The Gospel of Luke 6:12-19 Choosing and healing

We're going to be proceeding into the passage here shortly. First I just want to let you know on returning from Israel just a week ago here, next Sunday we'll do kind of Israel highlights. And rather than just having a picture show, we're also going to make biblical connections.

And I think there's, to me it was just life-changing. But I think there's two particular advantages in going over it. One is the archaeology and the historical evidences support scripture and new findings continue to do that, confirm the truth and reality of scripture. That's part one. And then the other thing is it also provides a context for better understanding what scripture says. So anyway, we'll be going over that. There may even be some surprises, even for Courtney and Ingrid. Anyway, we'll see about that. Photoshop does wonders.

So here's Luke 6.12, it was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. So we might ask the one question, why pray on a mountain?

Jesus was becoming, as we saw in our previous study, this was a few weeks ago now, Jesus was becoming very unpopular with the leaders of the Jews. They would come around just to try to catch him in something. And of course, what we saw last time we looked at it, the healing on the Sabbath issue was a biggie. And it's going to continue to be a biggie, as we're going to discover, because Jesus actually intentionally healed on Sabbath. He was very in-your-face about it with these leaders. So that was one thing. But he was becoming popular with the common people, especially those who had chronic medical and spiritual issues.

So getting time by himself to pray wasn't something that these needy crowds would allow. They would find out where he is, press to have him heal, teach, whatever. So it was tough. So he would go away up on a mountain top just because it was a place of seclusion to get away from the crowd so that he could spend time with his Heavenly Father.

And he would express my father and use those words with people. The thing that's unique here, though, is he says he prayed the whole night. And all four of the Gospels record that Jesus prayed, sometimes intensively. Matthew, Mark, and Luke here record that he went up on a mountain to pray at various times, but only Luke here wrote that he prayed all night. In this particular event, he'd come off a period of real intense opposition from the Jewish leaders, but now he was going here, in this instance, to choose and call his twelve disciples. So he prayed all night before making that selection. It says there he prayed to God. God the Son is fully deity and fully man was praying to God the Father. That's how that's taken. For the whole night after some of the Pharisees and scribes had been questioning intensively Jesus, he also prayed about, very likely, the selection of these twelve disciples.

And that was going to happen right after. And we're going to get some insights about the disciples and about the selection process here shortly. One of the things that becomes apparent is that the disciples learn from this process where Jesus prayed all night and then chose them because here's what they did in Acts chapter 1 when Jesus was ready to ascend. Dr. Luke wrote the book of Acts as well, and he says the first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen. And we know from that that He prayed all night from Dr. Luke.

Later in that very same chapter, Acts chapter 1 verses 23 through 26, so they put forward two men, and this is to replace Judas, right? Joseph called Barsabbas, who was called Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, You, Lord, know the hearts of all men.

Show which one of these two you have chosen. Did the apostles select a replacement for Judas? Yes, they did, but the intent was God is the one doing the choosing. God's the one doing the choosing. To occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they drew lots for them and a lot fell on Matthias and he was added to the eleven. So they had eleven who saw Jesus ascend and now Matthias.

So here's Luke 6 13 through 16. And when day came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he also named as apostles. Simon, whom he also named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. So here you have on page two of your handout the four lists of the twelve disciples slash apostles.

And by the way, among those lists, it's Luke specifically that makes the point of these are apostles. Matthew and Mark don't make that point. So Luke is anticipating what he's going to write in the book of Acts where their apostleship becomes primary. So here are the four lists going through the one in Luke here.

We have Simon, also known as Peter, and one of the things that's pointed out is Jesus gave him that name. He was Simon, also called Peter. We'll take another look at him. We have Andrew, his brother, and Luke puts them together here in the Gospel of Luke and then in the book of Acts as Andrew separated by the brothers, John and James. James and John are then named their brothers. We'll take a look at them in a little more detail. Philip is the next one. And then Bartholomew, who is also known as Thomas the Twin, right? Then we have Matthew. Oh, excuse me. Thomas the Twin is a different one. Then we have Matthew, and then Thomas the Twin. and then James the son of Alphaeus.

Now, one of the things that happens in the New Testament is a great many people get called James and a great many of the ladies get called Mary. About one in every five women in Israel during that time were named Mary. So they had to make various kinds of distinctions. James the son of Alphaeus and then Judas son of James. Not that James, but another one. and then Simon the Zealot, and then Judas Iscariot.

Let's talk about those here. First, let's talk about Peter and Andrew. Peter and Andrew were brothers, as were James and John. The first one listed is likely the older of the two. That would be the custom, to first list the older one. So Peter was likely the older, and then Andrew was a younger brother. James was very likely the older of James and John.

Peter was the apostle we hear about most in the four Gospels and in the first 15 chapters of Acts. After that, he receives little mention. Peter means a small rock. That's the name that Jesus gave to Peter. He's also called Cephas. That's our pronunciation. Actually, the Aramaic is Kephas. Kephas. And so we anglicize it as Cephas. He is the author of 1 and 2 Peter.

Then we have James and John. They are elsewhere called the sons of Zebedee. Their mother will be asking Jesus to give them special seats beside Jesus in the kingdom, to which the rest of the apostles will be miffed. Very interestingly, James and John were fishing partners with Peter, the Bible says, in the town of Capernaum. That's not originally where Peter was from.

Until Jesus called them and then their discipleship allowed them far less time fishing James was the first apostle to die He is the only apostle whose death is recorded in the New Testament and that's Acts chapter 12 John was so far as we know the last apostle to die and the only one to die so far as we know a natural death All of the other apostles, and the record is of varying reliability, but all the other apostles from any record that we have died of martyrdom. The record, for example, for Matthew was that he died in North Africa. He was being killed and screaming out the gospel as he was being killed. So here's James, the first to die by the sword, and then John, the last to die. John wrote Revelation about a year before his natural death.

Now here you have a mapping of the Galilee area where, so far as we know, most of the Apostles were from, possibly all of them. Bethsaida. Yeah, I was there a couple weeks ago. Bethsaida. over on the north side of Sea of Galilee, just east of where the Jordan River comes into the Sea of Galilee.

Then you have Capernaum, which is where Peter moved to. Peter was from Bethsaida, as well as Andrew and Philip. Peter moved to Capernaum. And Nazareth is where Jesus was from, and he moved to Capernaum as well. And then we have Kena, which is where Nathanael was from. We don't know in every case where the apostles were from, but we have those particular identifications.

Now, we have the other Judas, Bartholomew and Simon the Zealot. Having more than one name wasn't just true of Peter, who was also Cephas, who was also Simon, but of other disciples as well. So Thaddeus is another man with two names, also called Judas the son of Alphaeus, and not the same as Judas the betrayer. And by the way, Luke is the only one in the list that says in the listing of the disciples that Judas was a betrayer. John calls Bartholomew Nathanael in the Gospel of John. He's the one who is from Cana. Simon the Canaanian is the same man as Simon the Zealot. Canaanian is simply the Aramaic word for zealot. Okay, so he's not a Canaanite. He is a Jew, but it's just the Aramaic word for zealot. So he's Simon the Zealot.

Now, I have a question. Would you have chosen these men? Jesus prayed all night. He prayed to the Father. He then chose these men. Would you have chosen these men? Matthew was a hated tax collector for the Romans. You know it was against the Ten Commandments to lie to people. But the rabbis figured it was okay to lie to a Roman tax collector. Matthew was one of those. A despised Roman tax collector. In combination with that, Jesus picked Simon the Zealot. Under the usual circumstances, Simon the Zealot would have wanted to see Matthew dead. The Zealots were the ones who ultimately rebelled and pitched Rome out of Israel and then, within several years, turned around and the Romans suppressed the rebellion.

Some of these men we never hear of But Peter always has something to say, even if it's a foot-in-mouth problem. Peter always has something to say. So these men are not just somehow equal or all about the same. They're very different people, a very different selection of people with different inclinations.

Thomas was the one who doubted. Thomas, when ten of his other disciples that he had spent three years with, Thomas, Heard from all the other disciples, we have seen the Lord resurrected. He's alive. Thomas says, no. Not until I see and touch those wounds will I believe. Thomas was the one who doubted. About a week later, Thomas sees Him. My Lord and my God. But up until then, I'm not believing this.

Even though Jesus told them in advance. told them in advance, this is what's going to happen. Judas, after Satan entered him, he was satanically possessed. After Satan entered him was the one who finally betrayed Jesus in the garden and then killed himself after he tried to return the money. Do you think Jesus knew that when he picked him?

Yes. Yes. With all the variation in these men, even knowing in advance which one was going to betray him. Do you know what's really amazing? None of the other disciples could tell that Judas was the one who was going to betray him because Jesus loved and showed love to Judas just like all the others. He washed Judas' feet.

Now it's Luke 6.17, Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place and there was a large crowd of his disciples and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. Now, it's no wonder he had to go up on a mountain to pray, right?

So here's a crowd of his disciples. We usually think, oh, here's this small group. But no, actually a crowd of his disciples here at this stage Jesus had chosen the twelve from a much larger crowd. So when he went out to choose his disciples, there's this pretty large group of people, and he's saying, this one, this one, this one. So he'd called them all together and then chose the twelve from among them. Not all of this larger crowd would remain till the end. Some of them would, leaving this. This guy's, you know, a little weird. So this larger crowd dwindles over time.

But it was from among this larger crowd that Jesus picked the twelve. When we get to Luke chapter 10, and the Lord will probably allow that, in Luke chapter 10 we will read about Jesus sending out the seventy from, again, this larger crowd of disciples, similar to the way he sent out the disciples themselves, the twelve, two by two. You know, I think of Jesus sending out the disciples two by two.

Did he match up Matthew, the tax collector, with Simon the zealot? Wouldn't that be fun? And then other things you think about. Would you like to be matched up with Judas? Go out with Judas? And minister alongside him? Only to discover later that he's the betrayer?

Wow. Somebody did. Plus, the disciples included women. One reason that the crowd was larger was that Jesus would teach women. So far as we know, no other rabbi would teach women. They would refuse to teach women and spend any time with them. In the synagogues, the women had to be in a separate area behind a screen. But Jesus instead would take time to teach women personally.

That's why Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus had sent out seven demons, Mary Magdalene, when she sees Jesus resurrected, she calls out Rabboni, teacher. When Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus, refer to Jesus, they call him the teacher, because he would teach women. Jesus showed a regard for and a respect for women that was uncommon in the culture, but that too would make the crowd even larger because if a woman wanted to learn and Be taught and by the way Jesus taught differently right if a woman wanted to learn there was only one rabbi That's going to teach you And that's Jesus.

That's it so that would make the group even larger including the women who otherwise would be put aside by all the other rabbis now there was a great throng in addition to this large group of disciples there was a large crowd of disciples at the same time there was a great throng of people coming from a distance and Dr. Luke says here's some of the distances these people came from people came from Judea And Jerusalem, which you have on your map, I think it's on page four, Judea and Jerusalem, so the southern area, that by the way is about four to five days travel away.

So they would travel for the better part of a week in order to arrive there and to hear and see Jesus. And meaning, of course, they'd have to reverse that. So they probably planned on spending several weeks away from there. Now, it also mentions here, Tyre and Sidon. And you see those up on the northern coast? That's actually outside of Israel. So why do we have that? We'll take a look at that here.

Why were all these people coming to see Jesus? Because they came to have Jesus heal them of chronic problems like birth defects and diseases and injuries and demon possession. And these were all things for which neither the Pharisees nor the doctors of the day had any real answer. But Jesus would heal them completely. Not only were there great numbers of people gathering because of wanting to be healed from these chronic physical and spiritual problems, there were also people who came to hear Jesus teach.

This guy teaches differently. Here's Matthew 7, 28, and 29 at the end of what's called the Sermon on the Mount. The crowds were amazed at his teaching. Wow! For he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes, who said, well, this guy says this, and this guy says that. Who knows? Right?

And so Luke 4.32, that we looked at a couple chapters back, has a similar idea. They were astounded at his teaching, and he taught with authority. This is definitely the truth. Period. That's the end.

So, you might be saying, well wait a minute, Tyre and Sidon aren't those Gentile places? What are you doing having Gentiles come down? They were Gentile cities, and Jesus said, this is Matthew 15, 24, I was sent only to the lost sheep and the house of Israel. And by the way, that's when he went up to Tyre and Sidon. So here they are on page 4 of your map.

But Tyre and Sidon were major buyers of the food raised in the Galilee area. that was a major market so you had a lot of commerce going back and forth and communication and so you can imagine somebody's you know selling their products up at Tyre and Sidon and they go up there, hey have you guys heard about what's happening with Jesus no tell me and so people would come from those cities and come to here and come to be healed Tyre and Sidon were places that the Jews were supposed to have taken in the first place So that explains why Jesus went there. Described in Matthew 15, 21-28.

Now, in Luke 6, 17-19, Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place and there was a large crowd of disciples and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured and all the people were trying to touch him for power was coming from him and healing them all there was both direct healing where Jesus pronounced that someone was healed and he would also equivalently say your sins are forgiven But there are also those who didn't do that. Some others were the ones who were in need of healing and they simply touched him and were healed. Jesus called that faith too. They touched him and were healed.

We have the example in Luke chapter 8. We're going to get there. 44 through 48. A woman with a flow of blood is healed by touching his garment. And Jesus knows it too. Jesus knows it. So we're going to see that. It's a particular example. Apparently this was happening repeatedly. People would just come up and touch his garment and would be healed.

Now we have this word all. All is a really, really big word. All three letters, right? It's powerful to read places in scripture where the word all is used. It wasn't just a percentage of people who touched him and were healed, but all. Every single one. Every single one.

Does God heal today? Yeah. It's not quite in the same way though, is it? Christ healed uniquely. All who believe in Christ now, in His death for their sins, His burial, His resurrection, are saved eternally and will be with the Lord forever and ever. Every single one. every single one. It is amazing to be able to look at scripture and see those all places. There are places in the Old Testament, for example, that says all Israel. For us in the body of Christ, all of us, all of us have been given the same position in Christ and all we did was believe that Christ died for our sins, was buried and was resurrected. We all have been united with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. All of us. Every. Single. One. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for just what you've revealed here. We see you're working in power. We see also your fellowship with the Father. before this momentous and historically pivotal decision, the selection of these disciples who would be turned into apostles. And we see the relationship that the son has with the father. And Lord, that is an example for us. We too have momentous decisions to make at times and important things that are going on. And we just want to entrust those things to you and come in close fellowship with you. And we just pray these things, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.