There are three distinct groupings of disciples. Those who were with Jesus the most are mentioned in the first group. Those who are mentioned less often are in the second group. Those in the third group are hardly mentioned at all (with the exception of Judas Iscariot).

The same person always heads up each group.

It has been suggested that each of these three groups had a natural leader. We know that Peter tended to lead his group and, in fact, provided leadership for all of the disciples.

There is no disciple of Jesus with whom we are more familiar than the person of Simon. We are told here that Jesus gave him a nickname - Peter (Petros), "Rock."

Simon was a leader. He could not help it. Sometimes he led in the right direction and sometimes he led in the wrong direction, but he was always a leader. When he was right, he could have incredible insight and faith. And when he was wrong, it could have tragic consequences.

There is something loveable about Peter. We can hardly read about him without having our imaginations stirred. This was a man who did great things. Like all men of high magnitude, both his victories as well as his failures were great.

Andrew was a Greek name. It is the common Greek word for "man." Andrew’s claim to fame was that he was Peter’s brother. Luke makes no further mention of him in this gospel account. I can’t help but wonder if he ever got tired of being identified as "the brother of Simon Peter." I wonder if he ever felt like yelling out, "Hey, I’m more than merely the brother of Peter!"

Like his brother Peter, Andrew had started out as a fisherman from the lakeside village of Bethsaida. But he had left the fishing business to follow after John the Baptist. And because of this, he became one of the very first disciples of Jesus. It was he who brought his brother Peter to meet Jesus. Every time we see Andrew, he is bringing someone else to meet Jesus.

Andrew was one of those behind-the-scenes people. He was not always speaking up. He was not the one who would stand up on the day of Pentecost and preach to the multitude. But he was doing something equally important. He was bringing people to Jesus.

We aren’t all called to be a Peter. We are not all destined to be leaders in the church. But that is okay. We can always be an Andrew. We can always point people to Jesus. You remember that it takes an Andrew to bring a Peter to the Lord.

James is never mentioned in the gospels apart from his brother, John. Of the two, James is always mentioned first, indicating that he might have been the elder of the two. He was destined to be one of the early martyrs of the church (Acts 12:1-2).

James and John worked for their father, Zebedee, in the family fishing business. Their family was in a partnership with Simon and Andrew. The business was fairly prosperous, as evidenced by the fact that they were able to hire servants (Mark 1:20).

James and John had a nickname. You know what a nickname is. It is a name given to you for some personal characteristic. In my years working for the fire department, I have seen and heard a lot of nicknames.

Each of these was given because of some personal characteristic. The nickname that James and John had was given to them by Jesus. He called them Boanerges (Mark 3:17). It is an Aramaic term. It means, "Sons of Thunder." It sounds as though these two brothers were a couple of hell-raisers. Perhaps Jesus gave them this nickname because of the time they came to Him and asked Him to call fire down from heaven upon certain cities of Samaria that had not been very receptive to their preaching.

Can you imagine this kind of request? It would be like me coming into church and asking the congregation to pray that the Lord would destroy the city of Fort Lauderdale because they didn’t grant our request for a building permit. James and John had a zeal and a boldness for God, but they still had to learn about the love and the tenderness of God.

We know that James continued to be bold and outspoken for Christ because he was the first of the apostles to be martyred (Acts 12:2). Church tradition tells us that when James was being taken out to be beheaded, the soldier in charge of his execution was so impressed by his courage and his zeal that he declared himself to be a Christian and was beheaded alongside of James.

John describes himself elsewhere as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Because of this, people sometimes picture someone who is weak and effeminate who sat around meditating all day while leaning up against the bosom of Jesus. That is a false picture. John was one of the "sons of thunder." He may not have been as explosive as his brother, but he was still involved in the fire-from-heaven incident.

The Synoptic Gospels each refer to John by name. But the Gospel of John does not. Instead he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21;&; 21:20; 21:24).

This was not a title that John used boastfully. He was astounded by the fact that Jesus loved him. He was amazed that the Lord loved the one who had wanted to burn up the Samaritans. He went on to serve the Lord in Ephesus for many years, taking care of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He was finally banished to the island of Patmos, a slave-labor camp.

This is also a Greek name. It was the same name as the father of Alexander the Great. It means "horse-lover." Philip may have also had a Hebrew name, but we don’t know what it was. For some reason, Philip always went by his Greek name. It is noteworthy that when some Greeks wanted to come and speak to Jesus, they first went to Philip (John 12:20-22). Because his name was Greek, perhaps they thought that he would be more willing to help them.

One insight into the personality of Philip is seen in the time Jesus fed the 5,000. While Andrew was bringing the boy with the loaves and the fish, Jesus asked Philip a question.

Jesus and Philip are standing on the hill watching a great crowd of people gathering. Jesus turns to His disciple and asks him a question. "How are we going to feed this mob, Philip?"

The question is for Philip’s benefit. Jesus knows that He is going to perform a miracle. But Philip cannot read ahead to verse 11 to see that this is the case because it hasn’t been written yet. He doesn’t know the answer. And so, he pulls out his pocket calculator and does some quick figuring.

The name "Bartholomew" is made up of two Hebrew words. Bar is the Hebrew word for "son." This man was the son of Tolmai (Ptolemy). He is known elsewhere as Nathanael Bar Tolmai.

Nathaniel was from the village of Cana of Galilee (John 21:2). If possible, this village was even more obscure than Nazareth. Nathaniel was brought to the Lord by his friend, Philip.

I am sure that Nathanael perked up a bit when Philip came on the scene, saying that he had found the Messiah. Nathanael had read about the Messiah all his life. But when Philip said that He is Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael had an immediate problem. Messiahs do not come from Nazareth. Nazareth is a little too close to home.

Nathanael was prejudiced. He might be willing to believe in a Messiah that came from some exotic location, but he could not accept one that came from Nazareth. Nazareth was only a little village. Nobody of any importance ever came from Nazareth.

Fortunately for Nathanael, his willingness to come to the truth overcame his prejudice. When Philip asked him to come and see for himself, he could have refused. But he didn’t. He came and he met Jesus and all of his objections were answered.

What kind of man does God choose? He chooses even a hardened, prejudiced Jew like Nathanael as long as he is willing to have those prejudices overcome.

This is the Greek name belonging to Levi of whose call we read in Mark 2:14. He had both a Hebrew name and a Greek name. This was not so unusual. There are a number of people in the New Testament who had both a Hebrew as well as a Greek name.

Luke has already introduced us to Matthew in Luke 5:27-29 where he used his Jewish name - Levi. Now he switches to Matthew. This seems to have been the name by which he was identified in later years.

Matthew’s former occupation had been that of a tax collector. He had purchased a franchise from the Roman government that gave him the authority to set and collect taxes. He had paid a vast sum of money for this privilege. He was then able to recoup his investment by collecting taxes from his fellow countrymen. Obviously, the more he collected, the more profit he would make. Since he had gone into this profession for the sole purpose of making money, he probably made it a point to charge people as much as possible. He was permitted to set taxes on all sorts of things. He could tax you on how many axles were on your wagon or how much baggage you were carrying or even how much money you were carrying.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to see how this man must have been hated by the Jews. He was one who had turned his back on his country to work for the Roman conquerors. He was a traitor to his people. He was doing work that the Romans considered to be too demeaning to dirty their own hands. He was an outcast, banished from the synagogue and the Temple. No self-respecting Jew would even sit down at the same table with him.

All that changed the day Matthew met Jesus. He was sitting by the side of the road that day collecting taxes and extorting money from people who passed along. Then Jesus came by and called him to follow. Matthew did not hesitate. He left his money and his taxing district and he got up and followed Jesus.

The first thing that Matthew did after he had begun to follow Jesus was to throw a party with Jesus as the guest of honor. Matthew invited all of his tax-collector friends. When Jesus and His disciples attended, the Pharisees were horrified. How could one who claimed to be a man of God associate with such people? They had not learned the principle that Matthew had come to see -- that Jesus comes to save sinners.

What kind of man does God call? He calls sinners who commit real sins. He even calls a renegade extortioner like Matthew.

In Mark 15:40 he will be called "James the Less." That is an unfortunate translation. He was known as "Little James."

My younger brother is named Dennis. My older brother’s son is also named Dennis. For many years, it was the custom within our family to refer to them as "Little Dennis" and "Big Dennis." The problem is that Little Dennis eventually grew up to be bigger and taller and heavier than Big Dennis. But the designation has managed to stick through the years, much to the chagrin of Little Dennis.

I think that is what happened among the disciples. It became inconvenient to distinguish between James the son of Zebedee versus James the son of Alphaeus, so the other disciples took to calling them Big James and Little James.

Aside from his name and the name of his father, we know absolutely nothing about James. But that is okay. The Bible never tells us to do a study on the Twelve Disciples and pick out the one who had the best homiletical method or preaching and fosuc upon him. When we look at the disciples, our goal is not to learn something about the disciples. Our goal is to learn something about Jesus. He is the object of our study. He is the object of our worship. And when we look at the disciples, we learn what kind of a man that Jesus chooses. He chooses little people. He chooses the unknown. He chooses those who seek no glory for themselves.

The story is told of a famous artist who painted a picture of the Last Supper. When the painting was finished, he brought it to a friend to see it. The friend looked at the painting for a long time and then remarked, "It is wonderful! It has such detail! Those are the most magnificent cups I have ever seen." To the utter astonishment of the friend, the artist picked up his brush and in great sweeping strokes proceeded to paint over the cups. "What are you doing that for?" exclaimed the friend. "I failed," replied the artist. "I wanted you to see Jesus, but instead you only saw cups."

What kind of man does God use? He uses one who will call attention to Jesus rather than to himself.

The Zealots were a political party within Judaism. They were the nationalist party. They were intent on driving the Romans from the land and restoring an independent state. A revolt had been organized under a Galilean Zealot named Judas (Acts 5:37). Judas had been killed and his followers scattered, but the Zealots lived on.

They would finally bring about another revolt in 66 A.D. which would slaughter the Roman garrison in Jerusalem and defeat a Roman legion from Syria. The Romans would respond by sending a total of four Roman legions and Jerusalem would be destroyed and her temple burned. The last of the Zealots would flee to the south where they would find temporary refuge in the desert fortress of Masada. It would be here that 930 men, women and children would commit mass suicide rather than fall into the hands of the hated Romans.

Simon was from this movement. He had looked earnestly for the coming of a military Messiah who would lead the Jews to revolt against Rome. Perhaps he initially came to Jesus for this reason. But somewhere along the line, he would fall in love with Jesus.

One of the intriguing things about Simon is that he joined the same group of disciples to which Matthew belonged. No two people could be more opposite.

This is the Greek form of Judah, the son of Jacob who became an ancestor of the Messiah. This was a common name among the Jews. Two of the disciples had the same name. Judas had several nicknames.

We only see Judas Lebbaeus pistured one time in the New Testament. It was on the night of the Last Supper. Jesus was giving His disciples a special promise.

Judas Lebbaeus had been thinking of the manifestation of the Messiah as an outward manifestation with trumpets and shouts and an earthly kingdom that would be visible to all. But Jesus taught that the kingdom would not be an external happening. He taught that the kingdom was already present in the hearts and lives of men (Luke 17:21).