The Twelve Apostles

139:9.1James and Ju­das the sons of Al­pheus, the twin fish­er­men liv­ing near Kheresa, were the ninth and tenth apos­tles and were cho­sen by James and John Zeb­e­dee. They were twenty-six years old and mar­ried, James hav­ing three chil­dren, Ju­das two.

139:9.2There is not much to be said about these two com­mon­place fish­er­folk. They loved their Mas­ter and Je­sus loved them, but they never in­ter­rupted his dis­courses with ques­tions. They un­der­stood very lit­tle about the phil­o­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sions or the the­o­log­i­cal de­bates of their fel­low apos­tles, but they re­joiced to find them­selves num­bered among such a group of mighty men. These two men were al­most iden­ti­cal in per­sonal ap­pear­ance, men­tal char­ac­ter­is­tics, and ex­tent of spir­i­tual per­cep­tion. What may be said of one should be re­corded of the other.

139:9.3An­drew as­signed them to the work of polic­ing the mul­ti­tudes. They were the chief ush­ers of the preach­ing hours and, in fact, the gen­eral ser­vants and er­rand boys of the twelve. They helped Philip with the sup­plies, they car­ried money to the fam­i­lies for Na­than­iel, and al­ways were they ready to lend a help­ing hand to any one of the apos­tles.

139:9.4The mul­ti­tudes of the com­mon peo­ple were greatly en­cour­aged to find two like them­selves hon­ored with places among the apos­tles. By their very ac­cep­tance as apos­tles these mediocre twins were the means of bring­ing a host of faint­hearted be­liev­ers into the king­dom. And, too, the com­mon peo­ple took more kindly to the idea of be­ing di­rected and man­aged by of­fi­cial ush­ers who were very much like them­selves.

139:9.5James and Ju­das, who were also called Thad­deus and Leb­beus, had nei­ther strong points nor weak points. The nick­names given them by the dis­ci­ples were good-na­tured des­ig­na­tions of medi­ocrity. They were “the least of all the apos­tles”; they knew it and felt cheer­ful about it.

139:9.6James Al­pheus es­pe­cially loved Je­sus be­cause of the Mas­ter’s sim­plic­ity. These twins could not com­pre­hend the mind of Je­sus, but they did grasp the sym­pa­thetic bond be­tween them­selves and the heart of their Mas­ter. Their minds were not of a high or­der; they might even rev­er­ently be called stupid, but they had a real ex­pe­ri­ence in their spir­i­tual na­tures. They be­lieved in Je­sus; they were sons of God and fel­lows of the king­dom.

139:9.7Ju­das Al­pheus was drawn to­ward Je­sus be­cause of the Mas­ter’s un­os­ten­ta­tious hu­mil­ity. Such hu­mil­ity linked with such per­sonal dig­nity made a great ap­peal to Ju­das. The fact that Je­sus would al­ways en­join si­lence re­gard­ing his un­usual acts made a great im­pres­sion on this sim­ple child of na­ture.

139:9.8The twins were good-na­tured, sim­ple-minded helpers, and ev­ery­body loved them. Je­sus wel­comed these young men of one tal­ent to po­si­tions of honor on his per­sonal staff in the king­dom be­cause there are un­told mil­lions of other such sim­ple and fear-rid­den souls on the worlds of space whom he like­wise wishes to wel­come into ac­tive and be­liev­ing fel­low­ship with him­self and his out­poured Spirit of Truth. Je­sus does not look down upon lit­tle­ness, only upon evil and sin. James and Ju­das were lit­tle, but they were also faith­ful. They were sim­ple and ig­no­rant, but they were also big-hearted, kind, and gen­er­ous.

139:9.9And how grate­fully proud were these hum­ble men on that day when the Mas­ter re­fused to ac­cept a cer­tain rich man as an evan­ge­list un­less he would sell his goods and help the poor. When the peo­ple heard this and be­held the twins among his coun­selors, they knew of a cer­tainty that Je­sus was no re­specter of per­sons. But only a di­vine in­sti­tu­tion—the king­dom of heaven—could ever have been built upon such a mediocre hu­man foun­da­tion!

139:9.10Only once or twice in all their as­so­ci­a­tion with Je­sus did the twins ven­ture to ask ques­tions in pub­lic. Ju­das was once in­trigued into ask­ing Je­sus a ques­tion when the Mas­ter had talked about re­veal­ing him­self openly to the world. He felt a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed that there were to be no more se­crets among the twelve, and he made bold to ask: “But, Mas­ter, when you do thus de­clare your­self to the world, how will you fa­vor us with spe­cial man­i­fes­ta­tions of your good­ness?”

139:9.11The twins served faith­fully un­til the end, un­til the dark days of trial, cru­ci­fix­ion, and de­spair. They never lost their heart faith in Je­sus, and (save John) they were the first to be­lieve in his res­ur­rec­tion. But they could not com­pre­hend the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom. Soon af­ter their Mas­ter was cru­ci­fied, they re­turned to their fam­i­lies and nets; their work was done. They had not the abil­ity to go on in the more com­plex bat­tles of the king­dom. But they lived and died con­scious of hav­ing been hon­ored and blessed with four years of close and per­sonal as­so­ci­a­tion with a Son of God, the sov­er­eign maker of a uni­verse.