The Twelve Apostles

139:3.1James, the older of the two apos­tle sons of Zeb­e­dee, whom Je­sus nick­named “sons of thun­der,” was thirty years old when he be­came an apos­tle. He was mar­ried, had four chil­dren, and lived near his par­ents in the out­skirts of Ca­per­naum, Beth­saida. He was a fish­er­man, ply­ing his call­ing in com­pany with his younger brother John and in as­so­ci­a­tion with An­drew and Si­mon. James and his brother John en­joyed the ad­van­tage of hav­ing known Je­sus longer than any of the other apos­tles.

139:3.2This able apos­tle was a tem­per­a­men­tal con­tra­dic­tion; he seemed re­ally to pos­sess two na­tures, both of which were ac­tu­ated by strong feel­ings. He was par­tic­u­larly ve­he­ment when his in­dig­na­tion was once fully aroused. He had a fiery tem­per when once it was ad­e­quately pro­voked, and when the storm was over, he was al­ways wont to jus­tify and ex­cuse his anger un­der the pre­tense that it was wholly a man­i­fes­ta­tion of righ­teous in­dig­na­tion. Ex­cept for these pe­ri­odic up­heavals of wrath, James’s per­son­al­ity was much like that of An­drew. He did not have An­drew’s dis­cre­tion or in­sight into hu­man na­ture, but he was a much bet­ter pub­lic speaker. Next to Pe­ter, un­less it was Mat­thew, James was the best pub­lic or­a­tor among the twelve.

139:3.3Though James was in no sense moody, he could be quiet and tac­i­turn one day and a very good talker and sto­ry­teller the next. He usu­ally talked freely with Je­sus, but among the twelve, for days at a time he was the silent man. His one great weak­ness was these spells of un­ac­count­able si­lence.

139:3.4The out­stand­ing fea­ture of James’s per­son­al­ity was his abil­ity to see all sides of a propo­si­tion. Of all the twelve, he came the near­est to grasp­ing the real im­port and sig­nif­i­cance of Je­sus’ teach­ing. He, too, was slow at first to com­pre­hend the Mas­ter’s mean­ing, but ere they had fin­ished their train­ing, he had ac­quired a su­pe­rior con­cept of Je­sus’ mes­sage. James was able to un­der­stand a wide range of hu­man na­ture; he got along well with the ver­sa­tile An­drew, the im­petu­ous Pe­ter, and his self-con­tained brother John.

139:3.5Though James and John had their trou­bles try­ing to work to­gether, it was in­spir­ing to ob­serve how well they got along. They did not suc­ceed quite so well as An­drew and Pe­ter, but they did much bet­ter than would or­di­nar­ily be ex­pected of two broth­ers, es­pe­cially such head­strong and de­ter­mined broth­ers. But, strange as it may seem, these two sons of Zeb­e­dee were much more tol­er­ant of each other than they were of strangers. They had great af­fec­tion for one an­other; they had al­ways been happy play­mates. It was these “sons of thun­der” who wanted to call fire down from heaven to de­stroy the Samar­i­tans who pre­sumed to show dis­re­spect for their Mas­ter. But the un­timely death of James greatly mod­i­fied the ve­he­ment tem­per­a­ment of his younger brother John.

139:3.6That char­ac­ter­is­tic of Je­sus which James most ad­mired was the Mas­ter’s sym­pa­thetic af­fec­tion. Je­sus’ un­der­stand­ing in­ter­est in the small and the great, the rich and the poor, made a great ap­peal to him.

139:3.7James Zeb­e­dee was a well-bal­anced thinker and plan­ner. Along with An­drew, he was one of the more level-headed of the apos­tolic group. He was a vig­or­ous in­di­vid­ual but was never in a hurry. He was an ex­cel­lent bal­ance wheel for Pe­ter.

139:3.8He was mod­est and un­dra­matic, a daily server, an un­pre­ten­tious worker, seek­ing no spe­cial re­ward when he once grasped some­thing of the real mean­ing of the king­dom. And even in the story about the mother of James and John, who asked that her sons be granted places on the right hand and the left hand of Je­sus, it should be re­mem­bered that it was the mother who made this re­quest. And when they sig­ni­fied that they were ready to as­sume such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it should be rec­og­nized that they were cog­nizant of the dan­gers ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Mas­ter’s sup­posed re­volt against the Ro­man power, and that they were also will­ing to pay the price. When Je­sus asked if they were ready to drink the cup, they replied that they were. And as con­cerns James, it was lit­er­ally true—he did drink the cup with the Mas­ter, see­ing that he was the first of the apos­tles to ex­pe­ri­ence mar­tyr­dom, be­ing early put to death with the sword by Herod Agrippa. James was thus the first of the twelve to sac­ri­fice his life upon the new bat­tle line of the king­dom. Herod Agrippa feared James above all the other apos­tles. He was in­deed of­ten quiet and silent, but he was brave and de­ter­mined when his con­vic­tions were aroused and chal­lenged.

139:3.9James lived his life to the full, and when the end came, he bore him­self with such grace and for­ti­tude that even his ac­cuser and in­former, who at­tended his trial and ex­e­cu­tion, was so touched that he rushed away from the scene of James’s death to join him­self to the dis­ci­ples of Je­sus.