Mark 3:13-19 - The Twelve Are Chosen

Introduction

Welcome to another BereanNation.com weekly podcast! We're glad you could join us for our line-by-line Bible study, where together we explore God's Word in depth and seek to apply its teachings to our everyday lives. Whether you're tuning in from across Canada or around the world, we encourage you to have your Bible ready as we journey through scripture, one verse at a time.

This week, we'll be focusing on Mark 3:13-19, where Jesus chooses the twelve original discples; we will be examining each line closely and considering its context, meaning, and relevance for us today. As always, feel free to share your insights and questions in the comments or live chat—your participation helps us grow together as a community of Bereans, searching the scriptures daily.

Before we begin, let's take a moment to invite God to guide our study, granting us wisdom and understanding. I’m going to have my co-host Alex open in prayer and kick off the meeting. Go ahead, Alex.

[pray here]

[Introduce regulars on the call]

[read the text]

If you're new to our session, welcome! We ask three questions of the text we are studying: 

What does it say,

what did God Himself mean when He inspired the writer to choose the vocabulary to say what was said,

and what am I going to do about that? 

People who have prepared one ahead of time have opportunity to share what they have prepared now. Who came with one ready to share?

——- Notes ——-

If you have been here for the past few studies, you will recall the recurring theme of tension with the Pharisees and allied parties, such as the Scribes, Sadducees, and Herodians. That tension has been building, and will get to the point (may have reached it last study) that they will seek to take Jesus’ life and end His scathing opinions for all time. Many think of this as a break from that tension, and it kind of is, but it is still there as not just an undercurrent, but a main theme.

That the leadership of the nation of Israel had rejected Jesus as Messiah at this point is very clear, although it will only come out to air itself out at the second illegal trial of Jesus later. For the meantime, I find it tremendously instructive to look at how the3ir rejection of Jesus earned them a wholesale rejection of Jesus Himself. He picks His own representatives. For the record twelve is the symbolic number of God’s government (10 is man’s government). He has His own 12 representatives, and He chooses them from people He has met in person. (Yes, this does mean that people who are calling themselves apostles of Jesus today are not accurate, either being deceived, or are deceiving you. That is a different topic, and we have been discussing this and related topics in our Friday Podcast on John MacArthur’s book Strange Fire. We are inviting you to check it our on this same channel at 7 p.m. Eastern.

With that in mind, I broke the text down as follows:

KV14: Why These Twelve?

14: And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach,

13-15: He Rejects the Leaders of Israel

16: He Selects the Leader

17: He Selects the Lieutenants

18: He Selects the Faithful

19: He Selects the Traitor

KV14: Why These Twelve?

14: And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach,

The Lord Jesus, the Creator of the Universe, just happens to drop by to spread the good news that His own kindom is arriving in person, and the very people that He had chosen and rescued from Egypt, a great type of our present Atanic World System, who should have HELPED Him, had definitively rejected Him as their creator, king, and god. As such, He appointed those men whom He found that He had hand-selected from before the foundation of the world. Let’s look at what the text says.

13-15: He Rejects the Leaders of Israel

If we could go back to last week’s study for a moment, we saw that the Pharisees were so upset and wanted to destroy Jesus so badly, they went out and began an alliance with the Herodians that would have been naturally opposed to religious expression as friends of Herod that were favorable to Rome. The Pharisees would have the opposite view, resenting their Roman occupiers. Jesus presented them with a common adversary that they both wanted to get rid of. Jesus, as a result of that, rejected such individuals as leaders of His kingdom. Now, He didn’t do it by picking names out of a hat. Let’s see what the text tells us.

13: And He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him.

This is arguably the most important work Christ did next to His actions on the cross. He was picking the men who would carry the message of His kingdom into the world for the future. He did not do this flippantly or carelessly. There is a kind of application for me here, and that is to be more like Jesus when I prepare ministry. At times, I can just throw stuff together and wing it and get away with it. If anyone could have winged any of what Jesus did, it was Him, and yet He did not do that. He went apart and I think that was at least in part so He could focus on the task at hand. He also did not rely on logic or even His knowledge of the men He chose, especially Judas Iscariot. The Scriptures tell us in Luke 6:12 about this event, “It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.” I cannot do that. He called to the ministry exactly who He wanted in that group. I can think of all the men as He thought on them, prayed for each of them, asked for the Father’s counsel and agreement. It occurs to me that each man would have had a great deal of consideration and prayer. I wonder how long they considered Judas Iscariot for his future role of traitor-in-chief. However, He called them all personally, and they all answered the call.

This is kind of interesting to me. Judas Iscariot was called with the others. And yet the Lord knew who He was from the beginning. He says so in John 6:70 “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’” Does this mean that Judas was a plant that was snuck into the fold? I think it says quite the opposite. Because Jesus knew all of the men He chose, He must have chosen Judas Iscariot to accomplish the purpose for which he was created, which was to trigger the events that would lead to the path that the Lord would take to sacrifice Himself for all of us. It doesn’t mean Judas was good and pure, just pre-planned. That says something about How the Lord calls all of us. He knows who we are. He will use us for the thing for which He created us. He will use us for nothing less. If we are to do His will in faith, we must be yielded to His will no matter what. And even if you are not willing for that, it does not mean that the Lord will not use you to accomplish His will. Apostates and Reprobates are known by the Lord and used by Him to accomplish His will without violating their own wills. Chapter III of the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession says that in Paragraph 1: “God hath Decreed in himself from all Eternity, by the most wise and holy Councel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever comes to passe; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the Creature, nor yet is the liberty, or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power, and faithfulness in accomplishing his Decree.” It may bend your mind to realize that God accomplishes His will through the wills of His enemies who hate Him and have their wills bent in their own desires that want the exact opposite of what God wants. Actually, it blows mine.

Jesus carefully selected each man based on the characteristics each individual had, and they willingly came to Him for the service. None of them volunteered, but each mazn still came willingly, even Judas. Compare John 6:37, which says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” Next verse.

14: And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach,

Jesus took the initiative here. He Himself did the appointing. He apoointed twelve men who were, according to the text, be with Him and that could go out and preach hwat He gave them to say, according, as John MacArthur put it, to His sovereign prerogative. Again, there is some application for me here to make sure what I am saying is what He has given me to say, and not my own reasoning or desires, and that is all too easy to do. After all, He called us to serve Him instead of ourselves. Think of that when you think of how the original disciples were called to Jesus. It says in John 15:16 ““You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”

First, He called them to be His companions. Did you realize that His calling of you was for companionship? Though it isn’t the only reason, it is a stated reason, and that usually means it was one of the main reasons. As they (therefore we) spend time with Jesus, they in person learning first-hand, us by reading His word (Himself in text as per John 1), we are all taught by Christ Himself through His Holy Spirit to walk with Him. They were mentored ini direct fashion and directly trained as appretices to the master. These were Christ’s chosen vessels for the transmission of the good news about Himself and His sacrifice and His kingdome after He was gone from the scene. All evangelism started with them, and all of our sound doctrine originated with them. You will recall that those living stones Jesus called were the 12 foundation stones of the New Jerusalem. They laid the foundation for all of us to rest on (Revelation 21:14 “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”) as we are built up into that house that Peter talks about in 1 Peter 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” These men were the very foundation of that great work, which covered the entire known world at the time and beyond.

Second, He called them to be able to send them out to preach His message. I like how John MacArthur put this in His commentary: “They were trained to be the first generation of heralds of the good news of salvation, following in the footsteps of their Lord, who Himself proclaimed the gospel of God (see Mark 1:14, “Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God...”) Jesus was a preacher in the line of prophets like John the Baptist, his older cousin was. Like John, He would die because of His preaching. Interestingly, most of His called men did for the same reason, but we will say more about that momentarily. Next verse.

15: and to have authority to cast out the demons.

He also gave His men His authority over evil supernatural beings called demons. I think that power still exists today, though I have never been called on to use it. There is a bit of knowledge I think must be conveyed here because of some of the modern “demon-slayer” movement and how they get it wrong. First, the authority over demons does not rest in us. We do not have it, and it is not something that can be claimed or stood in, as some of them suggest. That authority remains in Christ, and if we are to use it, we must be standing in Him and using it in His name, to accomplish His will and not our own. We have NO pwer that can match that of either an angelic follower of Lucifer or one of their disembodied offspring hiding in a human. We can only do so in holiness, and we will only have to do it one time should we be called upon.

Contrast this with what you see in these demon-slayer meetings that sometimes surface on YouTube. You have some person who is screaming over and over again for some mystical personality to come out of the so-called victim, and it resisting over and over, even though all of this is supposedly said in the name of Jesus. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which I will list off the top of my head.

This is not a real demon and the “victim” so-called is a paid actor. There have been videos of some of these people casting out a demon from the supposed victim, and another video of them in another place casting so-called demons out of the same person. These have been shown by Steve Kozar, Chris Roseborogh, Justin Peters, and others, to be paid actors or motivated pretenders.

The demon was made up and there is no show to be seen. In these cases, nothing happens. You don’t see this one in videos because it is embarrasing to the demon slayer and “client” alike.

The demon is real, but they are able to resist the demon slayer. You see this in cases where it is likely that the slayer is not a real Christian. Such a thing was seen in Acts 19:14–16, which says, “Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, ‘I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?’ And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”

There may be other reasons, but these are the kind of things that you see on YouTube. Real disciples had real authority given to them by the real Jesus. Moving on.

We may rest assured that the real Jesus, who we are at the moment reading about, gave His chosen men His own authority to preach and to cast away evil entities that stood in the way of the work of God. It only needed to be done once. The only time they failed, we learned that only prayer to God would have been succesful (Mark 9:29 “And He said to them, ‘This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.’”). Jesus cast that one out Himself because that prayer would have been to God, and He was God. Next paragraph.

16: He Selects the Leader

There is a classic way of looking at the divisions of the disciples that is worth mentioning here, and that is three groups of four, and in descending level of intimacy from the Lord. I have loosely respected that here to bring out some of the highlights, but I will deviate from that arrangment because I see something besides that. Let’s get into the text.

16: And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter),

As one would expect, we can begin with Peter. His Hebrew name is Simeon, pronounced Shi-mon’, which we shorten to Simon. The original Hebrew meaning is “to hear,” or “to listen.” It is understood best as “one who hears,” or “one who listens.” It was the name of Leah’s second child from Jacob, and there is some Hebrew wordplay in this. Shi-mon’ sounds a bit like she-ma’, which is what Leah said of herself, that she was unloved. Often, according to my sources, it is more fully understood as “he has heard” or “hearing with acceptance.” The Lord Jesus changed his name to Peter (Gk., Πέτρον), and at their very first meeting when Andrew (Peter’s brother) brought him to Jesus. The name itself means “rock,” and in Aramaic is “Kephas” meaning the same thing. This may have been the Lord renaming him as Peter as a kind of symbolic comissioning, like Abram to Abraham or Jacob to Israel. This kind of shift usually marks a shift in identity or vocation, it isn’t just a nickname. It signals that he was being called into a new role.

This is kind of funny, because the man Peter himself was a figure with apparent contradictions. He was bold but impulsive, faithful but waffling, courageous but cowardly. He is, at times, a study in contradictions. He attempted acts of faith and failed at many of them, like walking on the water. He did manage a few steps, which is more than I can say I have ever done. Funny how he only failed when he took his attention off of Christ. He even demonstrated a willingness to die for Jesus, demonstrated by attacking Malchus, the servant of the High Priest at Jesus’ arrest - and yet denied he knew Jesus three times before the night had ended (which the Lord restored Him for, after His resurrection).

In the early church, Peter was always listed as first among the Apostles, even serving as spokesman for the group. Interestingly He was not the leader of the church in Jerusalem, that fell to James, the half-brother of Jesus. Peter also preached the first sermon (ever) on the day of Pentecost, and it must have been a powerful gospel message (it is there in part in Acts 2), because 3000 people or so were saved as a result. He led in several apostolic duties like evangelism, preaching and teaching, and care of souls. However, he kept as a kind of legalistic holdover, this Old-testament thinking, needing to be persuaded to include Gentiles in the church, and then went back into some kind of legalism in Galatia that required Paul to scold him publicly.

In all of this, he did not ever stray far from home in the Bible, but the Church Fathers tell us that he served as the Overseer at Antioch, he aided Paul in Corinth and Galatia, and eventually got as far as Rome, where he met his end on earht. Tradtion tells us that he was crucified during the reign of Nero between AD 64 and 67. The idea that he was crucified upside down does not occur in the literature until the Acts of Peter circa AD 180-190, and is historically nearly impossible to verify, not to mention a low-trust document. However, the Church Fathers from earl;y on consistently all tell us that he did die as a martyr. I found a lot of information about this in an article in the CSB Study Notes written by Sean McDowwell (yes, son of Josh) quoting all the sources in a work by Bart Ehrman, and include Clement of Rome (1 Clement 5:1–4), Ignatius (Letter to the Smyrneans 3:1–2), The Apocalypse of Peter, The Ascension of Isaiah, The Acts of Peter, The Apocryphon of James, Dionysius of Corinth (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25.4), and Tertullian (Scorpiace 15, The Prescription Against Heresies 36). The early, consistent, and unanimous testimony is that Peter died as a martyr. The citations are internal to the documents referenced.

Of all the apostles, I have a certain affinity to Peter, having many of the same contradictory flaws as Peter. I also am impulsive, and boldly so. I was once described by one of the youth group as one gets angry enough to be an axe murderer, and as soon as I realize my temper is getting away from me, I become rational again. I would like to think that’s gotten better over the years. I have not left a trail of bodies or injured men I have beat up behind me. It does remind me of what is required of a servant, and how much of that my Lord Jesus must supply, or I cannot do this.

I am reminded of the Casting Crowns tune, “Nobody.” Why you ever chose me // Has always been a mysteryt // All my life I’ve been told // I belong at the end of the line // With all the other not-quites // And all the never-get-it-rights // But it turns out they’re the ones you’ve been lookin’ for // All this time /// ‘Cause I’m just a Nobody // try’n’a tell everybody // All about Somebody // Who saved my soul // And ever since He rescued me // He gave my heart a song to sing // I’m waiting for the world to see // Nobody but Jesus. May we all be inspired to put the Lord first like that. Moving on.

17: He Selects the Lieutenants

The second and third names in the first group of four I referred to earlier are who I consider to be the Lieutenants of Peter. There are two name here, and they were named by our lord as Boanerges, a transliteration from the Greek that Mark translates “sons of thunder.” If you read through any of the accounts that deal with them directly in the Gospels, you can see it more than one way. Some theologians think that this was purely descriptive of their personality, impulsive and fiery, and it certainly was that, but others read it more positively, anticipating a more powerful and forceful proclamation they would later be known for, especially John in his voce apocalypto. Let’s see the text.

17: and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”);

You can certainly see that their nickname fits the temperment found in Luke 9:54 “When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’” They wanted to literally call down thunder and lightening. You can see the impetuaous nature of the two in Mark 10:37 “They said to Him, ‘Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.’” It is worth noting that unlike Peter’s call to a new name, this was a one-time nickname in Scripture. This is the only verse in which it occurs. Let’s look at the names.

James is an Anglicization of the name Ἰακώβου, or Yakov from the Hebrew. Like his progenitor Jacob (another Anglicization), the name itself means “supplanter” or “usurper,” literally, “he who graps the heel,” referencing Jacob’s grasping of Esau’s heel at birth. James is always overshadowed in the Gospels, never mentioned without his brother John. He was the first Apstle who was martyred in Acts 12:2 (“And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword.”) His execution was ordered by Herod Agrippa I, and is traditionally dated to AD 44. He was taken by the Lord over 50 years before his younger brother, John.

John is from the Greek Ἰωάννην, and means YHWH is gracious. John is the “Beloved Disciple in the Gospel that he himself penned. Among the twelve, John occupied the privileged position of that dicple whom Jesus loved, and like His brother and Peter, was one of Jesus’ closest men. He was admitted to the raising of Jairus’ daughter, he was present at the Transfiguration, leaned on Jesus’ breast at the last supper, and was closest to Jesus later in the garden at Gethsemane. What we can gather from the scripture is that Zebedee, his father, was a prosperous fisherman from Capernaum. so he and James may have been from a family of means. Salome was their mother, and they had hired servants, his mother’s apparent wealth, his own house, and his acquintance with the High Priest all point to this. Initially, the two brothers were disciples of John the Baptist, and followed Jesus after the Declaration of John the Baptist, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World!” John lived until at least AD 100 (I have heard numbers as late as AD 120, but I prefer the earlier dates for a number of reasons). As a close friend and associate of Peter, he suffered imprisonmentwith him in Jerusalem, and even went to Samaria with Peter to impart the Holy Spirit there to new believers. According to tradition, John settles in Ephesusunder Nerva , composing (as near as I have been able to determine, first his letters, then his Apocalypse on Patmos where John had been exiled by Domitian because he would not tell Domitian He was a god. It is debated whether he wrote the Apocalypse or his Gospel first in my sources, but it is my opinion that it was the Gospel that closed his production. between all of his writings, John wrote about 1/5 of the New Testament. Interestingly, his name only appears 20 times in the gospels, and half of those are mere mentions. Tradition tells us that John was the only Apostle that did not suffer a martyr’s death. As His strength failed him, he was reportedly carried to church gatherings, where, leaning on his cane, he would say with quavering voice, “little children, love one another!” Unlike James, John’s influence extended far into the post-Apostolic era, with his disciples Papias and Polycarp surviving Him, and Polycarp’s disciple Irenaeus of Lyon (famous for his work Against Heresies) extending a generation further in time.

These two men are a half of the first group of four after Peter, and the first name of the next section will round that out. The way they appear in the New Testament, I see these as Peter’s wingmen when the church came into being. Despite James’ early exit by martyrdom, all these men were critical in the formation of the flegeling church, true discples and Apostles of the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. Next paragraph.

18: He Selects the Faithful

We have seen Jesus’ closest men while He was on earth, and there is one left in that first informal group of the intimate four. All the rest form the toerh two groups, and as some (like Blum and Wax) have suggested, this appears to be a list in Mark that is given in a descending order of intimacy. Let’s see the text.

18: and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot;

Andrew is the next name given in the list, and I know this position. In high school, I was in the Kern and Hammerstein musical, Show Boat. The name of my character in the order of appearance, was, “Steve Fallon, the Leading Man.” Unlike the character name, I was not the main character. I was the most major of the minor characters. I see this as Andrew’s role. He is still in that top group, but in the smallest way. I use this as a placement tool only, he was still a disciple and an Apostle. Andrew’s name is a transliteration of sorts from Greek, and it means “manly” or “brave,” and is related to the Greek word aner, meaning “man.” It is thought by some that may have been a reference to some kind of physical strength, but there is no proff of that directly. Notably, it is not a Hebrew name; Peter and Andrew’s family may have had sympathies with the Hellenistic Jews, which would fit with his role in John’s Gospel as the one who brings the Greeks to meet Jesus. Andrew was with James and John that day when John the Baptist told them that Jesus was the Lamb of God. It was immediately after that that Andrew found his brother Peter and told him that they had, in fact, found the Messiah, winning Peter with his testimony of the Lord. Throughout the gospel, Andrew is eclipsed by Peter, his older brother. However, He had moments of promience in the Gospels. He drew attention to the boy with the loaves and fish at the feeding of the 5000. He brought in the Greeks who were requesting to see Jesus. Early Church Historians tell us that Andrew went of gospel mission into the territories arround Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, Scythia, and regios of Modern Greece like Thrace, Macedonia, and Achaia. Tradition has it that he was cricified on an X-shaped cross (how it became known as St. Andrew’s cross) in Patrae, Achaia by the Roman governor Aegeas sometime around AD 60 during Nero’s reign. We are not particularly Catholic, but Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland, Russia, and Greece, among others places.

The Second group of four disciples consisted of Philip, Nathaniel (Bartholomew), Matthew, and Thomas. We will consider each briefly because there is spiritual benefit in doing so.

Philip is next. This is interestingly another Greek name instead of Hebrew. His name literally means “lover of horses” (philos + hippos). Like Peter and Andrew, he was from Bethsaida. He was called the day after Peter and Andrew, and brough Nathaniel into the circle in the narrrative. He onlu appears in a handful of places. Noteably, He was unable to suggest how Jesus might feed 5000 men and their families (more like around 25,000 in estimates I have heard). With Andrew, he introduced the Greek men to Jesus, and it is he who asked Jesus to show him the Father in John 14. Much of his history is obscured by legend, but according to tradition, He, Nathaniel (Bartholomew), and his sister Miriamne became known for distributing food to those who had need. It is almost impossible to separate what is fact from the fiction invented by the Catholic cult, but these apocryphal accoounts of Philip tell of his martyrdom in Hierapolis because of his protests against the idolatry of the city to the goddess Cybele. Tradition differ on his death. Some say he died of natural causes, some say he was crucified, and there is a story that says he was hanged by the neck against a pillar. I must also note that it is important not to confuse Philip with Philip the deacon/evangelist. This is one of the reasons that we aren’t really sure about what happened to either man: we aren’t sure which Philip they are describing in a given text. This will happen a bit more with some of the other disciples as well.

Bartholomew is an interesting name. It means “Son of Talmai.” It is rather a surname identifier. His first name was Nathaniel. (John 1:45–47 tells us, “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’” He is most often in the Gospels and in historical writings identified with Philip. According to the church historian Eusebius, it is Nathaniel who carried the Gospel to India, although others report he went instead to Armenia. Eusebius also tells us that it is Nathaniel wo is responsible for the Gospel of Matthew being translated into Hebrew (meaning that Levi wrote it in Aramaic). The Armenian church says Nathaiel if the founder of their church. The one thing about his death is that we know he was martyred. Some say he was drowned, others say he was crucified after being arrested, beaten, and exposing idolatry while healing a king’s daughter, and then crucified upside down at Albanopolis (Armenia Minor). You have to decide what and who you believe.

Matthew is the next name in the list, and we know he has another name Levi. It may be that Matthew was a situation where it was adopted as a calling after his conversion. It means “gift of YYHWH.” His calling is noteable because he was a tax collector, and thought to be a lapdog of Rome and a social outcast in Jewish society. He was one of the sons of Alphaeus and brother to James the Less (James, son of Alphaeus). His coversion was something like immediate and dramatic enough that he threw everyone a party and invited Jesus. Jesus may have reconciled Matthew with His brother James here, because it is though that James was a national Zealot like Simon the Zealot. From about that point, they both became devoted disciples. It is thought that after Jesus’ asenscion, Matthew remained in the holy land for about 15 years, and then went of missionary journey, encouraged by the good reports of success in other efforts. Tradition says his ministry was in “Ethiopia,” but that could mean several areas. It may refer to an area of East Africa, or it could refer to regions near the Caspian Sea in ancient Parthia. While accounts of his matyrdom conflict with others, it is generally agreed he died in Parthia by order of the king of Parthia. He was either beheaded and then drawn and quartered, or he was burned alive. The early church unanimously connected him with the Gospel that bears his name.

Thomas rounds out the second group of four, and his name means “twin” in Hebrew and the Greek equivalen Didymus. We don’t know if he really was a twin, but it seems likely with a name like that. We never meet the twin. He became famous for doubting the resurrection. Skepticism seems to have been a character trait in John’s Gospel. He only appears in lists in the Synoptic Gospels. He is noted for his desire for certain and experiential knowledge. His later ministry is difficult to separate out myth from legend. The earliest church tradition sent him to work in Parthia, dying in Edessa of natural causes. A later story that seems to have begun in the 4th century has him sent to India where he was supposedly martyred. Usually, a thing appearing later is discarded, but there is some support from India for this. According to Indian tradition, he arrived in Cranganore in AD 52, converted high-caste Hindu families, consecrated “priests,” built seven churches (I find the reference to the number being seven suspicious, but nevertheless), and eventually suffered martyrdom and is buried in Mylapore. Some western scholars are skeptical of the story, but the Eastern church has consistently taken the position that he ministered in India and died there as a martyr. There are also records of travel between the Middle East and India, so it is possible. the St. Thomas Christians are completely convinced that they trace directly back to the Apostle Thomas, and attribute to him the introduction of the Syriac language into liturgical use. The community has preserved a good number of antiques that support their traditions and claims. All of those relics were said to have been moved completely out of India and to Edessa and later Ortona where they now reside. So who knows? It might have happened that way...

The last group of four is led by James the Less, son of Alphaeus, brother of Philip. Remember that his name means supplanter. He is called James the Less or James the Younger to differentiate him from James, the brother of John, Boanerges. He is one of the most obscure people we read of in the New Testament. What we have been able to piece together apart from what is already stated is that Alphaeus himself may be the same man called Clopas the husband of Mary in John 19:25, which reads, “Therefore the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” However, there is no certainty in this. Outside of this, there is nothing about his work that can be said for certian. Tradition tells us that he may have gone into Persia (modern-day Iran) and was martyred there, but another tradition tells us that he was martyred in Ostrakine in Lower Egypt while preaching, and that he was crucified, and then cut into pieces to make sure he was dead. Alternatively, Hippolytus tells us that he was stones in Jerusalem by the Jews and buried beside the Temple. Who knows? There is a kind of point to this. His own obscurity makes this point: He was just as much an Apostle as Peter or John, and will still sit on a throne in Christ’s earthly kingdom to reign with Christ, and will have equal honor and authority as they, and His name is still engraved on the foundations of the New Jerusalem. Some men’s works precede them, some follow after. God sees them all, and they still count. All those who have ever led a small ministry should remember that. Those who left no visible evidence or footprint will still be with Christ on that day. That’s a comfort around here.

The next in the list is Thaddaeus. He is also called Judas, son of James, and in some manuscripts, Lebbaeus. John calls him Judas (not Iscariot). We think his name means something like “big-hearted” but the root may come from Aramaic tadda, meaning “breast.” Maybe he and I shared a nickname of sorts, “barrel chest.” It is thought that perhaps he was tender-hearted with a gentle disposition. He only ever had lines in John 14, when he asked why Jesus would only reveal Himself only to the disciples and not the world at large. The nature of that discussion shows he was comfortable with interrupting Jesus. It also showed that he wanted to understand why a man with clearly so much power would want to remain hidden from the world at large. His later ministry tells us that he took the gospel North into modern day Turkey. According to tradition, he was clubbed to death and martyred (if I’m right, probably to shut him up), although there is another story that says he was crucified.

The name that ends my report on the faithful discples is not the final name in the list. We will handle him separately, and there are reasons for it. Simon the Zealot is the name we’re looking at as the final name of the faithful. His name, as Peter, means, “one who hears.” Zelotes was not his surname, it was more of an insulting epiphet, kind of like the word “terrorist,” which would be today’s equivalent. We think he was actually a member of the Zealot party, not just a guy displaying religious zealosness. He is also called a Cananean, and we think it is a transliteration from the Aramaic word for “zealous,” not a reference to the location Canaan. The Zealot movement formed after the death of Herod the Great in the form of uprisings against Roman census taking around AD 6. This group later played a major part in the Jewish revolt against Rome from AD 66-73. Zealots were fiercely patriotic, and they hated Romans for occupying their land. This made Simon the polar opposite of Levi the tax collector, who were seen as lapdogs of the occupying force. Had they both not loved Jesus more, there may have been some real animosity. He abadoned the agenda of the Zealots and accepted the commission of Christ to spread the Gospel. What happened to him later is impossible to tel, but there are reports he went to Persia, Armenia, the Middle East, Africa, and even Brittain. His martyrdome stories are a mix of crucifixion references and references to being sawn in two.

These me, from Simon Peter to Simon the Zealot have some remarkable common traits. The religious leadership of Israel’s establishment hated them all. They were disdained for their support and following of the Jewish Rabbi known as Jesus of Nazareth. They all lacked the faith required for the tasks Jesus asked them to perform; yet, these men were given the responsibility of being Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem, througout all Judea and Samaria, and to the remotest part of the earth (see Acts 1:8, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”)

None of these men started out as preachers. As many as seven of them were commercial fishermen, one was a tax collector, and one was a freedom fighter. None of them had any formal theological education. None had been to seminary, we would say today. But they all learned directly from Jesus, the Messiah, and through them, the doctrine of the New Covenant was preached, was written down, and was articulated around the world starting with these men. Verse 2 of “Nobody” says, “Moses had stage fright // David brought a rock to a sword fight. // You picked twelve outsiders nobody would have chosen and you changed the world. // The moral of the story is // Everybody has a purpose // So when I hear that devil start talkin’ to me sayin’ // Who do you think you are? I say // I’m just a Nobody // Try’n’a tell everybody // all about Somebody who saved my soul // Ever since He rescued me // He gave my sould a song to sing // And I waitin’ for the world to see // Nobody but Jesus.”

It is a comforting thought that all of us have faults and foibles and Jesus not only loves us anyway, but is santifying us for His future service, and that all of us will have privileges in His kingdom we will not deserve, and we will all worship Him as King and Saviour. If there is an application for me here, it is to understand that though I work in relative obscurity now, I am still doing the work He told me to do, and therefore I must do it faithfully. Unlike this next guy. Next paragraph.

19: He Selects the Traitor

I said earlier this study that I wonderd how much time Jesus put into prayer to select the man that He knew would lead to His own physical death. Because of His divine nature, we can know with absolute certainty that He loved Judas Iscariot. And yet He called Judas a devil, and still was never unkind to Him. The reason that Judas turned away from Jesus and became the traitor Christ knew Him to be was that Jesus did not meet Judas’ political expectations, and that left Judas feeling betrayed. He decided to betray Jesus back. Let’s consdier Judas Iscariot.

Judas’ name is actually Judah from the Hebrew. Judah is the kingly line from which Jesus descended through King David. The name itself means “let him be praised.” Leah named Judah as her fourth child this (Genesis 29:35 “And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.”). The praising from the Hebrew wordplay means that she was praising YHWH. That’s Judas’ first name.

Iscariot is generally contested as to meaning. The leading two theories are that it comes from Ish-Kerioth, which is Hebrew for “man of Kirioth, a town in Judea. The theory is that Judas was the lone Judean in a group of Galileans. If that’s the case, there is some significance, because he would have been the outsider in a group of outsiders. Another theory is that it comes from the Latin word sicarius, which means “dagger-man,” and that would link him to the Jewish insurrectionists, specifically the assassins. The second theory is harder to justify to me, because of the narrative gap. It turns Judas into a sympathetic character, and I don’t know that he was.

Unlike his fellow disciples, Judas did not end in obcurity and legend. His biblical significance comes entirely from his treachery and its theological implications. Old Testament prophecy anticipated Judas’ betrayal in Psalm 41:9, which says, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.” Yes, it is a Psalm of David, and it is David lamenting to the Lord that a close friend had betrayed him. However, there are other pictures of the Messiah in Scripture (such as Ps 22 (which you can read on your own). The Scriptures even predict the amount the traitor would be paid in Zechariah 11:12–13 “I said to them, ‘If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!’ So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.’ So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.” This is perhaps a little of the predestination line of discussion, where it is seen that from God’s eternal counsel, Judas’ treason was foreordained (same word) so as to accomplish humanity’s redemption through Christ’s death.

Don’t mistake this position or let the scary “Calvinist” words frighten you into something other than the truth. The classical Reformed position here insists on what looks like a paradox. Judas freely chose to betray Jesus, and this predetermined role in now way nullifies his full accountability for His actions. Remember the line from the 1689 Baptist Confession that says, “...nor is violence offered to the will of the Creature...” We all make our own choices. God just knows what those will be before we do. Jesus Himself says as much in Luke 22:22, which says, “For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” Even though God planned for the betrayl, it was the evil will of the human Judas that provided the source and inspiration for the deed he accomplished. For those who have said that Satan entered him and made him do it, I think that may have simply energized him further. All of us are like this, whether we like it or not.

I think the point here is this. Judas was provided with the same love, care, doctrine, and opportunity as the other 11 men in the group, and he is the ONLY one that chose to sell Jesus out. So what happened? Well, God took Judas as he was, as only God can, and used his evil and wilful act of malice and ire into divine redemption for all from humanity who will ever to turn to Jesus, all while holding Judas perfectly and full responsible for his own choices and actions. Don’t be a Judas.

This evening, we have spent some time considering a very abbreviated look at each discple and their position next to Christ. There are myriads of applications that can be taken out of this, and my own is to think through what Christ is teaching ME, as they had to do with what Christ taught them. I do not want to evilly reject anything the Lord has said to me to do as Judas did. However, despite my own character flaws, I will trust that Jesus will complete and sanctify me as He did his original disciples..

And that’s what I saw in the text for this study. Next time, we will be in 3:20-27, which I have given the loose working title of “The Servant Faces Accusation.”

This coming Sunday, I will be at All Saints Lutheran Church in Ottawa for Communion Sunday. If you are in the Ottawa area, come on out and stay for coffee later and meet a very dear group of saints.

I will share an idea I had for a conference on learning to be holy. Pray for that, there is a lot of planning that has to go into that, and I have to also plan a venue.

Now, for your regularly scheduled announcements.

——-End of Notes——-

[Announcements]

[Alex]

Live Outro:

Thanks so much for joining us this week for the BereanNation.com line-by-line bible study.

This evening, we looked at the disciples and gleaned what we could from what Scripture and history tell us about their lives, to encouraging and motivating effect, at least for me.

If you found today’s session helpful or encouraging, please consider letting us know by liking this video and sharing your thoughts in the comments below—it really helps us reach more people and fosters a great community.

If you feel led to support what we’re doing here, your prayers are always appreciated, and if you wish, there are ways to bless the ministry financially found on Rumble through the rumble tip jar or using the super chats. Every bit helps us continue to bring these studies to you week after week.

May God richly bless you and your family until we meet again next time. Take care, and have a wonderful week!