The disciples closest to Jesus were called the apostles.
REMEMBER! Apostle means ‘one who is sent out’.
The apostles were sent out by Jesus to spread his message far and wide.
The choosing of his apostles was the first important act of Jesus’s public ministry. There were twelve in all. Their names are recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. They were:
ò Peter (whom Jesus appointed as the leader of the apostles) ò Andrew ò James, son of Zebedee ò John ò Philip ò Thomas ò Bartholomew ò Matthew ò James, son of Alphaeus ò Thaddeus (aka Jude) ò Judas Iscariot ò Simon the Zealot.
The apostles came from different backgrounds:
ò Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishermen. ò Matthew had been a tax collector. ò Simon was a former Zealot.
The apostles were ordinary, flawed human beings. Christians of every era have readily identified with them. For example:
ò Sometimes the apostles did not understand the meaning or grasp the importance of what Jesus had said (see Mark 4:13).
ò Sometimes they quarrelled among themselves (see Luke 9:46–48). ò They all abandoned Jesus when he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Matthew 26:56).
ò One of them – Peter – publicly denied ever knowing Jesus (see Luke 22:54–62). ò Another – Judas Iscariot – betrayed Jesus to his enemies (see Luke 22:1–6).
Yet, Jesus saw a great potential for good in each of them. After Pentecost, the apostles justified his trust in them. They dedicated the rest of their lives to continuing the work he had begun.
Jesus chose twelve apostles. This number had a special meaning for Jews. Originally, there had been twelve tribes in the ancient Jewish Kingdom of Israel. Jesus hoped that his twelve apostles would be the first members of a new kind of kingdom – the Kingdom of God.
154
The Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican traditions say that their bishops are the successors of the original apostles.
