Twelve Unlikely Men - Part 1

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I've entitled our study of the twelve apostles, "Twelve Unlikely Men." When you stop to think about it, really God often does the unlikely. God often chooses those that we would never have chosen. Certainly, it's true of us, isn't it? But if you begin at the very beginning of biblical history and work your way through, so often God's choices are not our choices. Why is that? Why does God choose those whom we probably would never have chosen? Well, there's a passage that explains it for us, and I invite you to turn there as we begin our time together tonight, its 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 1. Let Paul explain for us why God sometimes chooses those we would never choose.

He's talking in verse 18 about the wisdom of God in giving us the message of the cross: that God's purposes are to render His wisdom clear and the foolishness of the world clear as well. And he says this, verse 23,

… we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, [The word foolishness is the Greek word from which we get the word moronic.] "but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. [And God has done this] Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.]

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, [Not many of the intelligencia, not many of the upper crust, the philosophers, not many mighty, not many of the powerful of this world, not many noble, not many of those who are the aristocracy, the blue bloods.] "but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are.

Did you see in that passage what God said about me and about you? Consider your calling. God didn't call many of the intelligencia, many of the powerful, many of the noble and the aristocracy, but instead God has chosen, [He's talking about us here,] the foolish things, the weak things, the base things, the despised, the things which are not. The Greek has the idea of the nothings, the nobodies. That's us. Why does God choose whom He chooses? Verse 29, He's done all of this, "so that no man may boast before God." God often makes the unlikely choices so that He alone gets the glory. It was true certainly with me. It was true with you, and such was even the case with the apostles whom Jesus chose. John MacArthur in his excellent little book called Twelve Ordinary Men writes,

The personality types of these men are familiar to us. They are just like us, and they are like other people we know. They are approachable; they are real and living characters we can identify with. Their faults and their foibles as well as their triumphs and endearing features are chronicled in some of the most fascinating accounts of the Bible. These are men we want to know. That's because they were perfectly ordinary men in every way. They weren't the mighty, they weren't the noble, they weren't the intellectuals of their day, but Jesus chose them to be His apostles.

Mark records the account of their appointment to that unlikely role in Mark 3 beginning in verse 13; turn there with me this evening. Mark 3:13, Mark writes,

And He went up to the mountain and summoned those who He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons. And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter), and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, "Sons of Thunder"); and 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.

Jesus in this passage sovereignly chose twelve men who would be His official representatives. Some of them, as John says, were ordinary men, but others as we will learn were anything but ordinary. But, without exception, all twelve of them were the most unlikely choices to be official representatives of the Son of God after He ascended. And this is the record in which we learn about Jesus' sovereign selection of the most unlikely group of twelve.

I want us to begin by examining the circumstances in which this monumental event occurred. We could call it the moment. The moment in which this transpired, verse 13 only says this, "and He went up on the mountain." That's all Mark has to say about the circumstances in which the call of the twelve occurred. We know that it was after the healing of the man with the withered hand and then the summary of Jesus' ongoing ministry to all of those crowds that came out from the area of Galilee we looked at last week, and all of those crowds that came from the surrounding countries. In the context of that He went up on the mountain.

Luke adds a little more detail for us, turn to Luke 6, and you'll get a little more insight into what's going on here. Luke 6:12 says it was at this time when they had the confrontation over the withered hand you remember, Jesus healing on the Sabbath, the conflict's that we read about and studied in Mark's gospel and that summary of His ministry. "It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God."

We're not told to which mountain Jesus went, but number there are a number of possibilities within easy walking distance of His home town of Capernaum. This is the traditional site, the Horns of Hattin on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. That's looking from the Sea of Galilee, back at that hill. This will give you a little better idea, this is taken from that mountain, and you can see that it's really a peak above everything else. You can see the cliffs of Arbel here in the foreground and the Sea of Galilee there in the distance. So, this was a beautiful view, it may or may not have been the site, but it would have been a site like this on the Capernaum side of the Sea of Galilee, and it says, "and He went to pray." He went to pray.

You know I want to just stop here because there is a powerful lesson, a very practical lesson for us in this. It is so much easier, I have found, and I think probably some of you have found to commune with God away from other people, away from the crush and the rush of the city, even if you simply just grab a little oasis in the midst of the city, if you can't get away find someplace where you can get away.

When Sheila and I lived in Los Angeles, as you might imagine, there aren't many places to get away, and we were living in a little apartment I remember, or actually after we moved out of the apartment, we were in a little condo, and it was crowded. There were people all around. There was really no place to get away, but I used to walk to the very back corner of the complex where there was a little strip of grass. It was like the only strip of grass. And I found that little strip of grass, and I sort of got out of the light of the street light and looked up and found whatever stars I could see. And in even in that little oasis, I just found that my heart was much more able to express itself to God. Because we need that time, we need silence. We need time alone. Jesus often took that time alone.

Ken Hughes, in his commentary, writes, "Too many of us, wake up to a clock radio, shave to the news, drive through noisy traffic, work in the den of the office, listen to the rush hour reports, relax to the evening news, and drift off to sleep surrounded by the base thump thump of the family stereo." We need silence. And Jesus was often finding a way to get away from the crowds to find that silence, and He did it so that He could think and pray.

Jesus often snuck away to pray. And you know, it's very tempting; we talked about this when we talked about the Lord's Prayer. It's very tempting to think that Jesus prayed because He missed, as the Son of God, the divine Son of God, He missed that interaction with His Father; the communion that He and His Father had enjoyed. But folks, that's not the reason Jesus prayed. Remember, Jesus' deity didn't change when He took on humanity. Though His human nature was bound to a body and to a particular place, His divine nature continued to fill the whole universe. The communion that the Father enjoyed with the Son continued during His entire earthly life except for those six hours that Friday on the cross. So, Jesus' prayer life, listen carefully, was not a reflection of his divine nature, but of His human nature.

Luke tells us that it was Jesus' practice often to withdraw, or retire into a desolate place and pray. Luke 5:16 says, "Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray." The tense in the original language of both "withdraw" and "pray" stress that this was Jesus' constant pattern. But this time, in Luke 6 and in Mark 3, it was different. Because Luke says in verse 12 that He spent the whole night in prayer to God. This is the only time in the gospels when we have a record of Jesus praying all night, and it was for a particular purpose, because look what happens in Luke 6:13, "And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles."

Several important details come out of that verse, verse 13 of Luke 6, the parallel account to Mark. The next day, that is after praying all night. He called all those who had become His followers to Himself, the whole group. All of those who had embraced Him as the Messiah, He calls them to Him, and from that larger group of those who were following Him, He chose twelve of them. You see that even in the text in verse 13. He called His disciples and chose twelve literally from them or out of them. Those are the fuller descriptions of the circumstances of the appointing of the twelve. That was the moment.

Now let's return to Mark's account, go back to Mark 3 and to the second movement in Mark's passage, and that is the Master, the Master. It says, "and He summoned those whom He Himself wanted and they came to Him." Mark couldn't have made it any clearer, could he? That Jesus hand-picked these guys. These twelve men were hand-picked by Jesus Christ. Now, it's important for you to understand that this isn't the first time that Jesus interacted with these men. Let me just briefly remind you of kind of the process, Jesus' interaction with these men has taken.

First of all, Jesus had met these men shortly after His baptism, that's recorded for us in John 1. There was John there, probably James although he's not mentioned, but as the brother of John he may very well have been there. Peter and Andrew are mentioned and Philip and Nathaniel who's probably Bartholomew in the list we read, they all met Jesus shortly after His baptism and that's recorded in John 1. Then apparently several of those men or perhaps all of them traveled some with Jesus during that first year of His ministry. We know that because they're with Him at the end of the first eight months in Judea, there're a couple of texts that tell us that. Then they travel with Jesus as He heads to Galilee and starts His ministry there. But there's no mention of them again until after He's rejected in Nazareth and moves to Capernaum. So, that means that at some point during that time these men returned, stopped traveling daily with Jesus and returned, to their jobs and homes.

That brings us to the third stage in their interaction with Jesus, a few weeks later, Jesus finds four of them, and He asks four, Peter, Andrew, James, and John to accompany Him for a ministry around the entire region of Galilee. It's recorded in a couple of texts, it was around this time you remember and on that journey that Matthew was converted and joined the group. After that Galilean tour, at some point again these men returned to their homes, to their families, and to their businesses. Basically, they are still sort of traveling with Jesus occasionally and going back to their normal lives at other times as well.

Then there's a second call of the four men recorded in Luke 5 when Jesus shows up again and calls them a second time, and there're a lot of reasons for taking that as a totally different scenario. And shortly after that Jesus then comes to this formal appointment of the twelve. He chooses twelve. Now it's hard for us to really appreciate how unique that was in the first century. Rabbis in the first century did not choose their disciples. Instead, students chose rabbis like students today would choose a college. But Jesus here exercises His sovereignty. He is more than a teacher. He is the Master. And so, He summoned those whom He wanted, and He chose them.

That brings us to the third part of this passage, and that is the mission, the mission. Verses 14 and 15.

"And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons."

Now it's important that you understand how strong Marks language is in the very first phrase there, "He appointed twelve." Literally, the Greek text says, "He made twelve." He created an entirely new group; He constituted a group of twelve. Isn't that what Jesus Himself say said in John 15 on the night before His crucifixion? He says, "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." He constituted or made twelve. "The twelve" actually became an official designation and throughout his book, Mark will often refer to them as simply the twelve. He also calls them "the disciples". Luke tends to use the word disciples for the entire group all of those who followed Christ. Mark from this point forward will tend to use it specifically for the twelve. So, he can call them either of those.

Now, when you think about this, let's ask ourselves why did Jesus choose at this time? Why did Jesus choose this point in His ministry to appoint these twelve? He'd traveled with them; He'd had them interact with Him, even go on ministry trips with them. Why did He choose at this time to constitute them as a unique group of twelve?

Well there are a couple of reasons that come out of the text; one, the increased work load caused by the crowds that came from many nations. We just looked at that last week these sweeping crowds both from Galilee and from the nations around made it obvious to Jesus that the ministry was growing to a point that He needed to appoint those who would be with Him and travel with Him and carry out the ministry in a much wider sweep than He could. In the same way that Moses realized that he also needed those who would assist him, Jesus at this point as the ministry grows realizes He too must have those who will assist Him.

There's another reason though, and that's the opposition of the religious establishment. You remember that beginning in 2:1 and running all the way to through 3:6 there were five different encounters between Jesus and the religious leaders, and we've watched the animosity and the antagonism of those religious leaders grow. It grew from, initially, just grumbling in their own hearts at what Jesus was doing to at the very last chapter 3:6, says that "they left that encounter, the Pharisees went out and began conspiring with the Herodians against Him as to how they might destroy Him. How they might kill Him."

And so, the antagonism has really heated up. It has become clear at this point to Jesus that there will be no cooperation with the existing religious establishment. He's going to have to create something from scratch because the existing first century Judaism was now apostate, a false religion, and there would be no cooperation of any kind. They made it clear that He needed to constitute His own group whom He would teach and send out.

A third reason that He chose this time to do it was the shortness of time. The hatred and animosity of the leaders is clearly building, Jesus had already predicted, you remember, that the bridegroom would be violently snatched away, sort of cloaked way to describe His own death. So, He knows it's coming, and His time is short. Look at this time line of Jesus' life. This is what we put together when we went through the New Testament survey. You remember, we went through the entire New Testament in six weeks. We've put together a time line from Jesus' life, and I've just pulled out a few highlights to show you when this occurs. Using the 30 AD date, and there're only two possibilities 30 AD or 33 AD, because of the fact that Passover was on Friday.

Therefore, when you do all of the math the most likely dates for Jesus to begin His ministry was in 26 AD, and if you want to sort of catch up to speed on that, go back and listen to that series on New Testament survey, or I think I called it An Aerial View of the New Testament. But in 26 AD in the spring probably was the beginning of John's ministry, sometime in the late summer would have been Jesus' baptism and into the fall was the temptation of Christ. In the winter of 27 AD John's ministry ends, and Jesus' ministry really begins. It comes a year later in the fall of 28 that Jesus appoints the twelve and preaches the Sermon on the Mount. And then about a year and half later in April of 30 AD, Jesus is killed.

The point I want you to see is this; at this point when Jesus is about to appoint the twelve, He is about halfway through His earthly ministry. They've interacted with Him as I've showed you, they've traveled with Him. But when He officially appoints them as the twelve, a year and a half approximately of His ministry has gone by, and a year and a half more will see Him at the cross. And so, Jesus' time to train these men, to equip them, to prepare them is short. And He wants them therefore to be with Him constantly so that He can pour Himself into them. So, at this crucial juncture with a sort of confluence of significant events, Jesus decides to appoint His apostles.

Why did He choose twelve? Well, it's clearly symbolic. Two passages make that pretty clear, Matthew 19:28, Jesus says to this group, "Truly I say to you, you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

The same thing is in Luke 22:20. So, obviously then, it's related. Twelve of them is related to the twelve tribes of Israel to the twelve patriarchs of Israel. And so He was saying, I'm going to constitute a new Israel with a new covenant. That's not to say that God doesn't still have promises to fulfill to ethnic Israel. He does. We believe that very much. But at this point, He was essentially saying it's an act of judgment on existing Judaism, I'm going to start from scratch, and I'm going to have these twelve men be the new patriarchs, if you will, of this new kingdom that I'm going to build.

That brings us really to the most important question and that was what was the purpose for choosing these men? Mark clearly identifies two purposes. The first one is that they might be with Him. You notice Mark 3:14, "and He constituted or made twelve, so that they would be with Him."

This is His purpose for the present. He wants them to learn from Him as disciples. It involves their education. He wants them to be with Him so that He can teach them. Jesus was involved in teaching and training these men. But Jesus was involved in teaching and training all of His disciples. He was equipping all of those who followed Him. But the form and the intensity of that equipping varied based upon their relationship with Jesus and His plans for their future ministry.

What form did Jesus' teaching ministry take with the key groups in His life and ministry? Well first of all, there's all those who followed Him, all of His disciples. His ministry to them was primarily a public teaching ministry, occasionally with personal interaction. Then there was the seventy, you remember them in Luke 10, we'll talk about them as some point. For them, His approach was kind of group training for ministry, kind of like a seminar, if you will; a large number of people that He trains intensively and then sends out to minister. And then there's the twelve. When it comes to the twelve, they benefit greatly from His public teaching. I understand this personally. I feel that I learned, perhaps in many ways, the most from my mentor John MacArthur, by watching him in public ministry, both in his teaching and in all the aspects of it. And that's how the disciples learned from our Lord, they watched Him, they listened to His public His public messages and then they would come back and privately ask questions, what did You mean by that? What are the tares? What do You mean by the soils? So, Jesus taught them through His public teaching. He also trained them as a group, and occasionally in small groups, would interact with them in a question and answer format or in an instruction format. He modeled for them. He spent time together with them and they accompanied Him as He ministered.

But there was a group even within the twelve that got a little more intensive instruction; Peter, James and John. We'll talk a little more about them next time. They got more time with Christ, more personal interaction and special privileges. They were the ones He personally chose to go with Him out of the other twelve to the Transfiguration when His glory was displayed. They were the ones that He hand-picked to go with Him to the healing of the synagogue leader's daughter. Gethsemane, they're the ones that went further with Him into the garden. They were involved in many private discussions with Him. So, there was even more intensive training with those closer to Him, Peter, James, and John. But the point is Jesus was involved in training them, and that's why it was important for them to be with them. He had about a year and a half left to pour Himself into them before His crucifixion. And so, He chooses them to be with Him so that He can teach them.

But not just to teach them for their education, but also so that they could be eye witnesses. He wanted them to be with Him not only so that they could grow in their knowledge of the truth, but so they could see first-hand His ministry, and when He was gone they could serve as eye witnesses of everything that He did. You see this in Acts 1. Turn over to Acts 1. Because in Acts 1 the remaining eleven apostles, after the suicide death of Judas, the remaining eleven decide that they must select someone to fill Judas' place. They choose Matthias, but they clearly saw it not as their choice, but as God's choice. Verse 24 of Chapter 1 says this, "they prayed and said, "You, Lord, you know the hearts of men, show which one of these two You have chosen…."

So, they choose a successor for Judas. But after that it's clear that there was to be no more apostolic succession. You know there are people in our world, the Catholic Church and other groups, who say that the apostles intended that there be other apostles that would replace them. They'll use this passage. But let's fast forward to the death of the first faithful apostle. It was James the brother of John in Acts 12. He dies, and he's never replaced. So, it's clear that there was not to be a constant level of succession. But they did need to fill Judas' place because, remember those twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel? That was one of those thrones that was missing. And so, they choose one, Christ chooses through them, Matthias. But I want you to notice the qualifications that they mentioned for an apostle, verse 21.

"Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us-beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us- one of these," [Watch this,] "must become a witness with us of His resurrection."

The qualification for an apostle was that they were eye witnesses of Jesus' entire ministry, from the time He was baptized all the way until He was raised from the dead. That was their mission, to be an eye witness. And so, Jesus wanted them to be with Him so that they could genuinely be eye witnesses of His entire life. They would know Him and be able to testify to His death and resurrection. So, that's the first part of the mission: that they would be with Him. They would be with Him to be educated, to learn in their knowledge, and that they could be eye witnesses with Christ.

But Mark gives us a second part of the mission, not only that they might be with Him, but also that that He might send them out, that He might send them out. Mark 3:14,

"He appointed" [or made or constituted twelve,] "so that … He could send them out to preach, and to have authority and to cast out demons." [This is the future purpose He had for them and this is their life as apostles.]

Now, it's interesting because the Greek verb that's translated in verse 14 "send them out" is "apostello", apostello. Do you recognize that? Of course, the noun form is "apostelos" or in English "apostle". We're talking about the apostles; the same word is used in the plural form in Mark 6:30. So, the English word then is not a translation, it is a transliteration. We simply took the letters from the Greek alphabet and moved into the English alphabet, the English letters substituting for the Greek letters. The verb "apostello" means "to send out". The noun "apostelos" means "one who has been sent out". But these weren't like simple messengers. You know it's not like you send your kid out to take the garbage or you send somebody over to the next-door neighbors. This isn't a simple messenger. Instead the word "apostelos" refers to an "official representative". An apostle is the direct representative of one who sends him and can act in that person's place, authoritatively, and in a way that is legally binding. He is an "authorized messenger and representative".

According to one scholar, W. C. Robinson in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia set in Judaism the rabbis used a Hebrew word that carried essentially the same meaning as apostelos. The word was "shelyak", shelyak. In the Old Testament this Hebrew word "shelyak" is translated with "apostello" in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. And this word is used to describe four greats. It's used to describe Moses, and Elijah, and Elisha, and Ezekiel. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia goes on to say a "shelyak" was "an agent authorized by someone else to act for the sender in personal, legal or financial matters". In fact, the ruling body of Judaism, the Sanhedrin in Jesus' day, the seventy had men who served in the role of the shelyak, and they spoke with the same authority, and were to be treated with the same respect as the members of the Sanhedrin.

But their job wasn't to come up with their own message. Their job was to deliver the message of the one who sent them. It's possible even, that when Paul, you remember, leaves Jerusalem to go to Damascus, and he goes with letters to arrest those, it's very possible according to this article that he was going as the shelyak of the Sanhedrin; their official representative, carrying their weight, their authority and was to be treated as if he were in their place. Some prominent rabbis in the first century had their own shelyak. The Mishnah made this comment about the shelyak. It says, "the one sent by the man is as the man himself."

Think about that for a moment. The one sent by the man, the shelyak is as if he were the person himself, and he is to be treated in that way. In the first century Jewish culture that was the closest comparison to the twelve men Jesus chose and named apostles. They were in every sense in the role of His shelyak. Jesus sovereignly chose twelve men to be His official representatives, to be in His place, to speak with His authority and to be treated as if they were He. Next week we'll look at the men He chose.

But I want to take a few minutes to ask ourselves: why is it important for us to know who these men were? Why is it important for us to know that Jesus hand-picked twelve men, and that He hand-picked these twelve men? Well, there are a number of reasons, but there are two that stand out that I want to think about with you for a few minutes. The first reason why this is so important to us is because it underscores that our faith rests on the testimony of eye-witnesses. This is the point that's made consistently in the book of Acts. Turn over to Acts 1. Let me just walk this through with you, and I want you to see how important this was in the ministry of the apostles in the early church. Acts 1:8, you remember Jesus tells them, "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."

Now, there's a sense in which that verse applies to all of us. But there's another sense in which it doesn't. We were not personal eye witnesses of Jesus Christ and His life on earth and His teaching and His death and His resurrection. These men were. And they were sent out for that purpose, and that becomes very clear as you march your way through. Turn over to Acts 2. Peter, preaching his sermon on the day of Pentecost gets to the punch line and in Acts 2:32, he says, "This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses."

As the twelve apostles, now with Matthias among them, as they stand there in the temple precincts, and Peter has preached this sermon, he sweeps his arm, you can almost picture him sweeping his arm behind him pointing to these other eleven, saying we are all witnesses that God raised Him from the dead, we saw it with our own eyes. We knew Him. We lived with Him. And He died, and He was raised from the dead. Chapter 3:15, here's Peter's second sermon, again at the temple after the healing. And he says, verse 14,

"But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses."

This was absolutely crucial. There were twelve people appointed by Christ to be with Him through His ministry who saw everything that He did, who were able to say, we knew Him, we saw the fact that He was dead, and we have seen Him raised to life, twelve.

In 5:32 again you see in this case they bring the apostles before the council verse 27 they question them. So, here they are before the Sanhedrin,

The high priests question them saying, "We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. But Peter and the rest of the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are eye witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him."

But when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and intended to kill them.

We have eye witness testimony. This is the same thing Peter says in his ministry to Cornelius, 10:39, after he recounts all that Jesus did, verse 38,

"You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. "We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. "God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people and to solemnly testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead."

You see the point comes back again and again. You see it in the ministry of the apostle Paul in Acts 13, Acts 13:31. He recounts again the story of Jesus and all that had happened, verse 30,

"But God raised Him from the dead; and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people."

Folks, those names, some of them are very unfamiliar. As you read down that list, the further down the list of the twelve you go, the less we know. We'll look next week at what we do know, but those names ought to be precious to you because Jesus Himself hand-picked them so that they could be eye witnesses of the reality of His life and His teaching and His ministry and His death and His resurrection and they ate and drank with Him after His resurrection and they saw Him ascend into heaven. Our faith is not a fairy tale. It is confirmed by eye witness testimony, eye witnesses that Jesus Himself hand-picked.

There's a second reason that all of this is important to us, and it's that we have a trustworthy pre-authenticated list of New Testament authors. We have a trustworthy pre-authenticated list. That is: He authenticated them before they wrote. The apostles were commissioned to be Jesus' official representatives to be His proxies. And He gave these official representatives the authority to write. If we had time, I would take you back to John, John 14:26, John 15: 26 and 27, John 16:12 to 15. In that upper room discourse over and over again Jesus says to these eleven now in that upper room discourse, He says to them, you will write. I will bring to your mind all the things which you have seen and heard. Jesus authenticated their writing ministry.

This, by the way, was the test in the New Testament age, the teaching of an apostle was received immediately simply because he was an apostle commissioned by Christ. Because of Christ's pre-authentication the New Testament books that are in our New Testament were immediately recognized as inspired if they were known to be a work of an apostle or someone designated by an apostle. They were placed upon the church by the apostles as having the same weight as the Old Testament Scripture. They were circulated during the lifetime of the apostles. And they were received as authoritative throughout the majority of the churches.

One writer puts it like this, "The Lord Jesus did not in prophecy give us a list of the 27 New Testament books, our Lord didn't tell us there'll be Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He did however give us a list of the inspired authors, upon them the church of Christ is founded and by them the word was written." The reason you know you can trust those books that are in your New Testament as the message of Christ is because they come from, they flow out of, those He hand-picked to be His shelyak; His official representative, the sent ones, who act as if they were in His place with His authority. Most of the New Testament canon is there because of the direct authorship of the apostles.

Matthew, 1 and 2 Peter, John, 1, 2 and 3 John and Revelation all were clearly written by apostles. In addition to that the eleven remaining disciples recognized two other men as having a status that was equal to their own, James the half-brother of our Lord is acknowledged to be equal to them, and Paul is also acknowledged by them. In fact, Peter himself says that Paul's writings are Scripture. So, that means, you can add to our list of New Testament books written by an apostle, James, and all of Paul's epistles. That leaves just five New Testament books that were not directly written by an apostle; Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, and Jude. So, why were those books accepted? Because they were written under the auspices of an apostle, under the direction of an apostle.

Mark, as we've already learned in our introduction to the Mark's gospel, wrote under the auspices of Peter; very clearly. Luke and Acts were both written by Luke who was in close association with Paul, and so, they were received because Paul authenticated Luke's works. Jude was accepted because of his association with James, and the fact that he was the believing half-brother of our Lord. That leaves only one New Testament book, and that's the book of Hebrews. And historians tell us that that book was accepted because it had some kind of association with Paul. I personally believe it was written by Apollos and authenticated by Paul, but the early church received it because of that connection.

Folks, as you read those names, as you think about these twelve men or the eleven minus Judas and then Matthias added, you add to that James and Jude and the apostle Paul; thank God that our Lord didn't leave us wondering so what do we believe, should we embrace the gospel of Judas? No. He pre-authenticated those whom He would have write His New Testament. And throughout the New Testament it's made clear that Judas was not one of them. That he was a deceiver and fraud from the beginning, picked to be the betrayer. William Barkley wrote that the New Testament books became canonical because no one could stop them from doing so. Another writer puts it this way, "The books which were to form the future canon forced themselves on the church by their intrinsic apostolic authority as they still do because the Kurios, the Lord Christ speaks in them."

Be thankful for the twelve apostles because they authenticate the life of Christ because they were His eye witnesses and they authenticate that New Testament that you have in your Bible because He hand-picked the men would either write those books or under whose authority they would be written. He made twelve as His apostles. Next time we'll look at this remarkable collection of most unlikely men.

Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for recording in so many places in the New Testament the list of these men; men, in some cases, we know almost nothing about. And yet Father, we thank You that our Lord knew what He was doing, that He chose wisely. He chose the base and the foolish and the weak and the nobodies so that He alone would get all the glory. And Father, we thank You that through these men we have undeniable, eye-witness testimony to what we believe.

And Father, we thank You as well that from these men and from the authority He gave them, we have a trustworthy canon of New Testament books that we can believe and teach and cling to and stake our lives upon. Father, thank You for the wisdom of our Lord, that half-way through His earthly ministry, He made twelve, and He sent them out as His official representatives.

We thank You and praise You, O God, in Jesus name, Amen.