The Selection of Jesus' Disciples

From among His committed followers, Jesus chose a special group of disciples that were often referred to as “apostles” or simply "the Twelve."

The day after John’s amazing declaration of Jesus as the Lamb of God, John was with two of his followers. He saw Jesus walking by and said, "Here He is, God's special Lamb."

On hearing these words, John’s two followers spent the day with Jesus. Andrew was one of the two. He was so impressed that the first thing he did was to find his brother, Simon, and bring him to Jesus. “We've found the Messiah (the Christ)!”

Jesus took one look at him and said, “You’re John’s son, Simon? I’m going to call you Cephas” (or Peter, which means “Rock”).

The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee. When He got there, He ran across Philip and said, “Come, follow me.” (Philip's hometown was Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter.)

Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, “We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One foretold by the prophets. It’s Jesus, Joseph’s son, the one from Nazareth!” Nathanael said, “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding.”

But Philip said, “Come, see for yourself.”

When Jesus saw him coming, he said, “There's a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body.”

Nathanael said, “Where did you get that idea? You don't know me.”

Jesus answered, “One day, long before Philip called you here, I saw you under the fig tree.”

Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi! You are the Son of God, the King of Israel!”

Jesus said, “You’ve become a believer simply because I say I saw you one day sitting under the fig tree? You haven’t seen anything yet! Before this is over, you’re going to see Heaven open and God's angels descending to the Son of Man and ascending again.”

Jesus had many followers, but we’re not told the stories of how Jesus met all of them. We do know that as He visited some of them where they worked, He began to call on them to follow Him in a special way. He called James, John, Peter, and Andrew from their fishing boats by the Sea of Galilee. He called Matthew from his tax collector’s booth in the city.

Then, one evening, Jesus climbed a mountain by Himself. He stayed on the mountain all night praying. When He came down the next morning, Jesus chose 12 of His followers and designated them apostles (sent ones): Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (Alphaeus’ son), Simon (nicknamed the Zealot), Judas (James’ son), and Judas Iscariot (who would eventually betray Him).

Later, somewhere in the Galilee region, Jesus called the Twelve together, gave them power and authority over demons and diseases, and sent them out to proclaim God’s kingdom and to heal. The apostles visited villages all around, preaching the good news everywhere they went.