Jesus’ Chosen Crew

“And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.”  Matthew 10:1

Jesus chose twelve men to travel with Him in order to teach them to be His witnesses after He ascended back to His Father in heaven.  In the beginning of His selection process, the future was not revealed to them.  None of them hesitated to join Him in His mission.  It was quite an honor to be chosen to be a sidekick of Jesus, but those He chose did not know of the hardships and persecution that they would face as His disciples.  Perhaps they were looking for an adventure to escape their rather ordinary lives, and adventure is what they certainly received.

Andrew, Peter’s brother, is not as well known in scripture as Peter.  We do know that both men were from Bethsaida in Galilee (John 1:44).  The Bible doesn’t say, but I tend to think that Andrew was the younger brother who followed his “big brother”, Peter, around.  The boat from which they fished belonged to Peter (Luke 5:3).  Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who had pointed Andrew to Jesus, the Lamb of God.  After Andrew heard Jesus speak, he became a follower of Him, acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah that God had long promised.  He was so excited about meeting Jesus, that he brought Peter to also meet Him.  This was prior to Jesus calling them to leave their boat and follow Him, thus they both had been introduced to Jesus and were somewhat familiar with Him.

One day when Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon Peter and Andrew as they cast their fishing nets into the water (Matthew 4:18).  They weren’t men of renown, wealthy, or highly educated.  They were men who made their living fishing, a tiring and dirty job which didn’t always yield a good catch.  Recognizing their ability as fishermen, Jesus told them that He would make “fishers of men” out of them (Matthew 4:19), and He certainly did.  Of all the disciples, Peter is the one whom we read about the most in scripture, and one of the three disciples whose writings are included in the New Testament.  Peter was quite a character: somewhat of a know-it-all, stubborn, inquisitive, impetuous, a little too sure of himself, but loved Jesus.  It was these traits of his that made him an outspoken witness for Jesus, a real asset for the gospel.  He was married because in Matthew 8:14-15, Jesus healed his mother-in-law.  Thus, he apparently gave up his family life for a life only few ever find on this earth.  He was also a man of doubts and fears.  When Jesus was arrested and put on trial, Peter denied even knowing Him (Matthew 26:69-75), but after Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus forgave him, and Peter became a force to be reckoned with as he spent the rest of his life spreading the gospel (John 21:15-19).

There were two more brothers whom Jesus chose to be His disciples, James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were also fishermen.  They were actually in partnership with Andrew and Peter.  It is possible that they all grew up together in the same area of Galilee.  They were busy mending their fishing nets when Jesus called them.  They immediately left their boat and their father and joined Jesus in His journey.  We might wonder what Zebedee thought about that.  How would he continue to fish with his two strong sons leaving him?  Perhaps there were other men working with him.  Instead of being disappointed, he might have been very excited about his two sons being chosen to walk with Jesus.  These two brothers were given a nickname by Jesus, “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17) because of their boldness and ambition to serve the Lord.  The two of them, along with Peter, were Jesus’ closest confidantes who accompanied Him upon the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-3) and who went into the garden of Gethsemane with Him before Jesus’ arrest (Matthew 26:36-46).

The last time that James is mentioned in scripture is in Acts 12:2 which gives the account of his execution by Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great.  James was killed with a sword because Herod was persecuting the church and believers.  John did live much longer than his brother, James.  He referred to himself as “the disciple that Jesus loved” (John 13:23).  It is not that Jesus loved him more than the other disciples, but they had a special bond like we do with those whom we are closest.  It is believed that John, like Andrew, had been a disciple of John the Baptist.  John was the only disciple present at Jesus’ crucifixion.  Jesus had the utmost confidence in John, thus turning the care of His mother, Mary, over to John as Jesus hung on the cross.  John eventually was banished to the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey for preaching the gospel.  Around 95 A.D., when John was in his eighties or nineties, he was privileged to receive a message from Christ, a Revelation of the future, which he penned for generations to come.  He also authored the book of John, I John, II John, and III John.

Next time:  More about Jesus’ crew.