The apostles

The word "apostle" simply means someone sent out with a message. Jesus took ordinary men (fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot) and sent them out to carry the most important message in history: that he had died, risen, and conquered death itself.

It starts with a call by the sea. Jesus finds Simon Peter and his brother Andrew casting nets and says, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19). They leave everything immediately. That pattern repeats through the Gospels; Jesus calls, and men leave nets, tax booths, and old lives behind.

Eventually Jesus narrows his followers to twelve and gives them a title. "He ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach" (Mark 3:14). Luke says it plainly: "he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles" (Luke 6:13). Being with Jesus came first. Being sent came second. You can't carry a message you haven't lived with.

These twelve weren't chosen because they were impressive. They argued about who was greatest (Luke 22:24). One denied Jesus three times in a single night (Luke 22:54-62). One betrayed him outright (Matthew 26:14-16, 47-49). Jesus built his church on flawed, ordinary men, which is itself part of the message.

After the resurrection, Jesus commissions them formally: "Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (John 20:21). Before ascending, he promises them power and their assignment: "ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). An apostle isn't primarily a teacher of ideas. He's someone who saw something and testifies to it.

When Judas is gone, the remaining apostles fill his place with Matthias so the number returns to twelve (Acts 1:26). After Pentecost, the young church devotes itself to "the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). The apostles' teaching becomes the foundation the whole church stands on.

Then comes the most unlikely apostle of all. Saul of Tarsus persecutes Christians, dragging them to prison and consenting to their deaths (Acts 8:1-3). On the road to Damascus, the risen Christ meets him in blinding light (Acts 9:3-6), and God tells Ananias plainly: "he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles" (Acts 9:15). Paul never stops calling himself "the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God"

(1 Corinthians 15:9). Yet he becomes the most prolific writer in the New Testament, insisting his apostleship came directly from Christ, "not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father" (Galatians 1:1).

Paul later describes what apostleship actually cost him: beatings, shipwreck, hunger, danger from every direction, sleepless nights (2 Corinthians 11:24-27). Tradition holds that nearly all the apostles died for their testimony: Peter crucified, Paul beheaded, others martyred across the ancient world. Men don't usually die for a story they invented themselves.

Paul writes that the church is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" (Ephesians 2:20). And in the vision of the New Jerusalem, the city's twelve foundations carry "the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:14). Their names are written into the architecture of eternity: not because they were extraordinary men, but because they were eyewitnesses who refused to stay silent about what they'd seen.