From a group of a little over a hundred followers, Jesus Christ selected the first twelve apostles himself personally. It is a common belief that a few of them were related to Him through His mother Mary’s side of the family. The New Testament gives us a vague but somewhat discernible description of that family tree if one chooses to read it carefully. It is not hard to believe that Jesus grew up with many of those men that He selected to be His apostles.

They worshipped in the synagogues, played and worked together through their younger years. Many of these first apostles knew there was something different about Jesus. His behavior would have been noticeably consistent. By the time He was standing on the beach calling them to a full-time apostolic journey with Him (Matthew 4:18-22), they were probably quite well acquainted with Him and the existing ministry He was involved in.

In Christian churches everywhere there is often a traditional picture of this virtually unknown Jesus just appearing on the banks of the Galilee beckoning to these mysterious unacquainted fishermen to become His disciples. Or, that He walked into the tax collector’s office named Matthew (Levi) and locked eyes hypnotically with Him and commanded him to “follow me”.

The implication is that because Jesus is the “Son of God”, that He almost had an intimidating power to make these men leave their jobs and families for a very uncertain, possibly deadly journey of faith. That scenario probably couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The disciples were not called into apostleship until Jesus had established some format of His heartland ministry probably for some six up to eighteen months. Jesus had gathered a congregation of approximately 110-120 people (Acts 1:15) that He would spend time with on a regular basis as He journeyed through the Galilean region of Northern Israel. This is not a hard concept to believe. If a Bible student will go through the New Testament and run the names and numbers most of that group could be identified. The almost final accounting appears in Acts 1, as the remaining eleven and the rest of the congregation are gathered together by the command of Jesus Christ Himself to wait on what they probably believed at the time would either be their own mortal death or His return or re-appearing.    

It was those original twelve that Jesus selected from the larger group of disciples He called His apostles. The Greek word “apostolos” is where we get our English transliteration “apostle”. It literally means “someone who is sent with a message”. Apostles are often confused with the term disciples, when they are actually not the same. A disciple is one who learns the disciplines and teachings of the teacher or instructor, because he or she wants to become like the instructor or teacher. A student is not necessarily a disciple. A student is only interested in the knowledge that can be obtained from the teacher and not the ability to take on the likeness or persona of that teacher or instructor.

So, these original apostles were called into a closer fellowship of interaction and training by Jesus Christ. They are recorded in scriptures as Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John, Philip, Bartholomew (sometimes called Nathaniel in the gospels), Matthew (also called Levi) James the son of Alpheus (referred to as James the lesser), Thomas, Thaddeus (also called Jude or Judas the son of James) Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, referred to in all of the apostolic listings of the three synoptic gospels (Matthew 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19 and Luke 6:13-16) as the one who betrayed the Lord.

There were many others referred to as apostles in the New Testament. They are; Andronicas (Romans 16:7), Apollos (I Corinthians 3:1-8), Barnabas (Acts 14:4), Epaphraditus (Philippians 2:25-30), James the brother of the Lord (I Corinthians 15:3-7), Junias (Romans 16:7) who was probably a woman, Matthias (Acts 1:23-26), Paul (formerly Saul of Acts 7:58) writer of several of the epistles of the New Testament, Silas (I Thessalonians 1:1), Timothy (I Corinthians 16:10) and two unnamed apostles referred to in II Corinthians 8:18-23. In some of these references the word “messenger” is used instead of “apostle” as the translated word for the Greek word “apostolos” (SW 652 “messenger, he that is sent”) [1]

There are two New Testament characters that are often referred to erroneously as apostles, even though their apostleship is never declared anywhere in the 27 book canon of the New Testament. The two are the Gospel writers of Mark and Luke. Mark (sometimes referred to in the book of Acts as John Mark) is often thought to be a convert of Peter‘s ministry. It is believed that Mark’s Gospel, the earliest written gospel account was actually the dictation given to him by Peter himself. Mark was also affiliated with the Apostle Paul at one time. He was apparently banished by Paul at one point, but was later reconciled with him. Luke was a traveling companion of Paul and knew Peter also. He was a scholarly individual who wrote both the Gospel according to Luke and the book of Acts. He is believed to be the only gentile writer of a New Testament book.  

Of the original twelve, there was only one was from the southern Judean region around Jerusalem. He was the one referred to as the betrayer or traitor. He was named in the Gospel accounts as Judas Iscariot. This twelfth disciple did not live to see the resurrected Jesus. Sometime during the crucifixion or burial of Jesus he would take his own life as an act of repentance for the remorse he displayed by acknowledging that he had wrongfully betrayed the innocent blood of Jesus Christ (Matthew 27:3-5).

 The others were from the northern region of Israel known as Galilee. From these twelve Jesus selected three to go places and see things the other nine would only hear about. They were Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. Theologians commonly refer to them as the “inner circle”. All three would eventually have a significant impact on the formative years of the early church.

It was Peter, James and John who would witness Jesus raising Jarius’ daughter from the dead (Mark 5:37-39). They would also experience His glorious transfiguration of Jesus Christ along with Moses and Elijah (Mark 9:2-9). And they would also witness agonizing prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane just prior to His arrest. (Mark 14:32-33).      

Ten of the original disciples would meet mortal death as a martyr at the end of their earthly ministry. And the one who would not die as a martyr, John the beloved, would die a slow death under the imprisonment and belated exile to Ephesus by the Roman Empire just prior to his mortal death. His brother James, the other son of Zebedee, was the first of the Apostles to be executed for his faith. We read the account in Acts 12:2.  

Tradition places Peter’s crucifixion on Vatican hill, where the Circus of Nero stood[2]. Various scholars and theologians place the date of his death in the mid 60s AD. He is buried now at the same location at the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The Apostle Paul, who would later join the ranks of the eleven surviving Apostles, was put to death during the anti-Christian measures of Emperor Nero no later than 68 AD. [3] His execution like that of Peter’s took place in the vicinity of the great city of Rome. He is buried and memorialized outside the walls of Rome, known now as Tre Fontane.[4]  (three fountains or springs).