Apostles List

The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity had to suffer an inconvenience when He decided to incarnate. Once He took flesh and became Jesus of Nazareth, He was constrained in space and time. He no longer enjoyed the freedom in the time-dimension He used to enjoy. He could only travel at a speed human flesh could afford. Sorry, no more instantaneous teleport. He had to rely on His helpers to accomplish His will. Of course, this was not the first time God delegated to human agents responsibilities and missions. We had Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David etc. Similarly, Jesus had to rely on his apostles to help spread the gospel, build the Kingdom of Heaven.
John does not leave us any apostles list. The other three do. The Acts has a list of eleven, that is, before the election of Matthias to replace Judas. Yet, the same author (Luke) gave us two lists of different sequence. When a name was recorded in these documents, the person concerned must be able to command a certain degree of respect and status in the church. Therefore, let's do a comparison.

APOSTLES LIST
Mark 3:13-19	Matthew 10:2-4	Luke 6:13-16	Acts 1:13
Simon Peter
James	Andrew, his brother		John
John	James
Andrew	John, his brother		Andrew
Philip
Bartholomew			Thomas
Matthew	Thomas	Matthew	Bartholomew
Thomas	Matthew, the tax collector	Thomas	Matthew
James, son of Alphaeus
Thaddaeus		Simon, the Zealot
Simon the Cananaean		Judas, son of James
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus			---

The list consists of three groups of four. Simon Peter heads the first group, and indeed, the whole list. Philip heads the second and James, son of Alphaeus the last.
In the first group, it is interesting to note that the same author, Luke, put John the last in the gospel but the second in the Acts. In fact, Peter and John are almost always mentioned in the same breath in the Acts. John, the beloved disciples of the Lord, occupied a prominent status after the Lord's ascension. On the contrary, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, drops from the second in the gospel to the last in the Acts.
In the second group, Luke places Thomas last in the gospel and second in the Acts. Thomas appears only once in both the gospel and the Acts, in the apostles list. Only Matthew mentions his occupation and put himself the last in the group. The others don't.
The last group is the most consistent. Judas Iscariot, the traitor, occupies naturally the last of all.
These apostles were no extraordinary people. They were fishermen, tax-collector and even terrorist (Simon the Zealot). Other than that, the background of the remaining half was unknown. The gospel of Mark does not paint a favourable picture of these apostles. They held a very strong political expectation on the Messiah. They did not understand Jesus' teachings. They argued among themselves who would occupy the most prestigious position in the Kingdom of God. They deserted Jesus in his Passion etc. They were not the elites of the society. We are very confident that if we had been in their position, we would have performed better. Yet, these people were chosen by Jesus and they became the corner stones of the church which has survived for nearly 2000 years. In the end, they cooperated better than their contemporaries in bringing about the Kingdom of God on earth.
And preach as you go, saying, `The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying, give without pay (Matthew 10:7-8).
It is too easy to fall into the trap of superiority complex. In earlier centuries when the missionaries tried to convert primitive peoples, they carelessly destroyed the indigenous cultures, mistakenly thinking that their customs were demonic. Nowadays, we begin to appreciate the diversity of human civilizations and have learnt to respect them. May the Almighty God remind us to be humble because
You received without paying, give without pay (Matthew 10:8b).

My Advocate, I thank You for choosing us to share Your eternal life. May we treasure it and work with You to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. Amen.