the city of Jerusalem’ on the day of His resurrection until they were ‘endued with power from on high’ (Luke 24:49), if He really wanted them to meet Him in Galilee?” 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 in Jerusalem from the day He rose from the grave until the day He ascended up into heaven.

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’ 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 “on the first day of the week” (24:1), or on “the third day” since Jesus’ 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 [translated “and” (ASV), “then” (NKJV), and “now” (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.

The burden of proof is on the Bible critic to verify his allegation. Although the skeptic quoted earlier compared the Bible to a “cheating husband” who “has been caught in a contradiction,” 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.

Luke 24:49
—Why did the disciples go to Galilee when Jesus commanded them to stay in Jerusalem?
Problem:
According to Luke, the apostles were told to “tarry in the city of Jerusalem” until Pentecost. But Matthew tells us that they went into Galilee (
Matt. 28:10
,
16
).
Solution:
First, it is possible that the command was not given until after they had been in Galilee. In this event there would be no conflict whatsoever. Furthermore, the command to “tarry” simply meant to make Jerusalem their headquarters. It did not preclude taking short trips elsewhere. Jerusalem was the place they were to receive the Holy Spirit (
Luke 24:49
) and to begin their work.