Saturday
Saturday
The Call of the Twelve
[Jesus] called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.
Luke 6:13
Jesus’s choice and call of the Twelve, according to Luke, took place after he had spent a whole night in prayer. He evidently knew that a decision of great importance was about to be made, for the Twelve were to fulfill a special role in the future. Two points are particularly noteworthy.
Firstly, Jesus chose twelve. He already had a number of followers or “disciples.” But out of this wider group he chose twelve. There can be no doubt that the number chosen was deliberate. He saw the twelve apostles as equivalent to the twelve tribes of Israel. He and the apostles together would form the nucleus of a new and purified Israel.
The most striking feature of the list of the apostles is its extraordinary diversity. One dramatic example is that Matthew the tax collector (regarded as a traitor) and Simon the Zealot (an extreme nationalist) were fellow members of the apostolic band. Perhaps Jesus deliberately chose as his apostles men who were culturally different from one another in order to foreshadow the diversity that would always characterize his community.
Secondly, Jesus designated them apostles, or “sent ones.” We need to recall the double background of this word. In the Old Testament the “sent ones” were the prophets. As Yahweh had sent his prophets, so Jesus was now sending his apostles. Then in rabbinic Judaism the “sent one” was the shaliach who was sent by the Sanhedrin to teach. Of him it was said that “the one sent by a person is as this person himself.” That is, he carries with him the authority of the sender. It is in this regard that Jesus could later say to the Twelve, “He who receives you receives me” (Matt. 10:40) and “He who listens to you listens to me” (Luke 10:16).
In order to equip his apostles to speak in his name, Jesus appointed them “that they might be with him” as eyewitnesses, hearing his words and seeing his works, so that they might bear witness to what they had seen and heard (Mark 3:14; see also John 15:27). These implications of apostleship have an important bearing on the writing of the New Testament.
For further reading: Mark 3:13–19