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A certain number had been admitted at the beginning to terms of intimacy and friendship with Jesus. Then they had left their secular calling for a time to attend upon Him. And now the final step must be taken, and a selection made of such as would give themselves wholly to the work, and go no more back to the world. The twelve apostles are divided by the evangelists into three groups.

I. NOTICE THE MANIFOLD VARIETY REPRESENTED AMONG THEM.

1. In character. Where in the whole world could we find dispositions more diverse than in Peter and John — the one ardent and impulsive, the very embodiment of energy and vehemence; the other quiet and contemplative, fitted for nothing so well as the life of a recluse?

2. In calling. What callings could be more incongruous than those which Simon and Matthew had respectively chosen? The fiery patriot could brook no allegiance to an earthly ruler, but would do and dare anything to resist the Roman claim to impose taxation upon the people of God. But his fellow apostle had degraded himself, of his own free-will, to exact from his own flesh and blood the obnoxious tribute. Yet such was the comprehensive work which lay before the ministry of the Church, that a sphere was found in it for the "tax gatherer" no less than the "tax hater;" for the Jew who had sold his birthright as well as for their reconcilable nationalist. Jew and Greek, bond and free, rich and poor, men of every type and people, were destined to be embraced in the Catholic Church; and Jesus Christ foreshadowed the future when He welded together the most discordant elements in that first society of the Twelve Apostles.

II. Another thought of scarcely less importance arises out of THE SOCIAL POSITION FROM WHICH HE MADE HIS CHOICE. The Jewish Rabbis estimated the weight of their influence by the rank or wealth or learning of the pupils who sat at their feet. The first Teacher of Christianity aimed, on the contrary, at attracting the poorest of men. It may be urged that He had no alternative; that men in the position of Joseph and Nicodemus wine so reluctant to accept the call that, had He waited for their adherence, the apostolic roll would never have been filled up in His lifetime. But His choice of the poor and despised, the ignorant and unlearned, was based upon a principle which governed the whole of His life on earth; which selected for His birthplace the manger of a wayside khan, for His home a humble cottage, and for His early occupation the trade of an artizan, among a people intellectually of the lowest type in Palestine. It was in perfect consistency with all that had gone before that He should associate with Himself for the work of the ministry men of the humblest rank, who probably knew little more than their letters, and, judged by a human standard, were worthless for that unto which they were called...For the first three centuries the progress of Christianity was a gradual triumph of the lowly over the great, till, by the irresistible might of its weakness, it shook the world and compelled "the master of legions" to cast his crown at the foot of the Cross. Then was the wisdom of His choice demonstrated.

(H. M. Luckock, D. D.)

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KJV: And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him.

WEB: He went up into the mountain, and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him.