Twelve Ordinary Men: How the Master Shaped His Disciples for Greatness, and What He Wants to Do with You

by John F. MacArthur Jr.

MEASURE thanks

Modern conventional wisdom would suggest that Jesus ought to have done everything possible to exploit His fame, tone down the controversies that arose out of His teaching, and employ whatever strategies He could use to maximize the crowds around Him. But He did not do that. In fact, He did precisely the opposite. Instead of taking the populist route and exploiting His fame, He began to emphasize the very things that made His message so controversial. At about the time the crowds reached their peak, He preached a message so boldly confrontive and so offensive in its content that the multitude melted away, leaving only the most devoted few (John 6:66-67).

Among those who stayed with Christ were the Twelve, whom He had personally selected and appointed to represent Him. They were twelve perfectly ordinary, unexceptional men. But Christ's strategy for advancing His kingdom hinged on those twelve men rather than on the clamoring multitudes.

He chose to work through the instrumentality of those few fallible individuals rather than advance His agenda through mob force, military might, personal ...

A dozen men under the power of the Holy Spirit are a more potent force than the teeming masses whose initial enthusiasm for Jesus was apparently provoked by little more than sheer curiosity.

The Twelve were like the rest of us; they were selected from the unworthy and the unqualified.

But worthless nobodies are just the kind of people God uses, because that is all He has to work with.

It was not because they had extraordinary talents, unusual intellectual abilities, powerful political influence, or some special social status. They turned the world upside down because God worked in them to do it.

God chooses the humble, the lowly, the meek, and the weak so that there's never any question about the source of power when their lives change the world. It's not the man; it's the truth of God and the power of God in the man. (We need to remind some preachers today of this. It's not their cleverness or their personality. The power is in the Word—the truth that we preach—not in us.) And apart from one Person—one extraordinary human being who was God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ—the history of God's work on earth is the story of His using the unworthy and molding them for His use the same careful way a potter fashions clay. The Twelve were no exception to that.

He chooses weak instruments so that no one will attribute the power to human instruments rather than to God, who wields those instruments.

If Christ in His perfect humanity could not pour equal amounts of time and energy into everyone He drew around Him, no leader should expect to be able to do that.

That Matthew, a former tax collector, and Simon, a former Zealot, could be part of the same company of twelve apostles is a testimony to the life-changing power and grace of Christ.

By nature Simon was brash, vacillating, and undependable. He tended to make great promises he couldn't follow through with. He was one of those people who appears to lunge wholeheartedly into something but then bails out before finishing. He was usually the first one in; and too often, he was the first one out. When Jesus met him, he fit James's description of a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).Jesus changed Simon's name, it appears, because He wanted the nickname to be a perpetual reminder to him about who he should be.

who would become Peter, was impetuous, impulsive, and overeager. He needed to become like a rock, so that is what Jesus named him.

We know Simon Peter was the leader of the apostles—and not only from the fact that his name heads every list of the Twelve. We also have the explicit statement of Matthew 10:2: "Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter."The word translated "first" in that verse is the Greek term protos. It doesn't refer to the first in a list; it speaks of the chief, the leader of the group. Peter's leadership is further evident in the way he normally acts as spokesman for the whole group. He is always in the foreground, taking the lead.

Curiosity and Leadership

Peter asks more questions than all the other apostles combined.

All four of them obviously wanted to be leaders. As a group, they exercised a sort of collective leadership over the other disciples. We have already seen that Peter was without question the dominant one of the group and the usual spokesman for all twelve—sometimes whether they liked it or not. But it is clear that the four disciples in the inner circle all aspired to be leaders.

Whenever he speaks—which is rare in Scripture—he always says the right thing, not the wrong thing. Whenever he acts apart from the other disciples, he does what is right. Scripture never attaches any dishonor to Andrews actions when it mentions him by name.

Andrew and Peter, though brothers, had totally different leadership styles. But just as Peter was perfectly suited for his calling, Andrew was perfectly suited for his. In fact, Andrew may be a better model for most church leaders than Peter, because most who enter the ministry will labor in relative obscurity, like Andrew, as opposed to being renowned and prominent, like Peter.

Andrew was obviously poised and comfortable introducing people to Christ, because he did it so often. He apparently knew Jesus well and had no insecurities about bringing others to Him.

One thing I have observed in all my years of ministry is that the most effective and important aspects of evangelism usually take place on an individual, personal level. Most people do not come to Christ as an immediate response to a sermon they hear in a crowded setting. They come to Christ because of the influence of an individual.

Most pastors would love to have their churches populated by people with Andrew's mentality. Too many Christians think that because they can't speak in front of groups or because they don't have leadership gifts, they aren't responsible to evangelize. There are few who, like Andrew, understand the value of befriending just one person and bringing him or her to Christ.

Thank God for people like Andrew. They're the quiet individuals, laboring faithfully but inconspicuously, giving insignificant, sacrificial gifts, who accomplish the most for the Lord. They don't receive much recognition, but they don't seek it. They only want to hear the Lord say, "Well done."

And Andrew's legacy is the example he left to show us that in effective ministry it's often the little things that count—the individual people, the insignificant gifts, and the inconspicuous service.

If there's a key word that applies to the life of the apostle James, that word is passion.

There is a legitimate place in spiritual leadership for people who have thunderous personalities.

Zeal without wisdom is dangerous. Zeal mixed with insensitivity is often cruel. Whenever zeal disintegrates into uncontrolled passion, it can be deadly. And James sometimes had a tendency to let such misguided zeal get the better of him.

In the first place, their motives were wrong. A tone of arrogance is evident in the way they asked the question: "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" Of course, they did not have the power to call down fire from heaven.

Jesus' example taught James that loving-kindness and mercy are virtues to be cultivated as much as (and sometimes more than) righteous indignation and fiery zeal.

Jesus' reply subtly reminded them that suffering is the prelude to glory: "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Although He had explained to them numerous times that He was about to be crucified, they clearly did not understand what kind of baptism He meant. They had no real concept of what was stirring in the cup He was asking them to drink.

in their foolish, ambitious self-confidence, they assured Him, "We are able." They were clamoring for honor and position, so they were still eager to hear Him promise them those highest thrones.

James wanted a crown of glory; Jesus gave him a cup of suffering. He wanted power; Jesus gave him servanthood. He wanted a place of prominence; Jesus gave him a martyr's grave. He wanted to rule; Jesus gave him a sword—not to wield, but to be the instrument of his own execution. Fourteen years after this, James would become the first of the Twelve to be killed for his faith.

if I have to choose between a man of burning, flaming, passionate, enthusiasm with a potential for failure on the one hand, and a cold compromiser on the other hand, I'll take the man with passion every time. Such zeal must always be harnessed and tempered with love. But if it is surrendered to the control of the Holy Spirit and blended with patience and longsuffering, such zeal is a marvelous instrument in the hands of God.

But love was a quality he learned from Christ, not something that came naturally to him.

If you imagine that John was the way he was often portrayed in medieval art—a meek, mild, pale-skinned, effeminate person, lying around on Jesus' shoulder looking up at Him with a dove-eyed stare—forget that caricature. He was rugged and hard-edged, just like the rest of the fishermen-disciples. And again, he was every bit as intolerant, ambitious, zealous, and explosive as his elder brother. In fact, the one and only time the synoptic Gospel writers recorded John speaking for himself, he displayed his trademark aggressive, self-assertive, impertinent intolerance.

So it is clear from the Gospel accounts that John was capable of behaving in the most sectarian, narrow-minded, unbending, reckless, and impetuous fashion. He was volatile. He was brash. He was aggressive. He was passionate, zealous, and personally ambitious—-just like his brother James. They were cut from the same bolt of cloth.

He's an amazing example of what should happen to us as we grow in Christ—allowing the Lord's strength to be made perfect in our weakness.

For example, in his Gospel, he sets light against darkness, life against death, the kingdom of God against the kingdom of the devil, the children of God against the children of Satan, the judgment of the righteous against the judgment of the wicked, the resurrection of life against the resurrection of damnation, receiving Christ against rejecting Christ, fruit against fruitlessness, obedience against disobedience, and love against hatred. He loves dealing with truth in absolutes and opposites. He understands the necessity of drawing a clear line. The same approach carries through in his epistles. He tells us we are either walking in the light or dwelling in darkness. If we are born of God, we do not sin—indeed, we cannot sin (1 John 3:9). We are either "of God" or "of the world" (1 John 4:4-5). If we love, we are born of God; and if we don't love, we are not born of God (vv. 7-8). John writes, "Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him" (1 John 3:6). He says all these things without qualification and without any softening of the hard lines.

It is wonderful to have a high regard for the truth, but zeal for the truth must be balanced by a love for people, or it can give way to judgmentalism, harshness, and a lack of compassion. It is fine to be hardworking and ambitious, but if ambition is not balanced with humility, it becomes sinful pride—self-promotion at the expense of others.

just as truth out of balance can lead to serious error. A person out of balance is unsteady. Imbalance in one's personal character is a form of intemperance—a lack of self-control—and that is a sin in and of itself. So it is a very dangerous thing to push any point of truth or any character quality to an undue extreme.

Three years with Jesus moved this Son of Thunder toward becoming an apostle of love.

John is displaying an appalling intolerance, elitism, and a lack of genuine love for people. In the incident with the Samaritans, James and John showed a lack of love for unbelievers. Here John is guilty of a similar kind of unloving spirit toward a fellow believer.

He condemned a man who was ministering in the name of Jesus, just because the man wasn't part of the group.

John was always committed to truth, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, but it is not enough. Zeal for the truth must be balanced by love for people. Truth without love has no decency; it's just brutality. On the other hand, love without truth has no character; it's just hypocrisy.

Many people are just as imbalanced as John was, only in the other direction. They place too much emphasis on the love side of the fulcrum. Some are merely ignorant; others are deceived; still others simply do not care about what is true. In each case, truth is missing, and all they are left with is error, clothed in a shallow, tolerant sentimentality. It is a poor substitute for genuine love. They talk a lot about love and tolerance, but they utterly lack any concern for the truth. Therefore even the "love" they speak of is a tainted love. Real love "does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth" (1 Corinthians 13:6). On the other hand, there are many who have all their theological ducks in a row and know their doctrine but are unloving and self-exalting. They are left with truth as cold facts, stifling and unattractive. Their lack of love cripples the power of the truth they profess to revere.

If you could wish for anything in your sanctification, wish for that. If you pursue anything in the spiritual realm, pursue a perfect balance of truth and love. Know the truth, and uphold it in love.

Manifesting both truth and love is possible only for the mature believer who has grown into the measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ. That is how true spiritual maturity is defined. The authentically Christlike person knows the truth and speaks it in love. He knows the truth as Christ has revealed it, and he loves as Christ loves.

Again, there is nothing wrong with ambition. In fact, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with James and John's desire to sit next to Jesus in the kingdom. Who would not desire that? The other disciples certainly desired it, and that is why they were displeased with James and John. Jesus did not rebuke them for that desire per se. Their error was in desiring to obtain the position more than they desired to be worthy of such a position. Their ambition was untempered by humility.

The apostle John refuses to speak of himself in reference to himself. Instead, he speaks of himself in reference to Jesus. He never paints himself in the foreground as a hero, but uses every reference to himself to honor Christ. Rather than write his name, which might focus attention on him, he refers to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 13:23; 20:2; 21:7, 20), giving glory to Jesus for having loved such a man.