Being “with” someone in high school has a certain meaning. It usually meant that the two of you were a couple. It often meant that you spent time together, walking the halls, hanging out during and after school. In my day it meant holding hands and kissing. Unfortunately, today it can mean a lot more than these physical connections. The connection meant you were getting to know each other, your likes and dislikes, personalities, priorities, preferences. It was usually fun.
Jesus has pulled aside many of those who were following Him. We know there are crowds of people. He has had to develop containment strategies in order to continue doing what is most important. And now He goes up on a mountainside and narrows the group of His closest followers. He whittles it down to twelve men.
We know from some of the other books of the New Testament that there were others, not part of the Twelve, who also traveled with Jesus continually. There were women who were a vital part of Jesus’ ministry and of the ministry of the Early Church. Without their support the ministry would have been much more difficult. They played an absolutely vital role.
Twelve are selected to be with Him and to be sent out to preach. They start an apprenticeship program from which they graduate on Pentecost. They begin to learn what it means to be with Him, and then when they are filled with the Holy Spirit they experience His presence in a new even fuller way.
Jesus calls them to be His consistent companions. Other people come and go from His presence, but they remain. Crowds gather and disperse. Others are close and then drift away, sometimes because discipleship demands too much from them. In the process they learned what Jesus believed about life, God, people, relationships, eternity, and the interplay of all of these things and more. They became the video cameras of their day. They witnessed His miracles and became the ones who passed along the reality of those events to the next generations.
They were also sent out as Jesus’ representatives. They were given what to say, but also power to say it. They healed people and cast out demons. They began to do what Jesus had been doing. Jesus didn’t want demons telling everyone who He was. He wanted the Twelve to do that.
Jesus calls us, empowers us, gives us what to say, and sends us out with power to do what He calls us to do. The Twelve are the first batch of disciples. We follow in a long line of those Jesus calls to be with Him and to preach.
The Arnold Journey 