Who Were the 12 Apostles?

If we have some volunteers down in Cincinnati. I say, you could do a solo every day. That'd be... Not to your preference, I'm sure. I often speak about my failings in memory. This is it. I'll give you a chance to think of yours. I'm not doing a quiz, but just test yourself what you think you could do on this. Because I wonder how many of us think we could probably recite the Ten Commandments, if we were called on. Especially the short version. And the long version is a little more complicated. Probably most of us have some confidence of that. I imagine a lot of us, if I quizzed you on the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, probably could do that. On a bad day, you might forget someone like Istikar or Naftali. And I wonder, how many books of the Bible could we list? I know, well, there was a time when I had them memorized in order, when I was a student. Now I'd have to...the minor prophets are where I always get a little, you know, say, Nahum, Obadiah, and somebody might leave out. I suspect most of us would have some trouble if I asked you to list the names of every one of the twelve apostles. Let me see if I can do it. It'd be Peter and Andrew, James and John, Bartholomew, Matthew... Yeah, okay, I'm cheating. Thomas, James, Simon, Judas the brother of James, and Judas the scariot. Yeah, I think on most days I would have trouble. And now I especially get you confused when some of them have the same names. And you might wonder, is it worth devoting the time of a sermon to looking at the twelve apostles? Obviously, I'm going to answer yes because I went ahead and wrote one, so I hope it's worthwhile. One reason I'd say is I don't know that I've ever heard one on that subject myself. And I said that this morning, and sure enough, Sue Smith told me she heard one about twenty years ago. Well, if you hear a subject covered once every twenty years, that's not too often.

But we don't deal with them as a group very often. They tend to come up on the side when we're talking about something else, or in stories dealing with Jesus Christ. We don't look at who they were as individuals that often. And it is worth studying. They related to Jesus Christ. They spent three and a half years in close contact with Him and learning from Him. That alone is pretty important.

But they also, aside from their historical importance, they've got an important role in the future, which... Let's turn to Matthew 19 to be reminded of that. Matthew 19 and verse 27. Matthew 19 and verse 27. Peter answered and said to him, that is, to Jesus, See, we've left all and followed you. Therefore, what shall we have? So Jesus said, Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, or we would probably say the resurrection, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. That tells us one reason why there are twelve apostles. Not ten, not eleven, not fourteen. But there was one chosen for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Now, we could wonder why twelve tribes of Israel... Of course, people have studied numbers. We often call twelve the number of organization. It seems to fall out that way, that God uses it like that. The idea shows up again in Revelation 21, when the New Jerusalem is described, and it has twelve gates, each of which is inscribed with one of the names of the twelve patriarchs, the tribes of Israel. But, you know, regardless of why it's twelve, we know that these men have a role to play in God's kingdom far into the future. They were trained to be rulers, and they'll have an important contribution to make. So I think one reason for devoting our attention to twelve apostles can overlap considerably with why Christ called and appointed them for His time. He had a job for them to do. Let's turn to Ephesians 2, if you will. Ephesians 2, verse 18. We'll lead into the main point of this. Paul is writing, he says, For through him, that is Jesus Christ, we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. And he says both, he's talking about Jews and Gentiles. He says, Now therefore you're no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation. What foundation? The foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. So the apostles were called to be part of the foundation of the church. Now I want to say that, of course, understanding that the church is built on the rock, the Petra, that was Jesus Christ, or is Jesus Christ. And he said, on this rock, meaning Himself, He would build His church. But the twelve apostles are a vital part of the foundation. That would make it worth knowing what we can about them. We know that in Matthew 16, what I was just citing, I'm not going to turn there, but Christ said, I will build my church. And last Sabbath, I spoke about how He was trained as a carpenter, as a worker with building materials. He probably erected a number of buildings. So He was in a position to know how important a foundation is. You can't build anything that's going to last if you don't have a strong foundation. And that's actually the subject of one of His parables, about the man who built his house on sand, and a storm came along and knocked it right over. But the one who dug down to the rock and had a strong foundation, it endured. Well, the twelve apostles formed an integral foundation of the church, them along with the prophets. They provided God's Word. And because of their strength, they were able to endure, and the early church could endure. The trial is in test that would come upon it, and therefore the church exists today.

If we look back over 20 centuries, we come to the twelve apostles, and they are our connection to Jesus Christ. I wanted to write down that 20 centuries. I heard a minister use that, and I said, boy, 20... that sounds different than saying 2,000 years, 20 centuries. Let's consider another important role for which they were called. We'll see that in Mark chapter 3. Mark 3 and verse 14. I'm going to look at a couple important scriptures.

Mark 3 and verse 14. This is a time when he designates twelve, and remember he had more than twelve disciples. He would sometimes be speaking to a multitude, and there was probably a group that was closer, but he designated twelve, and here's one of the points where it says he appointed twelve.

So he decided who was in the twelve and who wasn't, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach. So the twelve were to be with him, and then also he would send them out to preach. What would they preach? I think we know, but let's look. If you turn a few pages to the front, at the end of the book of Matthew, Matthew 28 and verse 16, we'll see one of the accounts of him giving a commission. Now we know here it says the eleven disciples. He started out with twelve, one lost his commission, but he would be replaced. It would be back up to twelve. I'll address that later. But the eleven disciples went away to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed them, and when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. I'll come back to that also. It's interesting. Some doubted. When we get into the specific record, we only know for sure of one. I wonder if maybe he represented others who weren't named. But Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me, in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, make disciples in all the nations, or of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

So he sent them out, but he promised he would be with them. And of course, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, he was with them, even dwelling in them. But they had a job to do, to go out and preach, teach everything that he had taught.

Let me add one more thing that was vital to their teaching. We're at... Well, let's go to Acts chapter... No, I want to start in 2 Peter. Sorry, I've got three scriptures here I want to look at, and I've varied which order I wanted to address them. 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 16.

So I want to say that Jesus Christ was unique, of course, in the history of mankind, and he had a unique role. He wanted to make sure that what he did was witnessed, and that that witness would go out to people. For 2 Peter 1 and verse 16, Peter, speaking for himself and the others, says, So there's a group of men that were eyewitnesses. They're saying, no, I didn't hear the second hand. I was there. Turn back a few pages to 1 John. 1 John 1. And we'll see a similar statement. And of course, we believe that John was countering a heresy that was coming on the scene, and that he was coming on the scene, and that he was coming on the scene, and that he was coming on the scene, and that he was coming on the scene, and he was countering a heresy that was coming on the scene, even that early, by which some were teaching that Jesus Christ didn't really come in the flesh. Some were saying, well, God could never become man, because flesh is evil. And so he was just some apparition that looked like flesh. Well, John said, no, no, I was there. If we read the beginning of 1 John, it says, That which known from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the word of life. And of course, we know in the Gospel of John, he said, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, but became flesh. The life was manifested. We have seen and bare witness, and declare to you that that eternal life which was from the Father, and was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. Now, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm making too big a deal of this, but I think it's important that the 12 apostles went out and said, We were there. We saw Him. We touched Him. We're eyewitnesses. And everything we know comes from them. Let's look at one more scripture. Acts 1, beginning in verse 1, actually, we'll carry on that same type of account. Now, interestingly, Acts was not written by one of the 12. But I suspect that he interviewed several of them, and perhaps others. We believe it was written by Luke, who also wrote the Gospel account of Luke. And he says here, writing to what might have been his patron, Theophilus, The former account I've made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, till the day which He was taken up, after He, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles, whom He had chosen. So He chose the apostles, to whom also He presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining the kingdom of God. So again, as I said, they were eyewitnesses. And almost all that we know of His ministry became public because of them writing it down, preaching and teaching it. Now, there are some additions. We know that the Apostle Paul said that later that he saw Jesus. And we believe He was instructed personally by Him during that three and a half years that He was in the wilderness. But the Gospel accounts, most of what we know of Jesus Christ, come from these twelve that He chose. He sent them out to preach the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and by doing so, to build a church. Of course, Christ was building the church, but using them as His tools to do it.

There are a number of examples, and I'm not going to turn to all of them, but I think you'll recognize them. You've read them of, as I said, there was a mass. Sometimes Jesus is speaking to huge crowds, such as when He gave the Sermon on the Mount. It says He saw the masses, but then He withdrew up the mountain, with a small number of disciples. So there were a smaller number that He gave more in-depth teaching. I think of one of the parables where they came and asked Him, what does this mean? He said, well, how are you going to understand anything if you don't know this? But He said, to you it's given to understand. To the others, I just speak in parables. So He made sure these men understood, and of course so they could share it with the entire world.

So if you want to turn with me to Matthew 10, let's again identify who they were. Matthew 10, verses 2-4 provides one complete list. There are some other places, and I'll give you the reference if you're taking notes and you just want to have that.

They're also listed in Mark 3, verses 16-19. They're listed in Luke 6, verses 14-16. And also the first chapter of Acts. Acts 1, verse 13 lists the 11 after Judas Iscariot left. But Matthew groups them in pairs, and I believe probably the pairs that they were assigned to as working groups.

There are a couple of times where it says Jesus sent disciples out in pairs. At one point He sent 70, so 35 pairs. But another time we believe He sent the 12 out, and He put them together, and God likes us to work in pairs, apparently. Matthew 4, and chapter 2, or Matthew... Let me say that again. Matthew 10, beginning in verse 2. The names of the 12 apostles are these. First, Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew, his brother. James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother. Philip and Bartholomew. Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector. James, the son of Alphaeus, and Labaius, whose surname is Thaddeus. Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Now I want to go to Matthew 4. We've got the list there, and I want to go through them one at a time. But first, let's look at their general calling, the start of them being in the special position. We find that in Matthew 4, where we see four of the disciples who became known as apostles, specifically called by Christ. Matthew 4 in the second verse. No? No. Verse 17 is where I want.

He said to them, follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men. Now, I like the fact that Mr. Stiver likes to say that this is probably part of Christ's sense of humor, making a play on words. They were fisher men. He said, I'll make you fishers of men. I'm not sure how that sounds in Aramaic or Greek, but maybe it's just as clever, if you want to call that clever. I'm not big into puns, but anyways, they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Or James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother. Sorry, grouped them together. In the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately, they left their boat and their father and followed after him. It's interesting, we'll come to the point later that Jesus nicknamed them the sons of thunder. We suspect that's because of their traits, but I've heard some people speculate that maybe that was a comment on Zebedee. And you wonder if they were vital to his business or to working with him in the nation. Well, sorry, Dad, we're out of here. He might have made a lot of noise at that point. But that's just speculation, as I said. I really think it applies to something different. But we see these four. These four are the most prominent among the twelve. And it actually includes three who were what we often call the inner circle. But if you read just this, you might think that they were there fishing and some stranger walked up, possibly someone they'd never seen before, and he says, come with me, like they went into a trance because they saw the halo and the flowing robe and said, we've got to go with him. That's probably not how it was. Let's turn over to John 1 and see a different account.

And I believe not an account that contradicts what we just read, but supplements and adds to it. John 1, beginning in verse 35.

Now, here, we're breaking into a thought. It says, the next day John stood with two of his disciples. Now, this John is John the Baptist, which is addressed earlier. So John the Baptist is there, a couple of his disciples, and looking at Jesus, as he walked, he said, look, there's the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, so they followed Jesus. I'm not sure if John the Baptist realized that if he says, hey, that's the Son of God, they might think, well, let's go follow him. But they did, and Jesus turned, and seeing them follow, said, what do you seek? Well, Rabbi, which is to say, teacher, where are you staying? He said, come and see. So they came and saw where he was, staying, and they remained with him that day. And it was about the tenth hour. So they spent the rest of the day obviously talking, and he started teaching them. He must have said something profound, because one of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. And so he first found his own brother Simon and said, we found the Messiah, which is translated to Christ. And as I said, this isn't a contradiction of the account we just read in Matthew, but meant as supplementary material.

Probably this happened earlier, and I'll mention later on that they probably even knew Jesus before this. But what we read in Matthew, where Christ came along and said, okay, come follow me. Probably that was the formal invitation to become his disciples. You know, a teacher would choose who could follow him. And an analogy popped into my head, which I'm not sure how accurate it was, but I thought if you've ever tried out for a sports team, you go and there's a general tryout, there's a lot of athletes there, and then you wait for the coach to pin the list on the door. You know, or pins it up somewhere, you want to see if you made the cut. And I thought, you know, maybe these people had known Jesus, he'd converse with them, and then he's coming along and saying, basically, you made the cut, you're on the traveling team, so come on, let's go. Now, he didn't say in that words, he said, come with me, I'll make you fishers of men, but it might have been a similar thing. They already knew who he was. He knew they were interested in being his disciples, and at that point he recruits them, you are, you know, I want you to be my disciples. And they followed him and went from there. It's worth noting, he went to a working area. He went down by the seashore. He didn't go choose from the upper class. No princes, no noblemen, not even any rabbis. As a matter of fact, the only follower he chose that was a rabbi, eventually, was the Apostle Paul, and he had to really break him down and change his mode of thinking. But seeing that they're ordinary folk, well, they became extraordinary, but, you know, they had, they were human. They had strengths and weaknesses, and I want to look at each of them and discern what we can about them. We'll see some weaknesses, but also some strengths. I don't want us to see them as just a list of names.

But I will mention, before I go on to look at one at a time, there was this inner circle. Three men seemed to be closer to Jesus than the other twelve. Peter, James, and John.

Those were the three that Christ allowed to come with him when he resurrected Jairus' daughter. Remember, that's the nobleman who his daughter was sick and sent the message, and then as they were coming, someone came and said, well, your daughter's already dead. Don't bother to teach her. Jesus said, well, if you believe, all things are possible. And he put everyone out. The only people allowed to be there were his three closest men. Also, when he went up in the mountaintop at one point, and he told them, some of you won't see death until you see the Son of Man in his glory. Three people, Peter, Andrew, and James. No, Peter, James, and John. Andrew wasn't among them. Peter, James, and John went up there, and they saw the vision of Christ glorified, and speaking to Elijah and Moses. These were also the same three that the night before Christ was crucified in the Garden of Gethsemane. He went off to pray, and he asked those three, come with me and pray. Now, they fell asleep, but he asked them to be with him. It makes you wonder, if those three were singled out, were they more qualified than the others? I don't know. Were they less qualified? Did they need extra help? Did they need to see those visions? I don't know that either. So, I'm posing a question that I can't answer, but we can see that he did have three that he treated in a slightly different way. But let's move on, and let's look at each of the twelve, one at a time. Starting, of course, well, I shouldn't say of course, but we'll start with Peter. He's always at the top of the list. We know Peter wrote two books of the Bible, the ones that have his name, first and second Peter. But I'll add to that, scholars widely believe that the book, the Gospel of Mark, was based on Peter's recollections. What we read in the Bible of Mark was that he, remember, first he traveled with Paul and Barnabas, and then he went home. And then later, when Barnabas wanted to bring him on the second trip, Paul didn't want him. And later, he became useful. History and tradition says that later Mark served Peter and traveled with him and was his close student. And from Peter's recollections, he wrote the Gospel of Mark. As I said, the Bible doesn't say that, but tradition says that. And those people who believe that would say the book of Mark could have been called the Gospel account of Peter. When Peter first appears in the Bible, he's named Simon. And he's referred to that a number of times, but Jesus gave him a new name. Peter or Cephas. Both of those mean a stone. They're two different languages. Peter is Greek. Cephas is Aramaic. And actually, at that time in world history, most people in the Mediterranean area spoke Greek, and also spoke a different language that was their home language. I would say, unless they were from Greece, then they'd be like Americans who speak one language.

But now, most people spoke Greek for public business and went by whatever their name meant in Greek. But also, at home, they spoke their native language, which for most of the people in Palestine would have been Aramaic. Hebrew was the language of the synagogue, and the Pharisees spoke it, but usually in the synagogue. But anyways, what I'm getting at is, so it wouldn't have been uncommon for people to go by two names. Cephas and Peter. And of course, he happened to also have the name Simon. We'll notice later, Thomas is sometimes called Didymus. And there's an account in Acts where God used Peter to resurrect a woman named Dorcas, who is also named Tabitha. And those were both words that meant a deer, I believe. As I said, it took a long time for me to get used to that, because I always think of a name as being the label attached to a person, that it shouldn't be translated. That's why, when I started taking French in the eighth grade, my French teacher kept wanting to call me Francois. And I wouldn't answer to her. I said, my name's not Francois, it's Frank. Well, I didn't understand this, that at least in ancient times, you wouldn't just use the name as a label, you would change what you called someone. Anyways, I'm getting off more of that than we need to say. There's no doubt that Peter was a leader. He stood out among the twelve.

And perhaps because of that, we see Peter, perhaps God, remade him more than some of the others. I mentioned that with Paul. Paul, you know, when Jesus had to knock Paul down and take him out in the wilderness and retrain him, Peter went through a lot of changes, too.

But through it all, he still had that strength of character. He was, like I said, outstanding. But I want to make the point that we don't believe that Peter was the first pope. The Catholic Church teaches that he became the first pope, that he was designated leader, and they based that on that. That scripture I read where Christ said, on this rock I will build my church. But basically he was speaking to Peter, and he said, you're Peter, you're Petros. He said, on this Petra, speaking of himself, I'll build my church.

Now, as I said, having said that, Peter takes the lead a lot of times.

Over the course of several decades, the church that we're a part of has varied its view of Peter. In the very early years, in the 1930s and 40s, we've taught pretty much the way we do now. That Peter was an outstanding, he took a leadership role, but he probably wasn't designated as the leader. There was a time for a few decades when we said, no, maybe he was the leader, that Christ appointed him, and he had ultimate authority.

Basically, we shifted how we interpreted the Scriptures to match how we wanted to have our church run. That's not uncommon. But right now, we shift back and say, wait a minute, James was obviously the leader in the Jerusalem congregation. We know there's one account where Paul publicly admonished Peter and corrected him in public. So we don't think Peter was an autocratic leader with all authority.

But still, as I said, he took a leadership role. People noticed Peter.

As a matter of fact, we read about him so often that I don't have time to... I'm not going to turn to all the accounts of Peter, but we can see he was a man of action, often impulsive action. Peter tended to act first and then think later, like the time he drew out a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest.

He probably had that sword out and swinging it before he had a chance to think, because Jesus said, put your sword up. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Last week I mentioned Peter when Christ appeared on the seashore. Peter jumped naked into the... well, no, he wasn't naked. He put on his outer garment and then jumped in. And the other apostles said, wait a minute, we've got a little boat here. Let's take the boat and bring the fish with us.

Now, Peter had a combination of tremendous strength, but in his early years also it seems a bit of an instability. As I said, he would jump to conclusions. And those are traits we probably all have at times. And as Peter overcame, so can we. The written account shows Jesus speaking to Peter more often than any of the other apostles.

Sometimes in praise, but also sometimes in correction. Interestingly, there's only one apostle who's ever recorded as chastising Jesus. One says they're going to Jerusalem, Jesus starts telling Peter, you know, we're not... he starts telling them all, we're going to go there and basically I'm going to be crucified and killed. And Peter says, no, no, that's not going to happen to you. We won't let that. Jesus stops, he says, get behind me, Satan. You know, you're not thinking of the things of God.

Probably took a strong man to have your master call you Satan and not be so dejected and give up. You know, Peter took the correction and he grew from it. And Peter was able to gain control of his impulsive nature. And he became a very powerful tool in God's work, as you can read in the book of Acts. Now, I'm going to leave Peter right now. But the natural thing might be to want to look to what the apostles did after the biblical account. And there's been a lot of speculation and a lot of study into that. It, as I said, I went a little long this morning, so there's certainly not time to cover it today. I might just touch on it as we wrap up. But instead, let's turn to Andrew. Not a lot is said about Andrew in the Bible. He's often grouped with Peter. You know, Peter and Andrew. Andrew and Peter, they were brothers. And perhaps a lot of Peter's character traits applied to Andrew. I'm not sure about that, but I did notice three distinct things that stand out about him. If you want to turn to John 1, well, I'm already there, actually, we'll see that he was the first of the twelve to recognize who Jesus was. And we read that earlier in John 1, verse 40. One of those two who heard John the Baptist speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He found his brother and said, we found the Messiah. So he said, this is the Messiah. He got it. To me, that's significant. I wonder how many of us could say that they were the first in their family to have found and recognized Jesus, not personally, but through his church and his work. I couldn't make that claim. My grandmother was the first in my family in this modern era. But I'm sure some of you have been in that situation. And it must have been, I wonder, perhaps a little bit scary and lonely at first because you're looking around and saying, how come everybody else doesn't see this? But it's still, you know, it's very powerful. And of course, the other thing then we see immediately is that Andrew brought his brother to Christ. So he was able to share it. And that's another thing I wonder many of us, I'm sure, have been able to do, to share the truth with others that are close to you, whether family members or friends, that you were able to share this and God did call them. God doesn't call everybody that we want to share the truth with. Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating when he doesn't. I'll bet a lot of you have had that experience like I have of praying that God would open someone's mind and he says, no, it's not time for that yet. Andrew might have had a role of bringing people to Jesus. There's some speculation that Peter and Andrew were both friends with Philip and then he might have brought Philip. We'll see Philip a little bit later.

But he also had, well, I'll mention in John 12. I'm not going to turn there, but the account goes that there's a group of it says Greeks. They were probably Jews who were from Greece visiting to worship. And they came to Philip and said, we'd like to meet Jesus. Well, Philip didn't bring him to Jesus. He brought him to Andrew, and Andrew brought him to Jesus. I wonder about that, but maybe Andrew was the type that didn't mind making introductions.

In John 6, that's a story, of course, when Jesus, you know, there's some hard teaching where he talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Before he did that, he fed the multitude, you know, thousands of people with a few bread and fish. Where did he get that bread and fish? Well, a fella named Andrew said, hey, here's this lad that's got five loaves. So Andrew introduced him, brought him up here. We got this. What can you do with it? Now, I'm putting those words into his mouth. I don't know if he said that.

But, you know, it is a privilege when you get to introduce somebody to God, in a sense.

Another thing I'll mention about Andrew, and this might sound odd, but I'll make the point that he was not Peter. He might have had a lot of his strengths, but what do we know about Peter? Peter was a leader. He was impulsive. Peter later gave a sermon to 3,000, or that led to 3,000 people being baptized on that Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out.

Peter walked by and had his shadow fall over somebody and have them healed.

Peter was in the spotlight, but not Andrew. Andrew, rather, seemed to be in the shadow of Peter.

But from what we can see, we don't have any knowledge of that bothering Andrew.

We could look at Andrew and see an example of someone who learned to play second fiddle.

And it's funny, I've heard that a lot of times, or that phrase, when my sister was in the marching band and then the concert chorale in school, she played clarinet.

And I think one year she was first clarinet. And I didn't realize, I learned from talking to her and watching, that when you're the first seat for an instrument, it's a little different than second. You have a leadership role. But being able to play the second chair is important. And it takes, you know, you have to subdue the ego and be able to follow, even if the leader makes a mistake.

So it's significant that Andrew could play second fiddle and apparently was very effective at it.

And that way a lot of us might be more like Andrew than Peter. And we might spend decades in God's church and not be used in a powerful way, not be put in charge of things. Maybe we think not noticed. But hopefully we'll learn to play that role just as effectively as Andrew did.

Because that's not a bad thing. It shows spiritual maturity. And God, you know, remember, Andrew might have played second fiddle maybe for all of his life, but he's going to be ruling one of the twelve tribes of Israel. That's not a small thing.

So let's move on to John.

John, we believe, wrote the second greatest amount of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul wrote a lot that's in the New Testament, but John wrote the Gospel of John. He also wrote the three general epistles of John. First John, second John, third John. And I always like to say, when I was little, my grandmother designated to separate the Gospel account from the others. She called them the Little Johns. So he wrote John and then the Little Johns, not to be confused with Robin Hood's friends.

And also, of course, he wrote the Book of Revelation.

Interestingly, and I wonder if some of you will notice this, if you look at artistic representation, statutes and paintings of the twelve apostles, for some reason John is always portrayed as being very effeminate. Small, weak. Matter of fact, in Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper, most of us know that, you see the one right next to Jesus looking like a woman. Matter of fact, so much so, if you've read the book, the Da Vinci Code, or seen the movie, the author there contends that that actually was a woman and not John.

And I don't want to get into that. But the Bible shows us a different picture of John. In Mark 3, 17, Jesus called him, along with his brother, sons of thunder. As I said, some speculate that that was a statement about Zebedee, but in the language of the times, calling someone a son of something was used as an adjective, similar to the way Barnabas was called the son of encouragement, meaning he was a great encourager.

Jesus calling John a son of thunder probably meant he was a person of power and even electrifying personality. He was probably a man of action and strong emotion. Let's turn to Luke 9. I'm not going to read all of these, but this is an interesting case, I think. Luke 9 and verse 51. You might guess a lot of the things James and John are put together so much that I won't have as much separate to say about James. There are some interesting things, though. But Luke 9 and verse 51, Now it came to pass when the time had come for him, that is Jesus, to be received up. He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.

He sent messengers before his face, and as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him. So let's stop here for the night. But they didn't receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. We don't want to bother posting him. He's going to Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and burn him up just like Elijah did?

Does that sound like a weak effeminate? Let's burn him out! We'll teach them a lesson. There's also an account, and actually it appears earlier. Yeah, in verse 49, John answered and said, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he doesn't follow with us.

Don't you dare speak in Jesus' name. You're not one of us. That's interesting. John went up to a complete stranger and told him, you can't do that. Again, not a wilting flower type. Actually, I'm going to turn to this account later, but it's well known that James and John, with the collusion of their mother, angled to try to ask Jesus to give them the top jobs in his kingdom. This shows perhaps a strong family trait of strong ambition, but not necessarily of modesty and humility.

Something interesting I didn't realize until I was looking at this, but these three accounts of things that we could call failings or shortcomings on John's part, we read about them in Matthew, in Mark, and in Luke. We don't read about them in the book of John. John didn't reveal about himself that he wanted to burn down a village of Samaritans.

He doesn't mention that he rebuked a man who was casting out demons, or that he played politics, trying to get a top position at Christ's hand. And I'll add, for that matter, he also didn't reveal of himself that he fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus had specifically said, Please sit up and pray with me. Now, how would we explain that? Well, a possible explanation is that he didn't want to talk about his faults.

Maybe he wanted to cover them up. Or, I'd prefer to think this. Remember, the Gospel account of John, we believe, was written many years later. And it's written very different. It's not one of what are called the synoptic Gospels that overlap. John came at it from a whole different approach. Maybe he was saying, Everybody knows all those things. Let me present different material from a different perspective.

So it might not have been as necessary. One thing we do find in the book of John that's not in the others, he referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Now, five different times. I'm not going to turn there. If you want to note, it's John 13, verse 23, 19, verse 26, 20, verse 2, 21, verse 7, and 21, verse 20. Here you might say, Was John being conceited? I'm the one Jesus loved. Now, personally, I don't think so. I think this was an idiom that was translated.

I suspect that what he was saying is the equivalent of what today we might say, best friend. Perhaps he was Jesus' best friend, which isn't a small thing, and that could still be making a claim. But in all those references, he doesn't refer to himself by name. He doesn't say, I, John, am the one Jesus loved. He just used that without saying a name. The only way we know who it was is the very last time he says, that's the disciple whom Jesus loved who also wrote this book.

And then, of course, his name got attached to it through history and tradition. So the jury could be out. We could say, well, he was pretty vain. Or we could say he was modest. In any account, we could say John's a good representation of someone who did make mistakes that were publicly known, but he preferred not to dwell on them. Look, I don't have to bring this up again. We all know I did this wrong. Let me tell you about some other important things. Not trying to cover it up, but how many of us could say that about ourselves?

I know I could, especially when I go up and visit Columbus. I'm very thankful there are brethren there that don't say, Hey, you remember the time when you did this and Mr. Dick had to call you in and correct you? And I still leave some of those things behind. And I'll say, anyone who could be considered the best friend of God in the flesh, he could be a good role model.

So let's move on to his brother, James. Because of the way things are phrased, most scholars believe that James was actually the older brother of the Apostle John. And we've just read he shared several of these characteristics.

He was right there with John wanting to call fire down from heaven and rebuking someone. Without turning there, Luke 5 and verse 10 tells us that Peter, Andrew, and James and John were partners together in a fishing business. So that account we read in Matthew where Jesus calls Peter and Andrew and then walks down the shore, it makes you think it's a totally separate thing, but apparently they were partners. They worked together. There's another thing that's important. I'll come back to that thought. But if we put four different scriptures together, they give us an indication that John and James might have been related to Christ.

We can't prove that, but the scriptures are Matthew 27, verse 56, Mark 15, verse 40, and then John 19 and verse 25. And I'm citing each one of these are an account of Jesus Christ being crucified, and it names some of the women who were there, you know, looking on. And each one lists some of the same names but some different ones. But they mention, one of them mentions Salome being there.

Now, Salome is important because she was Zebedee's wife. You know, James and John were the sons of Zebedee and Salome. So Salome was Mrs. Zebedee. I don't know if you say that. And some people notice that Salome is listed in some accounts as being there at the crucifixion site.

And one of the accounts says Mary was there and Mary's sister. Was Mary's sister also Salome? It can't be proven, but there's some reason to think it could have been. And if that were the case, then James and John were Jesus Christ's cousins. And so perhaps they not only had known him before, but maybe they'd known him most of his life and had association with him. And then imagine they say, hey, he's actually the Messiah. I say, well, I always thought he was a real good guy, you know?

You know, he never called anybody bad names. He never got in trouble. Maybe there's a reason. Like I said, I'm kind of speculating there, but it's interesting to think about. Now, of the three men who made up Christ's inner circle, I mentioned Peter, James, and John, James is the one we know the least about. I'll mention the one thing we do know the most for sure about him. He was the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred, the first to die. It's recorded in Acts 12.

And there's not a lot of detail about that, but Herod had him killed. Now, it's interesting. If we don't know much else about him, that's... Well, it could be that just not much made it into Scripture, but it could be that he was a relatively quiet man. And maybe next to those other three, it was hard to get a word in.

But there's also the thought that maybe in this partnership where Peter and John were both outspoken men of action, maybe where Peter would speak up, James would stop and listen and think before he acted. And if so, that might have been important that Jesus wanted to have that countermeasure, sort of the counterweight. Yeah, I've got a couple blustery men that speak too soon, and then I've got someone who's also strong, also doing a lot of this other stuff, wanting to burn down the Samaritans, but who would stop and think?

Let's turn to Mark 10. I mentioned we'd look at this account where James and John wanted to get the top positions in the kingdom. But I want to look at it from a different perspective here. Mark 10 and verse 35. Now, another account mentions that their mother was involved in this, but this is a briefer version. It says, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, Teacher, we don't want you to do whatever we ask.

In our vedacular, we might say, Hey, we've got a favor to ask. And he said, Well, what do you want? I want to ask a favor. Before you say yes, you say, Okay, well, what is it? He said, Well, no big deal. Just grant us that one might sit on your right hand and the other on your left hand in your glory. That's no big deal. Just give us the top two jobs in your kingdom. But Jesus said, You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with?

Actually, He said, Are you really going to be able to go through the kind of trial and test, the hard stuff that I'm going to? And what did they answer? They said to him, We are able. Interesting, Jesus said, Well, yeah, you're going to. But I still can't give you the top jobs. The Father set that aside. Now, they both said they were able. But James was the one that got to live up to that fairly soon. He was the one that Herod took out and had killed.

The good thing is, it turns out he was able. Now, he'd seen his master crucified. He'd seen a terrible death. And he was probably on hand when Stephen was taken out and stoned. And James was the next one after that.

He put his life on the line early on, but when it came down to it, he was able to drink of that cup. He was able to be baptized of the same baptism. And I hope that's encouraging to many of us. You know, if there are men and women in our group who aren't necessarily outspoken, maybe not blustery or not the first to answer, but maybe those who speak softly or seldom, but think deeply, those are oftentimes the people that stand tall when needed. You know, and it's unfortunate.

My tendencies want to put myself in that group, but I can't anymore. It's my job to be up here doing this. But, you know, a lot of you either are that type or know someone like that.

You know, you don't jump up and have the first word. But as I said, God knows what's in your heart, and those people sometimes are the ones that are the strongest when the time comes. Apparently James was one of those. Let's move on to Matthew.

Matthew, also known as Levi, we just recounted four fishermen, but Christ called people from other occupations. We don't know what occupations for most of them, but one we do know. Matthew was profitably employed in the revenue service of the empire. That's a fancy way of saying he was a tax collector. Now, some people guessed that he probably wasn't what we'd call an IRS agent going around, and this morning I said, shaking people down. What I was thinking of is a week or so ago, Sue got out of the library, the Disney movie of Robin Hood with the animation, Robin Hood to Fox.

I think Sheriff Nottingham is... was he a bear? Some big oaf who went around shaking people down and taking their money. That probably wasn't Matthew. Boy, I'm getting sidetracked. He lived up in Galilee, and Galilee was the northern entrance into Palestine and was on a major trade route. So it's more likely he was a customs officer, collecting import or export taxes, which might be a little more favorable with the people, but even so, tax collectors were not popular.

Most Jews considered someone who took that job to be a trader. They didn't want to have anything to do with them. Of course, Jesus would be criticized. As a matter of fact, I'll mention it. It's recorded in the ninth chapter of Matthew that when Matthew left his career, he gave up being a tax collector to become a disciple of Jesus, and he wanted to celebrate.

Apparently, he probably was well off. He had some money, so he invited all of his friends to have a special dinner with Jesus Christ. And then the Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with publicans and sinners. And publicans and sinners naturally go together in their minds. Of course, Jesus answered, well, they're the ones that need me, just like healthy people don't need a doctor. Interesting to think about from Matthew, though. These might have well been the only friends he had before he became a disciple.

Among the parables that Matthew recorded, we see that his training for business principles, perhaps he understood accounting methods, and we find several parables that he made sure to record. His gospel account is where we get the phrase, you can't serve God and mammon.

He records the parable about the merchant who found the pearl of great price. And then subsequently, the man who found a treasure in a field and sold all he had to get it. Lots of people heard those parables, but Matthew wrote them down. Perhaps he more quickly perceived the lesson because he thought about money. He was trained that way. Maybe Christ wanted to have somebody with that background and training in his group to make sure that those lessons weren't lost. And I'm speculating there a bit. But it's worth, as I said, noting. And we could turn to look at us. We're called from a lot of different backgrounds.

Each of us has unique experiences. Who knows? If you feel like, boy, I'm different than all the others, you might have a unique background because God wanted you and his family at this time for those skills or for that perspective that you can bring to bear that other people wouldn't necessarily have.

I'm going to do a quick trade. As we turn to the second James in the group, James the son of Alphaeus. James came from the city of Capernaum. Sometimes he's referred to as James the Less. You're going to find I've got less to say about each one of these men as we go because there's less known about them. James the Less wasn't necessarily smaller or less important, but we think that James the Elder, the first James, was probably, well, James the older. So James the Less was probably younger. Now, I should mention there's a book of James, the general epistle.

We don't think it was written by either of these Jameses. There was yet another James who was Christ's half-brother. We know his brothers didn't believe him during his ministry, but later they did come in, and tradition says that Christ's half-brother James would eventually become the pastor of the Jerusalem church, and we think he wrote the general epistle James, not this one.

In other words, this James didn't. But there might be a family connection here. I just said he was known as James the son of Alphaeus. That's in Matthew 10 and verse 3. In Mark 2, verse 14, Matthew is listed as the son of Alphaeus. So it's possible that this is a third set of brothers that God chose to be twelve apostles. And that doesn't surprise me. Through the history of the church and in the modern era, we can see God likes to work with families. And I can't find a better example than here in this congregation.

I've said, if you're related to one of about four or five families, that probably covers it. We've got shoemakers, calls, evances, and I'd add, well, Warrens are becoming a growing clan. Well, I'm not hinting anything, but we've got six of them in the congregation now. And this morning I had to realize I had four Bledsoe's sitting in front of me. So there's a lot of family in God's church.

And that's a good thing. He calls us all to become family. Oh, I overlooked the Helterbrands. Of course, that's because they all move away. But sometimes some of them come back. Anyways, if I start leaving people out, I'll be in trouble. Oh, yeah, because I look over, I've got a number of McKinneys around here, too. Okay, I'm going to stop. Now I've lost my place. Oh, well, I'm going to move on to Thomas.

Thomas, as I said, also known as Didymus, which means the twin. He's the apostle who, unfortunately for him, is most known for a fault. What do we know of him as? Doubting Thomas. Most of what we know of him is found in John's Gospel account. Now, you know the story, and I'll come to that later, but let's turn to John 11. I was going to say, you know the story of him doubting or wanting proof, but let's see some positive about him. At least a couple things that I see as positive. John 11 and verse 16, actually, let me go back to 15.

Because basically, this is where Jesus and the disciples are up in Galilee, and he learns, well, somehow he knows that Lazarus is sick and is going to die, and Jesus says, we've got to go to see Lazarus. Lazarus is sleeping, and they say, well, that's good, it'll get better. No, he's dead. And in verse 15, he says, I'm glad for your sakes I wasn't there, that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go to him. Then Thomas, who's called the twins, said to his fellow disciples, well, let us go, that we might die with him. Scholars interpret this a couple of different ways. Some say he's saying, well, Lazarus is dead, we might as well go be dead with Lazarus.

But I think more likely is, you know, they told Jesus, look, you can't go down there, they've been trying to kill you. But Jesus says, no, I have to go. And Thomas says, well, if Jesus is going, we'll go, even if it means we have to die with Jesus. That's a good mark on Thomas.

To me, that balances out a little bit of doubt. We also see him say something special on that last Passover. If you'll turn to John 14, Jesus, of course, is explaining a lot of things, some difficult to understand. And Thomas was at least willing to admit when he didn't understand. John 14, well, I'll start in verse 4. Jesus says, where I go, you know, in the way. You know, he's talking about he was going to go to heaven to be with the Father.

Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can we know the way? And Jesus said, well, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. But, you know, having been a teacher, I can say one of the most valuable things in a classroom is someone who will raise his hand and say, I don't know what you just said.

Because then you say, oh, now I need to explain it better, or come back and make sure you do understand. Jesus was probably really glad Thomas said this. Lord, we don't know what you're saying. And so he was able to explain it a different way.

And of course, it was a few days later in John 20 when Thomas did want some proof. And there's a lesson in this for us that I don't think is all negative. As a matter of fact, a lot of it is positive. Now, we know Jesus Christ had appeared. And in verse 24, Thomas called the twin, one of the twelve was not with them when Jesus came. So when they said, we've seen the Lord, he said, well, unless I see in his hand the print of the nails, I put my finger in the print of the nails, and put my hand to his side, I won't believe.

So basically, I'm not going to believe you guys. I want to see this myself. And after eight days, the disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came with the door shut, stood in the midst, said, Peace be with you. And he said, Thomas, I can see him. He said, Thomas, put your finger in here. Look at my hands. Put your hand in my side.

Don't be unbelieving but believing. And Thomas answered and said, My Lord and my God. Thomas believed now. And Jesus said, Thomas, because you've seen, you believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and believed. So it's good to be able to have that faith. But face it, how many of us sometimes have doubts? And say, well, I don't know. But notice, Thomas might have said, I'm not going to believe until I see it. But he didn't say, you guys are crazy, I'm out of here. The next time Jesus showed up, who was where?

Who was there? Thomas was there. He hadn't given up. And I like the fact that Jesus worked with him. He didn't say, Thomas, you shouldn't be here because you didn't believe. He said, let me help you walk through this thing you're struggling with. Let me give you the proof. I think for all of us, we can have that, too. God will work with us to overcome our doubts and things we don't understand. He'll be more patient with us often than we are with ourself or with him.

So that's an important thing for us to remember. If we stick through it, God will lead us through it. I'm not sure if that was well said, but let's move on to Philip. Philip was from the same city of Peter and Andrew. I never know if I'm pronouncing it right, Bethsaida. He was the one, now he shares a trait with Andrew, he brought his friend Nathaniel to meet Jesus.

So those things I said about introducing somebody to the truth, Philip had a part of that. And actually I want to go to there in John 1, because we can notice a difference in how he did it. We don't know a lot about Philip, but we can infer something important in the way he thinks and the way he thought and spoke. Because remember, when Andrew spoke to Jesus, he came back to Peter and said, We found the Messiah! Shortened to the point.

And John 1, verse 45, we'll see, Philip found Nathaniel and said, We found him of whom Moses, in the law, and also the prophets wrote. Jesus, the son of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. That's a lot more information than we found the Messiah. It shows he'd been studying.

This is the one that Moses wrote of, and it's in the prophets. He must have known all this, and he sort of lays out a logical argument. And it doesn't just say, Here's the Messiah, it's Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So he explains exactly which Jesus it is. There's one indication also in that account in John 6, where Jesus feeds the multitude, that Philip, with that analytical thinking, might have been good at doing math in his head.

There's one point where Jesus sees the masses, and we know he knows in advance what he's going to do, and he asks the apostles, How are we going to feed all these people? Most of them are probably going, I don't know. Philip has an answer. He says, Well, 200 denarii worth of bread wouldn't be enough to give him more than just a little bit. Where did he come up with that? Well, he probably had been counting, or at least had an estimate, Okay, it's this many.

We can buy so much bread with this much money. And in his head, he'd figured out. Now, of course, it still took a miracle from Jesus Christ, and Andrew brought the kid with the bread and the fish up. But, you know, I can't do math like that in my head. I usually don't even try. But I value somebody who has that kind of talent. And whatever talent and skill it is we have, God wants us to put it to use. A lot of different types of thinking and talents are useful in the church, and will be in God's kingdom. I've got to start speeding up. I don't want to run too long.

But let's turn to the next disciple, Bartholomew. Now, interestingly, now we're here in John 1, we'll find that he's known by a different name, but we think this is the same one. I just mentioned Philip found Nathanael, of whom he said, We found him, of whom it's written, and Moses, the law of the prophet, she's of Nazareth.

Nathanael said, Well, can anything good come out of Nazareth? He's a little skeptical, but Philip says, Well, come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and he said, Behold, in Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile. And they have a little more discussion after that.

We're almost certain that Bartholomew and Nathanael are the same person. Interestingly, Nathanael doesn't appear on the other gospel accounts. Now, that name doesn't, but Bartholomew is in all the lists. But he's not mentioned anywhere else. So, one of the things we think is Bartholomew might have been a distinguishing second name. In Hebrew, in an Aramaic, bar was often meant son of. And scholars believe it might have been Bartolome, Bartolome, and it became Anglicized as Bartholome, or the son of Tolome.

But his actual name was Nathanael. And I'm telling you this because we don't know much else about him, except what Jesus tells us. And if there's one thing I would want to emulate in him is being someone in whom is no guile. Or, New King James says, no deceit. For him, what you see is what you get. Even when he said, I don't know if anything good can come out of Nazareth. And Jesus was probably there saying, hey, I'm from Nazareth. Well, Jesus said, I appreciate you being outspoken. Now, let's go on to Thaddeus, or who is also known as Judas, the son of James.

And he has another name in Scripture, which is good for me because I don't have much else to tell you about him. But in Luke 6 and in Acts 1, he's called Judas the brother of James. And Matthew 10 is listed as Lebeius.

And in Mark 3, he's called Thaddeus. We're pretty certain it's the same guy, though, because it falls in the same place on all the lists, and everyone else is accounted for. So everyone else, the names match up. It has to be the same guy. One thing we can note in Luke 6 and Acts 1, where it says James... Our English translation says Judas the brother of James, and the actual Greek, the word brother of, is not there.

The Greek says, James... I'm getting back to Judas of James. In many cases, that would have been translated the son of. So we're not sure, was this Judas the son of James or the brother of James? And we don't know. But in any case, there's no indication that his brother or son is one of the James's that are apostles. But if it was, it would be a case of yet one more pair of brothers. We know at least half of them were brothers. Perhaps, you know, eight out of the twelve were. Let's mention Simon. In Matthew 10 and Mark 3, he's called Simon the Canaanite. But Luke 6 calls him Simon the Zealot. Or some translations say Simon Zelotes.

Actually, scholars have determined that the original King James version, the 1611, Matthew and Mark have it mistranslated. The best manuscripts in Greek have the word not Canaanites. Canaanites is the word for Canaanite. But actually, the better Greek manuscripts have Canaanaios, which means the Canaanian. And that's a mouthful. If you have it written out, it's easier to understand. But the Canaanian was Aramaic for the zealot.

Or the Patriot. Might be a better way to say it. If we call him Simon the Patriot, we believe it's referring to his former political party. So he was probably a Jewish nationalist, eager to overthrow the Romans, kick them out, and establish home rule again. And there were a lot of people like that. Remember the Maccabean revolt had been a few generations earlier before the Romans imposed their rule. So he was so zealous, that was a nickname that stuck with him.

And I'll say stuck with him when he probably left that. Because when he was called to be Jesus's disciple, he realized, as I think most of us do, that he had a higher political calling. Our politics is the kingdom of God. Some of us might lean more towards one party than another in the United States, but we all know they're not going to solve our problems. No political party has the right answer unless they have God as their leader. And I imagine Simon was probably like that. Okay, you might still call me the zealot or the patriot, but I'm following Jesus.

I want to be in his kingdom, not that of some other Israelite. Okay, let's consider Judas Iscariot. Now, some scholars believe he might have been the only one of the twelve who was not from Galilee. We know Jesus called most of them from his home area, but most scholars believe that he was from the southern area, the main area of Judah. We know he acted as the group's treasurer, so Jesus either trusted him or put him in a position of trust to see what he would do. We're not sure, but John says that he was a thief even before he betrayed Christ.

So that's what he's known for. He was one who knew Christ personally, was taught by him in person, one of the Privilege 12, and yet he lost out. To quote Star Wars, he turned to the dark side. But I would say we don't know that it was permanent. One thing we know, the Holy Spirit would be poured out on the Pentecost after Christ's resurrection. One of the 12 disciples had the Holy Spirit dwelling in them before that.

Jesus said the Spirit was with them, but it would be in them. Referring back to the sermonette, it wasn't a case that his name had been written in the Book of Life yet and then scratched out. So what I'm saying is perhaps Judas will have a chance to be resurrected and repent just like all the rest of us. We're ahead of that now, but like most of mankind.

We do know, the account says, that he was sorry. He tried to give back the 30 pieces of silver. He said, I've betrayed an innocent man, but it was too late. And of course, suicide isn't something God condoned, so that's something he would have to repent of as well. We do know that the name Judas now is synonymous with treachery. I don't know. Does anybody here know someone named Judas? I don't know of any mother who wants to name their children Judas.

Funny to say that because it was an honorable name before that time. Before Christ's crucifixion, Judas was a good name. There's some speculation. In John 6, verse 70, Jesus says, Didn't I choose you twelve? And one of you is a devil. Interesting. And scholars, we believe that was a year or more before the crucifixion. So well ahead of time, Jesus knew one of the twelve would betray him.

And my wondering is, did he know which of the twelve? Or did he just know it would be one of the twelve? The accountant Luke 6 says that before he appointed the twelve, he prayed all night. So Jesus Christ was in close contact with the Father. I'm sure asking him, please help me choose these twelve.

Because they had that important role to play. So perhaps the Father guided the choice without letting Jesus know which one would betray him. Or perhaps Jesus did know. I've got to choose someone with a character flaw so that I can be betrayed. In either case, whichever one of them knew, also at the same time knew that Matthias would not betray him.

Okay, and I'm not going to turn there, but well, let's turn to Acts chapter 1. Because I've been talking about the importance of the twelve, but when it comes down to it, you could say there were 13 because someone had to take Judas' place. Partly for the reason that they have jobs to do in the future. There needed to be 12 to each sit on one of the thrones over the twelve tribes of Israel. In Acts 1 and verse 21, here is Peter speaking. He says, "...of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection." Once again, the eyewitness role.

So Peter says, "...there is a group of men who have been here all along with us. They weren't appointed to the twelve, but they've been alongside, so we've got to choose one." And they proposed to Joseph called Barcibus, who was surname Justice and Matthias. So among them, I guess the 11 apostles left said, "...well, we know these two are both outstanding. Either one of them could do it." And so they cast lots and asked God to make the choice.

And they cast their lots, the lot fell on Matthias, so he was numbered with the 11, so he became number 12. To me, that's significant. And one thing, looking back to Judas, remember at that Passover dinner, when Jesus said, one of you here is going to betray me. Interestingly, there's no account that said they all went... They didn't know who it was. If Judas, the outside, showed, they would have known. Judas is a bad guy. No, they were all saying, is it me? Is it me? That's an important lesson for all of us. Let's not focus on other people's faults and say, I knew you weren't going to make it.

But if we're all looking at trying to fix our own, that's a much more important thing. Hopefully we will. We won't do what Judas did. We've got an advantage that he did not. We do have God's Holy Spirit. We don't have to wait. And of course, we don't have the case of someone's got to do that dirty job that he did. We don't have a dirty job waiting that someone has to do. We can all move ahead and be born in God's kingdom.

Let me wrap up. I'm getting close to time. One thing I will say, we get a brief look at these 12 men. We know more about some of them than others, but it's still not a whole lot. The first five books of the Bible tell us a fair bit, and then they disappear.

Where did they go? There's some indication. In Matthew 10, it says, they were sent then to preach the gospel to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jesus said, I wasn't sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. A lot of people speculate that's where they went. They were in Judea, one of the tribes of Israel, but there were other tribes. There are legends that say Peter, James, John, Simon, and Andrew are all rumored to have visited Great Britain. We believe that some descendants of Israel even by then were already in the British Isles. But we also, from what we know of history, most of the tribes had migrated out of where they'd been taken into captivity around the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

They were in the area of Eastern Europe, Western Russia, right where you don't want to be if you're a passenger jet right now. That's not a good joke. Where there's fighting and warfare going on, but they were living in that area probably right north of Palestine. A lot of the apostles, probably when they were sent out, they headed up there and began building the church, being Christ's tools to witness to those who were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to say, hey, Christ has come in the flesh, explaining the Messiah.

And as I said, that's for another day. For now, let's consider to them how we knew them. They knew Jesus Christ. They were witnesses. But most of them would die young. Most of them got to be like James and drink of that cup and be baptized with that baptism. They would put their lives to the test. But before that happened, they were doing a great work.

And probably looking back to that special three and a half years in Galilee and Judea, where they spent time with Jesus Christ, time with each other, fellowshiping, getting to know each other, growing and learning. I bet a lot of us have memories like that.

At some point in life, where we're growing in God's truth, and it's so exciting, and we're building friendships and relationships. I could think of more than one period. My time in ambassador was like that. And I look back, and at the time, I was just trying to get through it, learn and study. But it was a special time. But each of us, as I said, no matter who you are, you've got a special time that those memories can help carry you through. And it's worth us doing that. Appreciate them while they're here. And appreciate those of others. It's important to tell the stories of those in the church.

That's one of the things I love about visiting older members and hearing what it was like for them. It was a privilege, I mentioned when I got to visit Red and Naomi Ruggles, to hear the stories of what it was like for them. And Raleigh Collins will still be telling me stories every chance he gets. Those will build our memories and build our strength. And we have some stories of a few men that Jesus worked with. Those twelve apostles. Let's remember them and honor their memory.