6 Questions About Jesus’s Calling of the 12

The Twelve

In Mark 3:13–19 we get a selected view of Jesus that comes via the apostles’ eyes.

And he went up on the mountain and referred to as to him these whom he desired, they usually got here to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he additionally named apostles) in order that they is perhaps with him and he would possibly ship them out to evangelise and have authority to forged out demons. He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the identify Peter); James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the identify Boanerges, that’s, Sons of Thunder); Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

The twelve see Jesus as Lord. When he calls, they arrive (Mark 3:13; cf. Mark 1:16–20; 2:14). When he commissions—right here to exit and preach and exorcise demons (Mark 3:14–15)—they obey. The disciples (followers) turn into apostles (despatched ones). Mark doesn’t file their obedience right here, however he does in Mark 6:12–13.

With Mark 3:13–19 earlier than us, let me briefly ask and reply six questions. First, why did Jesus go up on a mountain after which name the twelve? It may need been to get away from the gang. It may additionally have been as a result of mountains are widespread locations the place God calls sure key servants—Moses, Elijah, and the like—in order to fee them to one thing grand. Second, why twelve? The quantity twelve corresponds to the twelve tribes of Israel, and the symbolism thus factors to each an embodiment and a alternative. These males will embody what it means to be true Israel, and thus, as flawed as they’re, they are going to substitute the present ungodly spiritual leaders.

Third, why are they named?¹ To spotlight that Jesus used peculiar males for his extraordinary mission. Not one of the males listed got here from the Aristocracy or the higher class. Matthew was educated (he wrote a Gospel) and wealthy (or as soon as was wealthy, as a tax collector—the one occupation named, and a really shady one at that), however the remaining had been tradesmen. None had been politicians, though “Simon the Zealot” (Mark 3:18) could have been part of a fringe group of militant nationalists who would do something to take down Rome.² None had been from the spiritual leaders of the day. We don’t see listed St. Simon the Superhuman, Professor John von Thunder of the Tübingen Institute of Theology, or Blessed Bartholomew of the Order of the Solely Elect Hermits. Relatively we discover the widespread and uncouth. Jesus chosen not an all-star group to battle with the highly effective satan and his mighty minions however a bunch of ragamuffins. That God would resolve to vary the world via peculiar males from an peculiar a part of the world is simply extraordinary.

Allow us to study the lesson right here. We don’t want cash, an elite schooling, or worldly energy or status for use by Jesus to do nice issues. “The church was constructed upon the trustworthy testimony of a bunch of rustics, as Jerome referred to as them. God delighted in and nonetheless delights in constructing his church with such seemingly inadequate and barely contorted constructing supplies.”³

Fourth, why are among the twelve renamed? Solely Mark information the renaming of Simon, James, and John, the primary three names: “He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the identify Peter); James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the identify Boanerges, that’s, Sons of Thunder)” (Mark 3:16–17). These three is perhaps renamed as a result of they had been three of the 4 first disciples whom Jesus referred to as, or as a result of they are going to be with Jesus for 2 key moments of his ministry—the transfiguration and the backyard of Gethsemane. They’re clearly a part of Jesus’s inside circle, and due to this fact they are going to deliver future management to the twelve and the entire church. The renaming, nonetheless, would possibly merely echo what is completed within the OT, the place somebody necessary (like Jacob) is renamed as a result of God plans on utilizing him, regardless of his apparent flaws, to advertise his functions.

We don’t want cash, an elite schooling, or worldly energy or status for use by Jesus to do nice issues.

Fifth, why is Peter listed first and Judas final? Judas is called final for what he did: betrayed Jesus. Peter is called first right here, and all over the place the record is given as a result of he was the primary amongst equals. He was the primary chosen by Jesus. He’s the predominant disciple—within the variety of traces he speaks and the position he performs—within the 4 Gospels and Acts. The Acts of the Apostles focuses partly on Peter’s acts (named 56x). This doesn’t imply Peter was the primary pope. Nonetheless, it does imply he was simply as necessary to the brand new covenant as somebody like Moses was to the outdated.

Sixth, what of their mission is ours? Our mission is to not be the muse of the church. In Ephesians 2:20 Paul speaks of Jesus because the “cornerstone” of the newly fashioned “family of God” (Eph. 2:19), a church “constructed on the muse of the apostles and prophets.” Our mission can be to not have the “authority to forged out demons” (Mark 3:15). If there are Christians right now, or at different factors in church historical past, who’ve exorcised demons, they don’t seem to be the norm. Whereas for the apostles, every one in all them, it was the norm. The Acts of the Apostles is a big e-book all about their wonderful acts. By way of the facility of the Spirit given to them in a novel and unrepeatable approach at Pentecost they’re those doing the miracles. “The indicators of a real apostle,” Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 12:12, are “indicators and wonders and mighty works.” That’s what they did do, not what we are able to do. This maybe explains why the Nice Fee doesn’t embody the command to heal illness and forged out demons. I additionally consider because of this, close to the top of his life, Paul writes of {qualifications} for elders and deacons that don’t embody the miraculous items.

What then of their mission is ours? Jesus’s most important factor. What we examine in Acts 8:4. Those that had been scattered as a consequence of persecution “went about preaching the phrase.” None of those that scattered preached from a pulpit. They preached to their new neighbors. They preached to their fellow countrymen—unbelieving Jews. They preached within the market as they offered their items to Jews and Gentiles alike. They wished the world to know the excellent news of Jesus.

This text is customized from Expository Reflections on the Gospels, Quantity 3: Mark by Douglas Sean O’Donnell.

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