During His ministry on earth, Jesus chose twelve disciples as companions. Why did He choose twelve? Why not ten or twenty? At that time, numbers were very important to the Jewish culture, for instance, the number 7 was considered holy and the number 40 (used throughout the Bible, i.e. 40 days and 40 nights) was used in the way we might say a month of Sundays to signify a long period of time. The number twelve, being a small number with many factors, such as 1,2,3,4 and 6 all divide into it, was considered to be perfection. For example, Israel had twelve tribes or in the book of Revelations, the number in heaven will be 144,000 which is 12 X 12 with ,000 added. So, Jesus chose the perfect number for His inner circle of disciples. His outer circle of 72 apostles was also a multiple of twelve, 6 X 12 to be exact. His especially close disciples, Peter, James and John equal the number 3 which is a quarter of twelve.

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Although the number of disciples may have some significance, whats more important is the diversity of the twelve. Two belligerent teenage boys (James and John), a volatile loud mouth (Peter), a political activist (Simon the Zealot), a hated tax collector and Roman collaborator (Matthew), a pair of fisherman (Peter and Andrew), one who was a skeptic and a cynic that we know as Doubting Thomas and of course the one who was entrusted with the material holdings of the group, Judas Iscariot who significantly succumbed to material gain (the world) and betrayed our Lord.



The twelve were a motley crew with little in common until they came together with Christ and united in the Holy Spirit, which transformed them into wonderful evangelists and ambassadors of the Christian faith. Jesus chose them and prepared them for the time when He would depart from this world so that the twelve could carry on and become the foundation of the church we know today.