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How the Apostle Thomas REALLY Died — The Mission to India Nobody Taught in Church — Transcript

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0:00There is a name that has followed one
0:02man across 2,000 years of Christian
0:05history. Doubter.
0:07It is a name spoken almost like an
0:10insult. A label attached to a disciple
0:13of Jesus Christ, one of the 12, as
0:17though doubt were his defining
0:18characteristic. As though one moment of
0:21honest, desperate, grief-stricken human
0:25uncertainty could erase years of
0:28faithfulness, travel, sacrifice, and
0:31ultimately a death that would shake an
0:34entire subcontinent.
0:36His name was Thomas.
0:38If you have ever wondered what really
0:41happened to the men who walked beside
0:43Jesus, where they went, what they
0:45suffered, and how they died, then you
0:49are in the right place.
0:51This channel exists for one reason, to
0:54tell the full story of the apostles. Not
0:57the simplified versions, not the
1:00half-told Sunday school summaries, the
1:03real accounts grounded in scripture,
1:05uniquely confirmed by historical record,
1:08and told with the weight they deserve.
1:11Every apostle is a complete story, a
1:14journey, a sacrifice, a life utterly
1:17transformed by an encounter with the
1:19risen Christ. Subscribe now
1:23because the stories of these men will
1:25change the way you see your own faith.
1:28Hit the subscribe button and stay until
1:31the very end because what happened to
1:34Thomas in India will leave you
1:36speechless.
1:37In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke,
1:40his name meant twin.
1:43The Gospel of John records this
1:45referring to him by both his Aramaic
1:47name and his Greek equivalent, Didymus.
1:51Thomas Didymus.
1:53Twin and twin again in two languages, as
1:56though scripture wanted to remind us
1:58from the very beginning that this man
2:00carried something doubled within him.
2:03Perhaps courage and fear,
2:06perhaps faith and question, and perhaps
2:09the weight of belief and the honest
2:11confession of uncertainty.
2:13These are not opposites. They are the
2:16full picture of a human being standing
2:19before the infinite.
2:21Before we trace the path that took
2:23Thomas from the upper rooms of Jerusalem
2:26to the shores of the Malabar Coast in
2:28southern India, a journey of thousands
2:31of miles undertaken without maps,
2:34without safety, without certainty of
2:37return,
2:38we must understand who Thomas was,
2:42not who tradition made him, not the
2:45caricature, the man scripture actually
2:48shows us. The Gospel of John gives us
2:51the clearest portrait of Thomas among
2:54the 12 apostles, and what that portrait
2:56reveals is not weakness. It is fierce,
3:00sometimes reckless, loyalty.
3:04The first time Thomas speaks in the
3:05Gospel of John, Jesus has made the
3:08decision to return to Judea. His
3:11disciples urge him not to go. The
3:14religious authorities have already
3:16attempted to stone him. Judea is
3:19dangerous. Returning feels like walking
3:23into a death trap. Jesus goes anyway.
3:27And Thomas, this man history would call
3:29the doubter, turns to his fellow
3:31disciples and says something that sounds
3:34far more like a soldier than a skeptic.
3:37"Let us also go that we may die with
3:40him."
3:41John 11, verse 16.
3:44Read those words slowly. Let them
3:47settle.
3:48This is not the voice of a man paralyzed
3:51by doubt. This is the voice of a man
3:54fully aware that following Jesus may
3:56cost him his life,
3:58and choosing to follow anyway.
4:01Thomas does not pretend the danger is
4:03not real. He names it directly.
4:06He walks toward it with open eyes.
4:09The second time Thomas speaks in John's
4:12Gospel, it is in the upper room, the
4:15night before the crucifixion.
4:18Jesus is preparing his disciples for
4:20what is coming, uh speaking of the
4:22Father's house and of the way that leads
4:25there.
4:26"Lord," Thomas says, "we do not know
4:29where you are going. How can we know the
4:31way?"
4:32John 14, verse 5.
4:35This question is honest, perhaps
4:38uncomfortably so.
4:40While others remain silent, Thomas
4:43speaks the uncertainty that all of them
4:45must have felt. And his question draws
4:48from Jesus one of the most profound
4:51declarations in all of scripture.
4:54"I am the way and the truth and the
4:57life.
4:58No one comes to the Father except
5:01through me."
5:02Thomas's honest question becomes the
5:04occasion for one of the greatest
5:06revelations of the New Testament. This
5:09is not the record of a man who fails.
5:12This is the record of a man whose
5:15honesty opens a door.
5:17And then comes the moment that defined
5:20him in the popular imagination forever.
5:23When Jesus rose from the dead, he
5:25appeared to his disciples,
5:28but Thomas was not there.
5:30John chapter 20, verse 24 tells us
5:34simply, "Thomas, one of the 12, called
5:37the twin, was not with them when Jesus
5:40came." Scripture does not explain where
5:43Thomas was. It does not assign blame or
5:46offer excuse. It states a fact. He was
5:50absent from the room where the risen
5:52Christ appeared to his friends. When the
5:55others found Thomas and told him what
5:57had happened,
5:58"We have seen the Lord." Thomas
6:01responded with what has become one of
6:04the most famous statements in Christian
6:06history.
6:07"Unless I see in his hands the mark of
6:10the nails and place my finger into the
6:13mark of the nails and place my hand into
6:16his side, I will never believe."
6:20Consider the texture of that statement.
6:22Thomas does not say it is impossible. He
6:26does not say they are lying or that the
6:28dead do not rise. He states the specific
6:32mean physical evidence that would
6:34convince him, the marks, the wounds, the
6:37actual body of the man he had watched
6:40die on a Roman cross. He is not asking
6:44for a feeling. He is not asking for a
6:46vision. He is asking for the same
6:49encounter his friends had already
6:51received. He is asking to see what they
6:54had seen.
6:55Eight days later, Jesus came. The doors
6:59were shut. The disciples were gathered,
7:01and this time Thomas was among them.
7:04Jesus stood in the middle of the room
7:07and turned directly to Thomas.
7:09"Put your finger here and see my hands,
7:13and put out your hand and place it in my
7:15side. Do not disbelieve, but believe."
7:20Jesus knew exactly what Thomas had said.
7:23Jesus knew exactly what Thomas needed.
7:26And Thomas, in a moment of absolute
7:29spiritual collapse and reconstruction,
7:32answered with the highest Christological
7:35confession recorded in the entire Gospel
7:38of John. "My Lord and my God." Eight
7:42words,
7:44the most complete declaration of the
7:46divine identity of Jesus Christ spoken
7:49by any disciple in the four Gospels. Not
7:52my teacher, not my prophet, not my
7:54master, my Lord, my God. This is not the
7:58response of a man destroyed by doubt.
8:01This is the response of a man remade by
8:04encounter. The very depth of his
8:06uncertainty produced the very height of
8:09his confession.
8:10Jesus then spoke words that echo across
8:14every generation since that moment.
8:16"Have you believed because you have seen
8:19me?"
8:19"Blessed are those who have not seen and
8:22yet have believed." Thomas had seen. He
8:26had touched. He had confessed.
8:29And then, the Book of Acts and the
8:32Gospels fall largely silent about him.
8:36For the next chapter of Thomas's story,
8:39we must follow him into silence, into
8:42history, into a mission that took him
8:45farther than almost any other apostle,
8:48and into a death that secured his place
8:51among the greatest missionaries the
8:53world has ever known.
8:55Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he
8:58gave his disciples a command. It is
9:01recorded in Matthew chapter 28, verses
9:0519 and 20. And it is not a suggestion.
9:09It is not a recommendation. It is the
9:12defining directive of every follower of
9:14Christ.
9:15"Go therefore and make disciples of all
9:18nations, baptizing them in the name of
9:21the Father and of the Son and of the
9:24Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
9:26all that I have commanded you. And
9:29behold, I am with you always, to the end
9:33of the age."
9:35All nations, not the comfortable ones,
9:38not the nearby ones, not only the
9:41nations that shared the language and
9:43culture and religion of the 12. All
9:46nations.
9:47The Acts of the Apostles records the
9:50beginning of what happened next, the
9:52outpouring of the Holy Spirit at
9:54Pentecost, the explosion of the early
9:57church in Jerusalem, the spread of the
10:00gospel into Samaria and Judea, and
10:03eventually into the broader Roman world.
10:06But, the 12 did not stay in Jerusalem.
10:10They scattered. Each one received,
10:13according to various historical accounts
10:15and early church records, a portion of
10:18the world into which he was called to
10:20carry the message of the risen Christ.
10:23And Thomas, the man who had once said,
10:26"Let us go that we may die with him."
10:30received, perhaps, the most daunting
10:33assignment of all.
10:35India.
10:36To understand the magnitude of Thomas's
10:39mission,
10:40we must understand the world he was
10:42about to enter.
10:44In the 1st century, India was not a
10:47vague geographical idea. It was a vast,
10:51ancient, complex civilization, home to
10:54millions of people, to kingdoms of
10:57extraordinary wealth and sophistication,
11:00to philosophical and religious
11:02traditions stretching back thousands of
11:04years.
11:05The subcontinent was connected to the
11:07Roman world through trade. Spice routes,
11:11luxury goods, textiles, the Romans knew
11:15of India.
11:16Traders moved between the Mediterranean
11:19and the Malabar Coast of Southwestern
11:21India, modern-day Kerala, along sea
11:25routes and overland paths that were
11:27dangerous, long, and unpredictable.
11:31There were Jewish communities in India.
11:34This is not a speculation. Cochin,
11:37modern Kochi in Kerala, contains
11:40evidence of a Jewish presence that some
11:43scholars trace to extraordinary
11:45antiquity.
11:47The trading connections between the
11:48ancient Near East and India were real.
11:52Jewish merchants and settlers had found
11:55their way to the subcontinent centuries
11:57before Thomas ever set foot there.
12:01It is into this world, vast,
12:03polytheistic, philosophically
12:06sophisticated, geographically remote,
12:09that the Apostle Thomas carried the
12:11gospel of Jesus Christ.
12:14The distance from Jerusalem to the
12:16Malabar Coast by the trade routes of the
12:191st century was staggering.
12:21Thousands of miles, months of travel.
12:25The journey alone would have tested the
12:27physical endurance and spiritual resolve
12:30of any man.
12:31Thomas made it.
12:33The primary extra-biblical source for
12:35Thomas's mission to India is a document
12:38known as the Acts of Thomas, written in
12:42Syriac and dated by most scholars to the
12:45early 3rd century.
12:46It is considered an apocryphal text, not
12:50part of the canonical New Testament, but
12:53it preserves traditions and accounts
12:56that early Christian communities,
12:58especially in Syria and India, regarded
13:02as historically significant.
13:04The Acts of Thomas narrates a remarkable
13:07story.
13:08After the resurrection, according to
13:10this text, the apostles gathered and
13:13divided the world among themselves by
13:16lot. Each apostle received a region.
13:19Thomas received India. And Thomas
13:22resisted.
13:24The account portrays him as initially
13:27unwilling,
13:28not out of cowardice, but out of
13:30profound awareness of his own
13:32limitations.
13:34He did not speak the language. He did
13:36not know the people. The distance was
13:38immense.
13:40But then, something happened that
13:42changed everything.
13:44A merchant named Abbanes arrived in
13:46Jerusalem. And he had been sent by a
13:49king named Gondophares,
13:51a figure whose historical existence was
13:54long debated and then dramatically
13:57confirmed, to find a skilled carpenter
14:00and builder.
14:01Jesus appeared to Thomas and spoke to
14:04him.
14:05"Fear not, Thomas.
14:06Go to India with Abbanes and proclaim
14:09the word. My grace shall be with you."
14:13And Thomas went.
14:14This detail deserves careful attention.
14:18The early church tradition does not
14:20portray Thomas as a reluctant hero who
14:23eventually summons heroic courage on his
14:25own.
14:26It portrays him as a man who received a
14:29direct commission from the risen Christ.
14:32The same Christ whose wounds he had
14:34touched, whose resurrection he had
14:36confessed,
14:38and who obeyed.
14:40This is not the story of a doubter. This
14:43is the story of a sent man.
14:47For centuries, skeptics dismissed the
14:49tradition of Thomas in India as pious
14:52legend,
14:53a story told by Indian Christians to
14:56give their ancient church apostolic
14:58credentials, a comforting myth.
15:01Then, archaeology intervened. In 1834,
15:06coins were discovered in Afghanistan and
15:09Northwestern India bearing the name of a
15:121st century king, Gondophares,
15:15the same king mentioned in the Acts of
15:17Thomas.
15:18The coins were dated to approximately 19
15:21to 46 AD, exactly within the 1st century
15:26window when Thomas would have been
15:28traveling east. Gondophares was not a
15:31legend. He was a historical figure,
15:34a king of the Indo-Parthian kingdom
15:37ruling over a territory that stretched
15:40across parts of modern Afghanistan,
15:42Pakistan, and Northwestern India.
15:46The discovery did not prove that Thomas
15:48met Gondophares,
15:50but it proved that the Acts of Thomas
15:53named a real historical king from the
15:56right era,
15:57a detail that a 3rd century forger
15:59constructing fictional narrative would
16:02have been unlikely to know with such
16:04precision.
16:06The tradition suddenly looked less like
16:08legend and more like memory.
16:11According to the Acts of Thomas, the
16:13Apostle arrived in the court of
16:15Gondophares as a carpenter and
16:18architect. He was contracted to build a
16:21palace for the king. Thomas received the
16:24money.
16:25He did not build the palace. He
16:27distributed the funds to the poor, to
16:30the sick, to the marginalized and
16:32forgotten of the kingdom. He preached
16:35the gospel. He baptized converts. He
16:39established the beginning of a Christian
16:41community in the heart of a pagan
16:43kingdom.
16:44When the king discovered what had
16:46happened, his fury was immediate and
16:49predictable. Thomas was imprisoned. Uh
16:52the king contemplated execution, and
16:56then something happened that the account
16:58describes as a direct intervention of
17:00divine providence.
17:02Gondophares' brother, Gad, died.
17:06In the vision recorded in the Acts of
17:08Thomas, Gad's soul was shown a palace in
17:11heaven,
17:12a palace built not with stone and
17:15timber, but with prayer, generosity,
17:18charity, and faith, the palace that
17:21Thomas had actually constructed, not for
17:24an earthly king, but for the eternal
17:26kingdom.
17:28Gad was restored to life.
17:30He returned and told his brother what he
17:33had seen.
17:34Gondophares and Gad both converted to
17:38Christianity.
17:39Whether this account is taken as literal
17:42history or as theological narrative
17:44preserved in early tradition,
17:47its core message is unmistakable.
17:50The gospel had penetrated a pagan royal
17:53court in 1st century Northwestern India
17:56through the faithfulness and sacrifice
17:59of the Apostle Thomas.
18:01Thomas moved south.
18:03This is where the oldest and most
18:06Christian tradition places the heart of
18:08his mission.
18:10The Malabar Coast, the Southwestern
18:12Coast of India, in what is today the
18:15state of Kerala, is home to one of the
18:17oldest Christian communities in the
18:19world.
18:20They are called the Thomas Christians.
18:23They trace their origin not to
18:25Portuguese missionaries arriving in the
18:2715th century, not to European colonial
18:30era evangelism,
18:32but to the Apostle Thomas himself
18:35arriving in the year 52 AD.
18:38The number 52 AD is significant. It is
18:42the date preserved in the oral and
18:43written traditions of the Kerala
18:46Christian community. They name specific
18:49landing places, specific communities,
18:52specific families who received baptism
18:55from Thomas's own hands.
18:57Thomas is said to have established seven
19:00churches in Kerala.
19:02The names of these ancient church
19:04locations, Kodungallur, Palayoor,
19:07Kottakkavu, Kokkamangalam, Niranam,
19:11Nilakkal, and Kollam, are recorded in
19:14Indian Christian tradition with a
19:16specificity that speaks of genuine
19:18historical memory, not later invention.
19:22He preached to the Jewish communities
19:24already present in Kerala. He preached
19:27to Brahmin families. He moved among the
19:30high caste communities of the
19:32subcontinent with a boldness that
19:34tradition preserved in remarkable
19:37detail.
19:38Some Brahmin families converted. Their
19:41descendants in Kerala on have maintained
19:44their identity as Thomas Christians and
19:48as former Brahmins to this very day.
19:512,000 years after the Apostle first
19:54walked among their ancestors,
19:56India in the 1st century was a world
19:59saturated with religious practice.
20:03The subcontinent was home to ancient
20:05Vedic traditions, to temple worship, to
20:08priestly castes whose authority over
20:10ritual life was absolute.
20:13Into this world, Thomas carried a
20:15message that was both radical and deeply
20:18personal.
20:19He proclaimed a God who had entered
20:21human history not as a distant
20:24philosophical principle, but as a man,
20:27a carpenter,
20:28a rabbi from Galilee, a teacher who had
20:31been crucified under Roman authority and
20:34had risen from the dead on the third
20:36day.
20:37He proclaimed a salvation available not
20:40through ritual purity or caste status or
20:43sacrifice at temple altars,
20:46but through faith in the name of Jesus
20:49Christ. He proclaimed that the God who
20:52made heaven and earth loved every human
20:55being with a love so fierce that he had
20:58sent his own son into the world to
21:01redeem them.
21:03This message was not popular with
21:04everyone.
21:06The religious establishment felt
21:08threatened.
21:09Priests who derived their authority from
21:11ancient tradition watched their
21:13congregants leave those traditions
21:15behind.
21:17Families were divided. Social
21:19hierarchies were disrupted.
21:22The same pattern that had played out in
21:24Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, in
21:27Rome, the gospel arriving, transforming
21:31lives, and generating both profound
21:33faith and profound opposition,
21:36played out on the Malabar Coast.
21:39Thomas pressed on. He healed the sick.
21:43He cast out spirits. He baptized. He
21:46established communities of believers who
21:49would gather, pray, worship, read
21:52scripture,
21:53a break bread, and transmit the faith to
21:56their children and their children's
21:59children across 2,000 years of Indian
22:03history.
22:04Thomas eventually moved further east to
22:07the southeastern coast of India.
22:10He came to a place near the city now
22:12known as Chennai, formerly Madras, in
22:15the modern state of Tamil Nadu.
22:18He settled at a place called Mylapore.
22:21The traditions recorded here are
22:23detailed, consistent across multiple
22:26independent streams of testimony, and
22:29carry the weight of genuine historical
22:31memory.
22:32Thomas preached in Mylapore.
22:35He established a community of believers.
22:38He lived with a simplicity and austerity
22:41that the local population could see and
22:43respect. He also encountered opposition.
22:47On the most specific account of his
22:49final days involves the hostility of
22:52Brahmin priests whose influence over the
22:55local community was being undermined by
22:58Thomas's preaching.
23:00The conversions were real.
23:02The impact was visible. And the
23:04religious establishment wanted it
23:06stopped. There is a hill outside Chennai
23:10that has been called by different names
23:12across the centuries. Today, it is known
23:15as St. Thomas Mount, or in Tamil,
23:19Parangi Malai.
23:21The tradition held in India is that this
23:24is the hill where Thomas went to pray,
23:26where he would climb above the noise and
23:29tension of the city, find solitude, and
23:32speak with the God whose wounds he had
23:34once touched with his own hands.
23:37It is on this hill that the tradition of
23:40his death is placed.
23:42The death of Thomas is recorded in the
23:44Acts of Thomas and preserved in the
23:47consistent tradition of the Indian
23:49Church. On the Syriac Church and early
23:52church historians, he was killed with a
23:55spear.
23:56The accounts vary in certain details.
23:59Some say he was speared while kneeling
24:01in prayer on the hill,
24:03but on the fundamental facts, the
24:05tradition is remarkably unified.
24:09Thomas was killed by a lance. He died on
24:12Indian soil.
24:13His death came as a direct consequence
24:16of his preaching, which had threatened
24:18the religious and social power
24:20structures of the communities around
24:22him.
24:23He died as he had lived, without
24:26retreat, without denial,
24:29without the kind of convenient
24:31compromise that might have saved his
24:33life.
24:34The man who once said, "Let us go that
24:37we may die with him." who had spoken
24:40those words before the crucifixion,
24:43perhaps not quite understanding what he
24:45was saying,
24:47had now made them literally
24:49finally true.
24:51He had gone.
24:53He had gone farther than any of them.
24:56And he had died for the faith, for the
24:59name, for the risen Lord whose wounds he
25:02had touched in an upper room in
25:04Jerusalem.
25:06Thomas did not disappear. His community
25:09buried him. And the location of his
25:12burial in Mylapore became a place of
25:15reverence, of pilgrimage, of prayer.
25:18The Christian community he established
25:20in India did not collapse with his
25:23death.
25:24It persisted. It grew slowly over
25:27centuries, holding to the faith
25:29transmitted by the Apostle who had
25:31brought them the gospel in the 1st
25:33century.
25:35When Portuguese explorers arrived on the
25:37Malabar Coast in 1498,
25:40nearly 1,500 years after Thomas's death,
25:44they found something that astonished
25:46them.
25:47There were Christians in India,
25:49ancient Christians speaking Syriac in
25:52their liturgy,
25:54practicing traditions that predated
25:56European influence by more than a
25:58millennium, and claiming an apostolic
26:01origin that went back to Thomas himself.
26:05The Portuguese were skeptical at first.
26:08How could it be possible?
26:10Then they began to learn the history.
26:13They heard the traditions. They visited
26:15the tomb in Mylapore.
26:17And they recognized what the evidence
26:19was telling them. Thomas had come.
26:22Thomas had preached. Thomas had died.
26:25And the church he planted had never
26:27stopped breathing.
26:29Today, the Basilica of the National
26:32Shrine of St. Thomas the Apostle stands
26:35in Mylapore, Chennai.
26:37It is one of only three churches in the
26:39world built over the tomb of an Apostle.
26:43The other two are St. Peter's Basilica
26:46in Rome and the Cathedral of Santiago de
26:49Compostela in Spain.
26:52The Thomas Christians of Kerala,
26:54numbering in the millions today, carry
26:57their origin as a living testimony to
27:00the faithfulness of the Apostle who
27:02brought the gospel to India.
27:05There are things that scripture records
27:08and things that history confirms.
27:11And the story of Thomas is a place where
27:13these two streams of witness converge in
27:16remarkable ways.
27:18Scripture shows us a man of honest
27:21faith,
27:22a man who asked hard questions,
27:25a man whose doubt was not the opposite
27:28of belief, but the path through which
27:30belief became unshakable.
27:33History, through archaeology, through
27:35the persistent testimony of the oldest
27:38Christian communities of India, through
27:41the discovery of Gondophares on ancient
27:43coins,
27:45shows us a man who carried that faith to
27:48the farthest reaches of the known world.
27:52Eusebius of Caesarea, and writing his
27:55Ecclesiastical History in the early 4th
27:57century, records that the Apostles
28:00divided the known world among
28:01themselves, and that Parthia fell to
28:04Thomas.
28:05Origen, writing even earlier, confirms
28:08that Thomas preached to the Parthians.
28:11The connection between these early
28:13church references and the Indian
28:15tradition is the consistent geographical
28:18trajectory,
28:20east, further east, to the very margins
28:23of the Roman world's awareness.
28:25The Syriac Church, the ancient Church of
28:28Edessa, which maintains one of the
28:30oldest continuous Christian traditions
28:33in existence,
28:34has always held Thomas as its founding
28:37Apostle.
28:38The city of Edessa in modern
28:40southeastern Turkey claimed to possess
28:42relics of Thomas by the 4th century.
28:45The threads converge. The testimony of
28:48different communities, different
28:50languages, to different geographical
28:53contexts,
28:55all pointing toward the same man, the
28:58same mission, the same death.
29:00Thomas was in India.
29:03Thomas died in India.
29:05And the church he planted there has been
29:07worshiping the risen Christ, the same
29:10Christ whose wounds Thomas once touched,
29:13for 2,000 years.
29:15It is time to retire the word doubter as
29:18Thomas's defining identity,
29:20not because doubt is shameful.
29:23Jesus himself did not rebuke Thomas's
29:26doubt with condemnation.
29:28He came to Thomas with open wounds and
29:31an open invitation.
29:33But because the full portrait of this
29:35man, drawn from scripture and from the
29:37consistent memory of the oldest
29:40Christian traditions in Asia,
29:42is so much larger than that single
29:45moment.
29:46Thomas was a man of courage who offered
29:49to die alongside his Lord.
29:51Thomas was a man of honesty who spoke
29:54what others were afraid to voice. And
29:57Thomas was a man of confession who, when
30:01confronted with the risen Christ
30:03declared one of the highest
30:04Christological truths in all of the
30:07Gospels.
30:09Thomas was a man of obedience who
30:11traveled thousands of miles to places
30:14none of his fellow apostles reached to
30:17plant the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
30:20Thomas was a man of sacrifice who gave
30:23his life in martyrdom on the other side
30:25of the world from where he had first met
30:28his teacher.
30:29The doubter, yes, for eight days, out of
30:32grief, out of human exhaustion, out of
30:36the desperate need to see what his
30:37friends had seen.
30:39But also
30:40the missionary
30:42the martyr
30:43the apostle to India
30:46the man who took the Great Commission
30:47literally
30:49the man who ran the farthest.
30:52There is a passage in John chapter 20
30:54that speaks beyond the first century.
30:57Jesus said to Thomas "Blessed are those
31:00who have not seen and yet have
31:03believed."
31:04Every person who has come to faith in
31:07Jesus Christ since the resurrection,
31:10every believer across 20 centuries has
31:13believed without touching the wounds of
31:15the risen Lord without standing in that
31:19upper room
31:20without hearing that voice say their
31:22name. They have believed on the basis of
31:25testimony.
31:27The testimony of men and women who saw
31:30the testimony of communities that
31:32preserved what they witnessed.
31:35The testimony of apostles who were so
31:37transformed by their encounter with the
31:40risen Christ that they went to the
31:42farthest corners of the earth and died
31:45rather than deny what they had seen.
31:48Thomas's testimony
31:50carried to India, sealed with his blood
31:53on a hill near the sea
31:55is part of the foundation on which
31:57millions of believers today stand.
32:00His doubt became his confession.
32:03His confession became his commission.
32:06His commission became his journey.
32:09His journey became the church.
32:12And the church has not stopped
32:14proclaiming the name of the risen Christ
32:17since the day he first set foot on
32:19Indian soil.
32:21The Great Commission is not finished.
32:24The story of Thomas
32:26the man who went where no one expected
32:28him to go
32:29who died where no one imagined he would
32:31die
32:33who planted a church that is still alive
32:352,000 years later
32:37is one of the most extraordinary
32:39testimonies in the history of the
32:41Christian faith.
32:43And it began with a man kneeling before
32:46open wounds and saying with everything
32:49he had "My Lord and my God."
32:53You have just witnessed the real story
32:56of Thomas
32:57the apostle who went farther than
32:59history taught
33:00who died for a faith he had once
33:03questioned
33:04and whose mission to India built a
33:06church that is still standing today.
33:09This is what the Apostle Chronicles is
33:12about.
33:13Every apostle carried a story this
33:15powerful.
33:17Every one of them walked away from the
33:19resurrection and toward a destiny that
33:22would define the spread of the Christian
33:24faith across the ancient world. Peter
33:27was crucified upside down in Rome. Paul
33:31was beheaded outside the city walls.
33:34Andrew was bound to a cross and preached
33:37from it for two days.
33:39Bartholomew was skinned alive.
33:42Matthew carried the Gospel into Africa
33:44and Persia. These are not myths. These
33:48are the documented lives of real men who
33:50saw the risen Christ and never stopped
33:53believing no matter what the cost.
33:56Subscribe to Apostle Chronicles right
33:58now.
33:59Every week we go deeper.
34:01Every story is complete. Every apostle
34:05gets the documentary he deserves.
34:07If this story moved you, share it.
34:11Someone in your life needs to hear it.
34:13Subscribe. Stay with us.
34:16There are 11 more stories to tell and
34:18every single one of them will change the
34:21way you understand what it means to
34:23follow Jesus Christ.

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