Are You Smarter Than A Disciple? Series

Next we have James, the son of Zebedee. He was fiery and sometimes self serving. But he was also bold and, in time, he was the first of the twelve disciples to be martyred for the faith.

His brother is next on the list. His name is John. He was probably the youngest of the disciples and he had a close relationship with Jesus. He is the disciple that the Bible refers to when it says “The disciple Jesus loved.” Jesus trusted him so much that, when Jesus was dying on the cross, it was John that Jesus asked to take care of his mother, Mary.

Next we have Philip. We don’t know a lot about him. We know he was from Bethsaida and that when called by Christ, he immediately went and told his friend Bartholomew.

Speaking of Bartholomew, who was also named Nathaniel, he is next on the list. And here we have a guy who had prejudice in his character. When he first heard about Jesus, he said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But we see that Jesus doesn’t look only at where we were, but where we can be. And he takes Nathaniel and changes him.

Next is Matthew, the tax collector, who probably sacrificed more from a financial standpoint than any of the other disciples.

Then Thomas—some people call him the disciple from Missouri, the Show Me State, because he didn’t believe that Jesus had actually come back from the dead because he wasn’t there for that appearance. He said, “I need to see it.”

He is followed by James, the son of Alphaeus. James earns the nickname, “James the Less”. Perhaps he was shorter than James, the son of Zebedee, and that’s how they kept track of him. I’m sure he loved the short jokes. I know I dearly look forward to them all the time.

The other day I was running through a practice session of our game show we played last week. Jeremy was helping me and I said to him, “Jeremy, pretend you are me for a moment.” He got down on his knees.

So, I’m sure James the less loved the short jokes as well.

And then you have Simon the Zealot. Another fiery, go getter. He was a member of the zealots, and we will talk about what a zealot is in a few moments.

Then there is Judas, the son of James, who had the same name as the Judas who ended up betraying Jesus. It’s interesting to note that a little bit later in the accounts he goes by the name Thaddeus, as if he might not want to be confused with the other Judas.

And then last is Judas Iscariot, and he is last. He is always the last one mentioned in every list. And Judas is interesting as well, because when we think of Judas, we always picture him as this shady guy with beady eyes and thick black eyebrows.

But that’s not the Judas that we see in the Bible. When Jesus said, “One of you will betray me,” they all didn’t say, “You know what? I’ll bet it’s that dude back there with the black eyebrows and the beady eyes.” Instead they said, “Is it me? Am I the one?”

Judas was probably the most trusted person in the group. We know that because they put him in charge of the group finances, and you wouldn’t put someone in charge of the money that you had any qualms about.