When you read the Gospels
carefully, you discover some great insights concerning the audience to whom
Jesus speaks. There are four types of audiences addressed in Jesus’s ministry:
(a) His opponents, (b) the crowds, (c) the disciples, (d) the Apostles. I want
to briefly explore the final three audiences and reflect on why this matters.
“The Apostles” Jesus’s very first disciples were “taken” from John
the Baptizer’s group of disciples; Andrew (and probably John), then Andrew
recruited his brother, Simon Peter. Soon after, Jesus called someone else from
the same hometown as Andrew: Philip, who then brought his brother, Nathaniel
(John 1:35-48). We see in these, and with others, Jesus used a network of
relationships that already existed (e.g., brothers: Andrew and Simon Peter,
John and James), business partners (Peter and Andrew fished together with James
and John, Lk 5:10), while the others almost certainly would have known each
other because they lived in the same towns (Capernaum and …