What kind of people
made up the newly chosen apostolic band? What we know about these men varies
greatly, but it can be helpful to place them in three groups based on the
amount of data we have.
The first group is most
familiar to us and has the greatest prominence in the biblical narrative:
Simon Peter: The man of
rock.
Andrew: Peter's brother.
James and John: Sons of
Zebedee, and sons of thunder.
The second group:
Philip The earnest
inquirer.
Bartholomew or Nathanael: The Israelite of integrity.
Thomas: The Twin.
Matthew: The Tax Collector
The third group:
James (the son) of Alphaeus
Judas son of James (also
called Thaddaeus)
Simon The Zealot.
Judas, the man of Kerioth: The
Traitor.
We will become very well
acquainted with the first group of these men as we read through the gospels.
And there are a few disciples that we know almost nothing about, but here are
few observations about some of the lesser known disciples:
Thomas, called “The Twin”
is a warm hearted person with a melancholy temperament. He is ready to die
with his Lord, but slow to believe in His resurrection.
Judas Iscariot is the
man who betrayed Jesus. The presence
of a man capable of treachery among the elect disciples is a mystery that we will
not go into now. We just point out that he seems to have been the only
one among the twelve who was not a Galilean.
Simon the Zealot was part
the group that rose in rebellion under Judas some
twenty years before Christ's ministry began, when Judea and Samaria were
brought under the direct government of Rome, and the census of the population
was taken with a view to subsequent taxation. What an amazing phenomenon to
see this ex-zealot among the disciples of Jesus! No two men could differ more widely in their
spirit, ends, and means, than Judas of Galilee and Jesus of Nazareth. The one
was a political malcontent; the other would have the conquered submit to the
yoke of oppression, and give to Caesar what belonged to Caesar. Simon aimed at restoring
the kingdom to Israel, adopting for his watchword, "We have no Lord or
Master but God." Jesus aimed at founding a kingdom not national, but
universal, not "of this world," but spiritual. The means
employed by them were as diverse as their results. The Zealots had used the carnal
weapons of war, the sword and the dagger; while Jesus relied solely on the
gentle but omnipotent force of truth. An ex-zealot was not a safe man to make an
apostle because he might bring Jesus and His followers under political
suspicion. But the Author of our faith was willing to take that risk. He
expected to gain many disciples from the dangerous classes as well as from
the despised. So He wanted have them to represented among the twelve.
Matthew was a tax
collector, working for the Roman oppressors. Such people were considered
traitors to the nation of Israel. It gives one a pleasant
surprise to think of Simon the zealot and Matthew the tax collector, men coming
from so opposite ends of the political spectrum, meeting together in close fellowship in the little
band of twelve. The extremes meet in these two disciples -- the
tax-gatherer and the tax-hater: the unpatriotic Jew, who degraded himself by
becoming a servant of the alien
ruler; and the Jewish patriot, who chafed under the foreign yoke, and longed for emancipation. This union of opposites was not accidental, but was
designed by Jesus as a prophecy of the future. He wanted the twelve to be the
church in miniature form; and therefore He chose them so as to intimate
that, as among them distinctions of tax collector and zealot were unknown, so
in the church of the future there should be neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor
free, but only Christ.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment