Mark 3:13-15

The call of the Twelve: V. 13. And He goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto Him whom He would; and they came unto Him. V. 14. And He ordained twelve that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach, V. 15. and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils.

In the neighborhood of the sea, where Jesus had been performing the miracles, there was a mountain, later simply known among the apostles by this name; in a lonely region. Jesus managed to dismiss the multitudes for a time, since He was anxious to perform a very necessary piece of work, namely, the gaining of assistants and successors in His prophetic labors. On this hill they would be undisturbed, and He would have leisure to give them the information concerning the call given them at this time.

He called to Him those whom He wanted; He made a deliberate selection or choice from the total number of those that had gathered about Him as His disciples. And as He told them off, they came to Him in a place apart from the others. He then literally made twelve apostles, constituting these as a body for themselves. A special ceremony of ordination is not mentioned. It was merely a calling, a separating for special work, that the Lord performed. But as "the Twelve" they were henceforth known.

The Lord's charge to them consisted mainly in these points: That they should be with Him, be in His neighborhood at all times, this constant attendance upon His words being necessary for their training; that they should be sent out by Him for the work of heralding or proclaiming the Gospel; that they should, for this purpose, have power, transmitted to them by Jesus, to cast out demons. The power to perform miracles of such an extraordinary kind was necessary to substantiate their claim of a divine mission.