The Twelve Apostles

139:6.1Na­than­iel, the sixth and last of the apos­tles to be cho­sen by the Mas­ter him­self, was brought to Je­sus by his friend Philip. He had been as­so­ci­ated in sev­eral busi­ness en­ter­prises with Philip and, with him, was on the way down to see John the Bap­tist when they en­coun­tered Je­sus.

139:6.2When Na­than­iel joined the apos­tles, he was twenty-five years old and was the next to the young­est of the group. He was the young­est of a fam­ily of seven, was un­mar­ried, and the only sup­port of aged and in­firm par­ents, with whom he lived at Cana; his broth­ers and sis­ter were ei­ther mar­ried or de­ceased, and none lived there. Na­than­iel and Ju­das Is­car­iot were the two best ed­u­cated men among the twelve. Na­than­iel had thought to be­come a mer­chant.

139:6.3Je­sus did not him­self give Na­than­iel a nick­name, but the twelve soon be­gan to speak of him in terms that sig­ni­fied hon­esty, sin­cer­ity. He was “with­out guile.” And this was his great virtue; he was both hon­est and sin­cere. The weak­ness of his char­ac­ter was his pride; he was very proud of his fam­ily, his city, his rep­u­ta­tion, and his na­tion, all of which is com­mend­able if it is not car­ried too far. But Na­than­iel was in­clined to go to ex­tremes with his per­sonal prej­u­dices. He was dis­posed to pre­judge in­di­vid­u­als in ac­cor­dance with his per­sonal opin­ions. He was not slow to ask the ques­tion, even be­fore he had met Je­sus, “Can any good thing come out of Naz­a­reth?” But Na­than­iel was not ob­sti­nate, even if he was proud. He was quick to re­verse him­self when he once looked into Je­sus’ face.

139:6.4In many re­spects Na­than­iel was the odd ge­nius of the twelve. He was the apos­tolic philoso­pher and dreamer, but he was a very prac­ti­cal sort of dreamer. He al­ter­nated be­tween sea­sons of pro­found phi­los­o­phy and pe­ri­ods of rare and droll hu­mor; when in the proper mood, he was prob­a­bly the best sto­ry­teller among the twelve. Je­sus greatly en­joyed hear­ing Na­than­iel dis­course on things both se­ri­ous and frivolous. Na­than­iel pro­gres­sively took Je­sus and the king­dom more se­ri­ously, but never did he take him­self se­ri­ously.

139:6.5The apos­tles all loved and re­spected Na­than­iel, and he got along with them splen­didly, ex­cept­ing Ju­das Is­car­iot. Ju­das did not think Na­than­iel took his apos­tle­ship suf­fi­ciently se­ri­ously and once had the temer­ity to go se­cretly to Je­sus and lodge com­plaint against him. Said Je­sus: “Ju­das, watch care­fully your steps; do not over­mag­nify your of­fice. Who of us is com­pe­tent to judge his brother? It is not the Fa­ther’s will that his chil­dren should par­take only of the se­ri­ous things of life. Let me re­peat: I have come that my breth­ren in the flesh may have joy, glad­ness, and life more abun­dantly. Go then, Ju­das, and do well that which has been in­trusted to you but leave Na­than­iel, your brother, to give ac­count of him­self to God.” And the mem­ory of this, with that of many sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, long lived in the self-de­ceiv­ing heart of Ju­das Is­car­iot.

139:6.6Many times, when Je­sus was away on the moun­tain with Pe­ter, James, and John, and things were be­com­ing tense and tan­gled among the apos­tles, when even An­drew was in doubt about what to say to his dis­con­so­late breth­ren, Na­than­iel would re­lieve the ten­sion by a bit of phi­los­o­phy or a flash of hu­mor; good hu­mor, too.

139:6.7Na­than­iel’s duty was to look af­ter the fam­i­lies of the twelve. He was of­ten ab­sent from the apos­tolic coun­cils, for when he heard that sick­ness or any­thing out of the or­di­nary had hap­pened to one of his charges, he lost no time in get­ting to that home. The twelve rested se­curely in the knowl­edge that their fam­i­lies’ wel­fare was safe in the hands of Na­than­iel.

139:6.8Na­than­iel most revered Je­sus for his tol­er­ance. He never grew weary of con­tem­plat­ing the broad­mind­ed­ness and gen­er­ous sym­pa­thy of the Son of Man.

139:6.9Na­than­iel’s fa­ther (Bartholomew) died shortly af­ter Pen­te­cost, af­ter which this apos­tle went into Mes­o­po­ta­mia and In­dia pro­claim­ing the glad tid­ings of the king­dom and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers. His breth­ren never knew what be­came of their one­time philoso­pher, poet, and hu­morist. But he also was a great man in the king­dom and did much to spread his Mas­ter’s teach­ings, even though he did not par­tic­i­pate in the or­ga­ni­za­tion of the sub­se­quent Chris­tian church. Na­than­iel died in In­dia.