Luke 6:12-16
The Twelve Original Apostles
12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
Acts 1:1-8
Jesus is on Earth for Forty Days After His Death
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
The early disciples chosen by Jesus were an eclectic group...He started with four fisherman, and then He added a Zealot, a tax collector, and others to make His Twelve followers a very diverse group...A group when we look back, we might wonder how the Twelve different characters got along...But Jesus was there keeping all things together...Jesus keeps all things together...And His LOVE kept the Disciples together...Jesus would bring this differing group together like no other group in the world would ever see...And one of the group would betray Him...And so from these Eleven different men, who were Jewish and from Israel would bring a new religion to the world...And Christianity became the official religion of Rome in 313 a.d....
How could eleven men start a new religion?...The simple answer is it is all about their Teacher, named Jesus...Jesus chose His Disciples and had appointed them that they would go into the world and bear fruit—fruit that would last—and so that whatever they would ask in Jesus' name God His Father would give it to them...And this fruit were new followers...Jesus could do anything, yet He did His teachings, and His miracles were done in such a way that we see it was done in a very humanly way and somehow believable human -but He was Divine...And in this sense and the way He went about His life, He had followers, who believed, but He also had those who did not believe in Him...The signs that He had given the people, the miracles He could do even though there were many eyewitnesses some did not still believe...But the Twelve were there for almost all of His miracles...And what they saw truly amazed them...But even though people were amazed by what He did, the officials in charge of the current religion in Israel, did not believe who He was and He would get betrayed by one of His own handpicked Disciples and get arrested and die on a cross...So He would die...Yet, His death represented one of the most important things in mankind's history...He would die on this cross for mankind's sins...Each individual's sins were paid for by His death on that cross...So His Life was a plan to happen this way...It was God's Plan...A Plan that God would have a Son and He would be born in Bethlehem, live around Nazareth, and then die on a cross in Jerusalem for mankind's sins...
Now this seems very hard to believe that a Man could die for our sins and that this was a Plan by God, and there are many who do not believe this...And we can add to this, that after He died, He rose from the dead...And He stayed around earth for another forty days, giving His Eleven remaining Disciples convincing proof that He was alive...He even ate broiled fish with them, to prove that He was alive and had risen from the dead -and was still alive...So these Eleven men would talk to others in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth and a Jesus Religion would start, and we would call it Christianity...
For this new religion to happen, the original Eleven would have to talk to others, many others to really convince the new recruits or believers or new Christian that Jesus did exist, and that He could do miracles and did rise from the dead, and thus He is still alive...Jesus was the Messiah from the Old Testament, and the people could read about what He had done in the four gospels, mostly written shortly after His death...So the Eleven would start out one person at a time spreading the good news of the gospel...The Eleven would talk to James, Jesus' half brother, to a man named Paul, and to Barnabas...They had a Jerusalem Council...So the Early Apostles were in retrospect very organized, with God's help, good things happened with the gospel...And the Eleven did it and some traveled out of Jerusalem, and go to other places so His gospel would spread to the ends of the earth...This was and is God's Will...