The New Disciples Are Sent Out

Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Matthew 10:1-2 – [NASB], more details of this story appear in the following passages: Matthew 9:37-38, Mark 3:16, Luke 6:13-15 Jesus picked Simon Peter as the first among the twelve. He is named first in any list that contains the twelve disciples. Interestingly enough, the rest are shuffled around every time. It seems if you look closely that the twelve are actually broken into three groups of four. Peter always being mentioned first, but the other two groups of four also have a disciple who is head of that group. The first group is always Peter, James, John, and Andrew. These were Jesus’ most trusted friends. I will write another article later about how extremely significant these four guys are, but for now we’ll talk specifically about the above passages. What an honor that would have been to be picked by Jesus (especially for Peter being chosen first out of everyone else). But also imagine how Peter must have felt. You would have had to at least mentioned it at some point to the rest of the dudes. “I was first mentioned”! I’m willing to bet it was included in an argument later of which the topic would be “who is the greatest amongst us”. Obviously they were shut down by Jesus in that conversation, but being the greatest is not the point. Jesus knew the potential Peter had inside of him. Up to this point he has already demonstrated a knack for leading the others. As I mentioned in previous articles, Peter is typically the only person who ever speaks up or answers Jesus. There were eleven other guys and the person we hear speak the most other than Jesus in the gospels is Peter. First or not first, getting picked by Jesus for an adventure and being given Godly authority to cast out the demons that were messing with people would have to have been so amazing. On top of that, they had been witness to Jesus healing many people already, and now they could heal people too. How crazy it would be to be tasked with something like this. It has not been terribly long since they were just with John the Baptist, in a desert, hoping that John was right about the messiah soon to come. But now they are sent by Jesus into all directions to heal in Christ’s name. For the people they came to help, I’m sure it wasn’t the easiest task in the world to trust these disciples. They were, just seconds ago, simple fisherman who had a hard time catching anything. Did they ever change their clothes? Were they still wearing their stinky fish-clothes? Who knows, but what we do know is that they did what they were told. They went out and and healed many and even casted out tons of demons. After performing these miracles, they made it clear, it was not by their own power that these miracles were performed, but only by Jesus’ heavenly authority. Not even for a second did they try and take credit for the amazing things they were doing. It would be pretty hard to have such a gift and not take credit for it, instead giving all the credit to Jesus. It would not be hard however, to convince someone after healing them, especially if they couldn’t even walk and now can, to come meet Jesus, being the guy who gave them their power to do the healing. Like when Jesus would perform miracles similar to this, people would spread the word very fast. With the disciples broken up in groups and doing this all around the area, word must have spread extremely quick. There would have been many curious people wanting to know more and to meet Jesus. One thing you should think about regarding this story: The twelve disciples were given the ability to heal people, yet they never tried to take credit for what they had done. Even if they did, we don’t know about it. What we do know though is how often we take credit for the things God has done in our life. How often do you find yourself telling a story where obviously the Lord blessed you, yet you leave Him out? We must be honest with others about how we got where we are today. When good things happen by God’s hand, we must give credit back to God. Then, when we go to school or the office we must remain just as joyful, and be honest there as well. God is good!