Training the Kingdom’s Messengers

138:10.1The apos­tles early or­ga­nized them­selves in the fol­low­ing man­ner:

138:10.21. An­drew, the first cho­sen apos­tle, was des­ig­nated chair­man and di­rec­tor gen­eral of the twelve.

138:10.32. Pe­ter, James, and John were ap­pointed per­sonal com­pan­ions of Je­sus. They were to at­tend him day and night, to min­is­ter to his phys­i­cal and sundry needs, and to ac­com­pany him on those night vig­ils of prayer and mys­te­ri­ous com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

138:10.43. Philip was made stew­ard of the group. It was his duty to pro­vide food and to see that vis­i­tors, and even the mul­ti­tude of lis­ten­ers at times, had some­thing to eat.

138:10.54. Na­than­iel watched over the needs of the fam­i­lies of the twelve. He re­ceived reg­u­lar re­ports as to the re­quire­ments of each apos­tle’s fam­ily and, mak­ing req­ui­si­tion on Ju­das, the trea­surer, would send funds each week to those in need.

138:10.65. Mat­thew was the fis­cal agent of the apos­tolic corps. It was his duty to see that the bud­get was bal­anced, the trea­sury re­plen­ished. If the funds for mu­tual sup­port were not forth­com­ing, if do­na­tions suf­fi­cient to main­tain the party were not re­ceived, Mat­thew was em­pow­ered to or­der the twelve back to their nets for a sea­son. But this was never nec­es­sary af­ter they be­gan their pub­lic work; he al­ways had suf­fi­cient funds in the trea­surer’s hands to fi­nance their ac­tiv­i­ties.

138:10.76. Thomas was man­ager of the itin­er­ary. It de­volved upon him to ar­range lodg­ings and in a gen­eral way se­lect places for teach­ing and preach­ing, thereby in­sur­ing a smooth and ex­pe­di­tious travel sched­ule.

138:10.87. James and Ju­das the twin sons of Al­pheus were as­signed to the man­age­ment of the mul­ti­tudes. It was their task to dep­u­tize a suf­fi­cient num­ber of as­sis­tant ush­ers to en­able them to main­tain or­der among the crowds dur­ing the preach­ing.

138:10.98. Si­mon Ze­lo­tes was given charge of recre­ation and play. He man­aged the Wednes­day pro­grams and also sought to pro­vide for a few hours of re­lax­ation and di­ver­sion each day.

138:10.109. Ju­das Is­car­iot was ap­pointed trea­surer. He car­ried the bag. He paid all ex­penses and kept the books. He made bud­get es­ti­mates for Mat­thew from week to week and also made weekly re­ports to An­drew. Ju­das paid out funds on An­drew’s au­tho­riza­tion.

138:10.11In this way the twelve func­tioned from their early or­ga­ni­za­tion up to the time of the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion made nec­es­sary by the de­ser­tion of Ju­das, the be­trayer. The Mas­ter and his dis­ci­ple-apos­tles went on in this sim­ple man­ner un­til Sun­day, Jan­uary 12, A.D. 27, when he called them to­gether and for­mally or­dained them as am­bas­sadors of the king­dom and preach­ers of its glad tid­ings. And soon there­after they pre­pared to start for Je­ru­sa­lem and Judea on their first pub­lic preach­ing tour.