Twelve Strange Choices

 

The need was both real and immediate.  Tremendous multitudes were thronging the Lord on a regular basis in the early days of His ministry.  The requests for healing were diminishing from His more spiritual pursuits. He needed special help in preparing the Jews for the coming of the kingdom. And so He chose twelve helpers -- apostles, "ones sent out", they are called.  Not only were they to preach in conjunction with the Lord's earthly ministry (Mark 3:14), but also to bear witness to the resurrection after His passing (Acts 1:21-22).  These ones would bear the brunt of the responsibility for the early grounding and spread of the gospel.  Surely you could not find a more important job.  And certainly the Lord, who knew the hearts of men, would be able to choose the right men for the job.

But then we look at the choices He made, and we are made to wonder.  He bypassed Saul of Tarsus, a young up-and-comer in the Jewish council, trained under Gamaliel, who showed no lack of zeal or energy in pursuing his concept of righteousness.  He bypassed the "rich young ruler", who had no lack of moral credentials himself and who no doubt could have shouldered much of the financial burden of Jesus' task.  And then He chose Peter, whose faith appears at times to be as stable as ripples in a pool of water.  He chose James and John, men of such explosive tempers that the Lord Himself called them "the sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17), and who were eager to destroy an entire town because it refused to permit them passage (Luke 9:51-56).  He chose a bigot (Nathaniel, John 1:46), a cynic (Thomas, John 11:14-16), a political revolutionary (Simon, Luke 16:15), a tax collector (Matthew, Matthew 9:9), and a thief (Judas, John 12:6).  Why?

Obviously, He rejected Saul (at least in part) because he had no faith in Jesus.  As weak as the faith of the apostles was from time to time, they never doubted that He was the Messiah of promise.  Saul needed a vision on the Damascus road to convince him of that fact (Acts 9:3-5).  The rich young ruler had no true commitment to spiritual things, as was demonstrated when he refused to divest himself of his riches (Matthew 19:21-22).  Ultimately, his master was and always would be unrighteous mammon.

What kind of message was Jesus sending with these choices?  Might I suggest a few things:

Jesus' requirements are not beyond the most common of men.  Our society trains us to think that important jobs require special training, usually including higher education.  But Jesus Himself held no special education from schools of men, and neither did His appointed messengers.  All He required was complete faith and a willingness to put Him first.  The lowliest of Christians can offer that.  Each of us is fully capable of serving as a messenger for Jesus -- and with some practice under our belts, we can get even better at it.

Jesus' message is the draw for sinners, not His messengers.  We put so much stock in methods for teaching and preaching that often we overlook the true "power of God unto salvation" -- the gospel (Romans 1:16).  People weren't drawn to Jesus by the quality of His followers any more than they were by His winning way with children (Matthew 18:1-3), His social skills (Matthew 11:18-19), or even His miracles (John 6:66).  If they were drawn in the fullest sense of the word, it was because of His teaching.  That teaching will draw men and women to Him today as well; we, the hopelessly mediocre couriers of that teaching,  will be fully adequate for the task if we will in fact carry His teaching and not our own.  The flaws in our character are not sufficient to keep the God of heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, from accomplishing their purpose through us (Isaiah 55:10-11).

Jesus' people do not become transformed overnight.  In fact, as we see in the person of Judas, some of them don't become transformed at all.  Others, like Peter, have tremendous difficulties remaking their character into what the Lord wants.  We do ourselves a grave disservice when we expect perfection out of ourselves or others; none of us is up to that standard.  Certainly we should require perfection, as does the Lord (1 Peter 1:14-16).  But we should be prepared to "sin and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).  We, as fallible and unworthy servants, must continue to put our confidence in Him who is transforming us into the image of Christ (Romans 12:2) day by day, year by year.  He will help us in this task, if only we will have patience with ourselves and with our brethren.      

 

Hal Hammons