The Disciples

We’ve looked at the disciples as individuals, but it is also important to examine them as a group. Who were they? They were a group whose members were mostly fishermen and sailors, with a radical Jewish national and the lowest of the low, a tax collector, thrown in for good measure. Before their call to follow Jesus, they were ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Even after they met the messiah, they were still imperfect human beings. They doubted, they hated, and they wrongly condemned. Some were conceited and believed nothing good could come from such a lowly place as Nazareth. Some were brash and reckless, others exhibited great intolerance and sometimes violent tempers. Some struggled for power–they were mainly concerned with their own accomplishments and advancement. They wanted to ensure what they did was noticed so that they could be guaranteed chief places in the Kingdom of God. Others refused to believe they were worthy to be called.

They all had trouble listening to Jesus’ message, and even when they did, they often just didn’t get it, they often just didn’t understand. Although it might not have been intentional, they often misrepresented the message and mission of Jesus. They struggled to make God fit into their own concept of who God should be. They often struggled to discern the will of God. Finally, all of them, at one time or another, abandoned Jesus.

On one hand, if you focus only on these characteristics, it’s easy to assume that Jesus did a very poor job of choosing his disciples. On the other hand, maybe Jesus did an excellent job of providing role models for all the future generations. All of us have exhibited at least one, if not all, of these same characteristics in the course of our own lives. Just like the original disciples, we are imperfect and unworthy. The real truth is that if entry into the family of Christ and the Kingdom of God were based on merit alone, none of us would qualify.

The good news, revealed through Jesus and his choice of this particular group of men, is that eternal salvation is not based on our own accomplishments or our own merits. It is based on simply accepting the grace of God that has been freely offered to us. No one is unworthy to receive God’s grace and love. No one will be left behind or denied access to the Kingdom of God unless they choose to refuse God’s grace.

Like these 12 men, we have been called to follow Christ in spite of our imperfection. Like these original disciples, we will make mistakes in the course of our faith journeys. We will doubt, we will sometimes be unable to overcome our human weakness, we won’t always understand what God wants us to do with our lives, and we won’t manage to take full advantage of our God-given potential. We will spend too much time promoting our own achievements and not enough promoting God’s grace. We may even face periods in our lives where we will abandon our faith and abandon our God. Through it all, God will be with us, and God just may be working through us. Praise be to God.

Brandon Gilliam