I heard a very thought-provoking message recently that really got me thinking about our current global situation. Regardless of who you are or what you personally believe for yourself regarding your eternity, the vast majority of the globe acknowledges the existence of a real man named Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, etc. and can relatively easy confirm scholarly records from ancient Roman time if Jewish records aren’t good enough.
One of the most commonly known tidbits about His life is that he recruited 12 men to live, follow, learn, and ultimately come to an intellectual and spiritual knowledge of his divine identity. What most of us don’t think about is the makeup of his troupe and how diverse they were, which is what blew my mind in a fit of deep thought that prompted this writing. Let’s run down a few of them, as that will be enough to boggle minds worldwide:
- Jude: a farmer, a man of the land.
- Matthew: a tax collector – worse than today’s IRS, these guys pocketed money for themselves and often charged as much as they could regardless of the tax rate.
- Simon Peter: a fisherman, so think Cape Cod fishy dude with rough hands and smelly hair.
- Simon: a zealot – we have those today. They are called terrorists. Zealots in the day would attack and kill Roman soldiers and other gov’t officials. Terrorism isn’t anything new.
Let’s try to put a religious terrorist extremist (Hamas or KKK, take your pick), corrupt IRS agent, the Gorton fisherman, and a redneck farmboy from Iowa in a dormitory setting with someone, anyone, as their mentor and let’s see how long everyone stays together… or alive. That must have been some group that would automatically generate respect and admiration from local authorities in today’s media hungry society looking for a shocking story.
That’s all I have for now, and maybe I’ll have more later, maybe not.
