“Choosing the Twelve”

XXXV. Expositions of the Gospel According to Luke

Luke 6:12-16

January 15, 2012

A recently published book, Marshall and His Generals[1], demonstrates the vital role that Chief of Staff George Marshall’s choice of generals played in the outcome of World War II. The title faintly echoes the highly acclaimed Lee’s Lieutenants.[2] Both books show the importance of placing the right men in leadership: in Lee’s case, Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, and Longstreet, among others; in Marshall’s case, Douglas MacArthur, Joe Stillwell, Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George S. Patton, among other hirings and firings.

We arrive now at such a juncture in Jesus’ ministry: the selection of leaders. Previously Jesus called many of His listeners to be His “disciples” (5:1-11; 27, 28). From out of the larger body of disciples, twelve are now named “apostles” (v. 13). They are given an elevated status among the disciples, or better, a higher calling. Whereas a disciple is “a learner, a servant,”[3] apostolos, apostles, are messengers, sent ones, even “authorized representatives” or “envoys”.[4] What will this mean? What will Jesus expect of them. What are they to do and how are they to live? Aside from the requirement that they leave everything to follow Jesus, the purpose of discipleship has remained undeveloped.[5] Shortly, we will see the “Sermon on the Plain” (Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount) elaborate upon the character and characteristics of the disciples and the apostles who will lead them (6:17-49).

For now we will focus on what goes into this “momentous decision,”[6] this “defining moment in Jesus’ strategy for the future”[7]. The “apostles” were not only to be with Jesus and to learn, they would also be sent out to preach (Mk 3:13-15). He would delegate power and authority to them (9:1). They would be the official witnesses of the resurrection (Acts 1:8, 22) and leaders of the new church. From their number would come the permanent record of Jesus Christ and His continuing work through the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26; 15:27; 16:13-15). Consequently the selection of these future leaders is crucial. There is a sense in which the survival of the church, even the survival of the gospel rests on Jesus identifying the right men to lead this future church. We proceed, then, to learn from His choosing.

He prays

In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. (Lk 6:12)

Before making His decision, Jesus seeks solitude. He “went out to the mountain,” by himself, “to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.” Devotion to prayer was characteristic of Jesus. Already we’ve been told

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. (Lk 5:16)

We will see overt references to prayer in connection with the confession of Peter (9:18) and the Transfiguration (9:28). He will teach the disciples to persist in prayer (11:5-13), “that they ought always to pray and not to lose heart” (18:1-8). On the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus will pray in the Garden of Gethsemane “earnestly,” with His sweat being like “great drops of blood” (22:44). Throughout His ministry and with increased intensity at crucial junctures, Jesus prayed. Why did He do this? Is He not the Son of God, self-sufficient, omnipresent and omnipotent? We may identify two reasons.

First, Jesus is relying upon His Father in heaven. He wants only to do the will of His Father. The commitment, “Not my will but Thine be done” (Lk 22:42), was characteristic of His whole life. “I have come down from heaven,” Jesus says, “not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me” (Jn 6:38). Yet He must find that will. Remember, Jesus was truly human as well as truly divine. While Jesus never divested Himself of His divine attributes and powers (the mistake of the Kenotic theory), yet He did limit His access to those attributes and powers that He may live a truly human life. Jesus, says Luke,

. . . increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. (Lk 2:53)

He “learned obedience” through His suffering, the writer to the Hebrews tells us (Heb 5:8) One can only increase in wisdom when one’s wisdom is incomplete.  One can only learn when one’s knowledge is partial. Apparently Jesus did not allow His omniscient wisdom as God into His human consciousness. He grew in wisdom and learned obedience, which means His wisdom, while infallible, was limited, and His learning incomplete. Consequently His process of discerning the will of God was not unlike ours since “He had to be made like His brethren in all things”, sharing our limitations, and “tempted in all things as we are”, including those temptations of doubt, anxiety, and fear that arise from finite knowledge (Heb 2:17, 18; 4:15, 16).

All of this to say that Jesus is relying upon His Father as He selects the Twelve. He wants to get it right. He wants to avoid making a mistake. So He prays. And prays, and prays. Prayer is central to Jesus’ decision-making process. It is never convenient to spend a night in prayer, especially out of doors. It is never comfortable. It was no more “natural” for Him than it is for us. No doubt He grew weary. It was probably cold. There were no chairs to sit on, no couches on which to recline. He had no coffee or tea to help Him stay awake. A night in the mountains in prayer would have been exhausting, wearying, and perhaps frightening. Why does He do it? That He might rightly discern the will of God. That His Twelve might be the Father’s Twelve.

No doubt Jesus’ example of devotion to prayer is meant to be a model for the church. Before the early Christians replaced Judas, they prayed (Acts 1:14ff, 24). Pentecost seems to have been born in a prayer meeting (Acts 2:1 ff). The early Christians were “continually devoting themselves. . . to prayer” (Acts 2:42). They responded to threats with prayer (Acts 4:31). The Seven were chosen in conjunction with prayer, and so that the Twelve might devote themselves to prayer (Acts 6:4, 6). Prayer leads to Cornelius’ vision and Peter’s dream (Acts 10:1-23ff). The first missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, are set apart in the context of prayer (Acts 13:1-3; cf Acts 8:15, 9:11, 40, 12:5, 12, 14:25, 16:20, 20:36, 21:5, 22:17, 28:5).  

If Jesus and the early Christians were devoted to prayer how can we do less? It is presumptuous to think that it was necessary for them to pray but we can do without. Their lives were bathed in prayer and so must ours be. “Continue steadfastly in prayer,” says the Apostle Paul (Col 4:2). Matthew Henry understands Jesus to be giving us “an example of secret prayer, by which we must keep up our communion with God daily, and without which it is impossible that the soul should prosper.”[8]   

Facing a big decision? Capable of a big mistake? We have no reason to believe that we will discern the will of God if we are not frequently seeking His will in prayer. Where shall I live? What shall be my life’s work? Whom shall I marry? Big decisions require big prayer. Set aside a morning. Get alone for an extended period of time. It is impossible to think clearly without time and solitude. “Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it,” notes one social observer. The world conspires to prevent this. Technology is increasingly intrusive and disruptive: TV, radio Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, texting, iPods, and YouTube. Teenagers are known to have as many as 5000 to 6000 text messages a month. That’s 175-200 a day, 7 days a week. That’s about one disruption every five minutes from that one source alone. Throw in all the other distractions and serious thought becomes impossible. One cannot know God or discern His will in “bursts of 20 seconds at a time,” as the above commentator puts it. Take your Bible and a notebook. Write, read, and pray. Seek the Lord. Plead for His will. If this is the pattern in Jesus’ life, then so must it be in ours.

Second, Jesus is demonstrating His love for His church. What is worth the inconvenience, discomfort, and fatigue or a night outside, exposed to the elements, spent in prayer? The church. The future of the church. The leadership of the church. The church’s success, faithfulness, and fruitfulness. “He declared by this testimony how much He was concerned for His church,” explains Calvin.[9] Jesus loves His church. He is zealous to provide for its future ministry. We too must pray for the church. This means that we too must love the church with the kind of devotion that Jesus loves it.  Jesus will build His church upon these Twelve. He prays so that their will not falter. Jesus later will tell Peter:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Lk 22:31, 32)

Peter faltered, but he did not fail. Jesus’ prayers sustained him in the attacks of Satan. Pray for the church. Pray for her ministers. Pray for the church’s witness. The world places enormous pressure upon the church. She is tempted to compromise the gospel. She is tempted to conform to the world’s standard rather than God’s. She is vulnerable. Jesus is intercedes for His church (Heb 7:25; cf. Rom 8:34). So also must we.

He chooses

Jesus prays, then He chooses.  The order is critical. Pray first, then choose. Pray before the decision, then make the decision.

And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles. . . (Lk 6:13)

From out of a large group of disciples, He sets apart twelve. These twelve are presented with an unparalleled opportunity. “Never were men so privileged,” says Matthew Henry.[10] The number is no accident. It is not incidental. There were twelve sons of Jacob and twelve tribes of Israel. Choosing twelve “indicates that Jesus was establishing the people of God, the true Israel”, explains Morris[11]. It means, says Milne, that “these men will be the fathers of the new Israel, the Christian church (Rev 21:10-14).”[12]

Given their crucial, strategic role, it is surprising how ordinary they are.

Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, ¹⁵ and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, ¹⁶ and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Lk 6:14-16)

Simon Peter always leads the lists of disciples. “Judas, the son of James” (as in Acts 1:13), appears to be the same man called Thaddaeus in Matthew and Mark. Bartholomew is usually identified with Nathaniel (John 1:45ff), and Matthew with Levi (5:29). Judas Iscariot, probably means “man of Kerioth,” a town in Judea or Moab (Josh 15:25; Jer 48:24). Luke says he “became a traitor,” implying that he was faithful initially. Jesus chose Judas though He knew that he would betray him (Jn 6:70, 71). “This shows”, says Milne, “Jesus’ perfect submission to the Father’s determinate plan for him in becoming the human sacrifice for human sin.”[13]  

Barclay points out that “There was not a wealthy, nor a famous, nor an influential man amongst them; they had no special education; they were men of the common folk.”[14] Matthew was a tax collector and considered a traitor by his countrymen. Simon was a “zealot”, which may mean he was part of a fanatical nationalistic group. Four were fisherman. J. C. Ryle points out that “Not one of them, so far as seen from the New Testament, was great, or rich, or highly connected. Not one was a Pharisee, or scribe, or priest, or ruler, or elder among the people. All were, apparently, ‘unlearned and ignorant men’ (Acts 4:13). All were poor.”[15] Milne calls them “a motley crew, a cross section of humanity.”[16]   

That Jesus chose these men shows that God uses all temperaments, differing backgrounds, likely and unlikely, expected and unexpected. He transforms and equips those whom He calls to serve, overlooking their deficiencies, enhancing their gifts, and endowing them with new capacities.

They were not chosen because they were more outstanding than others. None were qualified according to the criteria esteemed by the world. One ought not to assume, based on external, worldly categories that one is not called by God into special service. There is no prototype for “successful” ministry. Many of the most useful servants of Christ in our day are unlikely candidates for fruitful ministry. The history of God using oddlings demonstrates that the church is not built by might, or by power, but by the Holy Spirit (Zech 4:6). Ryle warns us not “to look to money, or learning, or high patronage, or great men’s support for success.”[17]  What God wants is earnest, sincere, and devoted servants. Absent these qualities, effective service is impossible. With them, all things are possible.  

Continue, on, to guide your church. Raise up godly leaders. Raise up those men who will lead your church to the green pastures and still waters, and into the paths of righteousness. Grant us devout leaders, that the church might fulfill the Great Commitment, to be a “pillar of support of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15), the Great Commandment, to love one another (Jn 13:35), to the Great Commission, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth (Mt 28:18ff)