Training the Kingdom’s Messengers

138:2.1This first mis­sion­ary tour of the six was em­i­nently suc­cess­ful. They all dis­cov­ered the great value of di­rect and per­sonal con­tact with men. They re­turned to Je­sus more fully re­al­iz­ing that, af­ter all, re­li­gion is purely and wholly a mat­ter of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. They be­gan to sense how hun­gry were the com­mon peo­ple to hear words of re­li­gious com­fort and spir­i­tual good cheer. When they as­sem­bled about Je­sus, they all wanted to talk at once, but An­drew as­sumed charge, and as he called upon them one by one, they made their for­mal re­ports to the Mas­ter and pre­sented their nom­i­na­tions for the six new apos­tles.

138:2.2Je­sus, af­ter each man had pre­sented his se­lec­tion for the new apos­tle­ships, asked all the oth­ers to vote upon the nom­i­na­tion; thus all six of the new apos­tles were for­mally ac­cepted by all of the older six. Then Je­sus an­nounced that they would all visit these can­di­dates and give them the call to ser­vice.

138:2.3The newly se­lected apos­tles were:

138:2.41. Mat­thew Levi, the cus­toms col­lec­tor of Ca­per­naum, who had his of­fice just to the east of the city, near the bor­ders of Batanea. He was se­lected by An­drew.

138:2.52. Thomas Didy­mus, a fish­er­man of Ta­ri­chea and one­time car­pen­ter and stone ma­son of Gadara. He was se­lected by Philip.

138:2.63. James Al­pheus, a fish­er­man and farmer of Kheresa, was se­lected by James Zeb­e­dee.

138:2.74. Ju­das Al­pheus, the twin brother of James Al­pheus, also a fish­er­man, was se­lected by John Zeb­e­dee.

138:2.85. Si­mon Ze­lo­tes was a high of­fi­cer in the pa­tri­otic or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Zealots, a po­si­tion which he gave up to join Je­sus’ apos­tles. Be­fore join­ing the Zealots, Si­mon had been a mer­chant. He was se­lected by Pe­ter.

138:2.96. Ju­das Is­car­iot was an only son of wealthy Jew­ish par­ents liv­ing in Jeri­cho. He had be­come at­tached to John the Bap­tist, and his Sad­ducee par­ents had dis­owned him. He was look­ing for em­ploy­ment in these re­gions when Je­sus’ apos­tles found him, and chiefly be­cause of his ex­pe­ri­ence with fi­nances, Na­than­iel in­vited him to join their ranks. Ju­das Is­car­iot was the only Judean among the twelve apos­tles.

138:2.10Je­sus spent a full day with the six, an­swer­ing their ques­tions and lis­ten­ing to the de­tails of their re­ports, for they had many in­ter­est­ing and prof­itable ex­pe­ri­ences to re­late. They now saw the wis­dom of the Mas­ter’s plan of send­ing them out to la­bor in a quiet and per­sonal man­ner be­fore the launch­ing of their more pre­ten­tious pub­lic ef­forts.