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Mark 3:13 - 19
A Uniquely Important Ministry

The key here is verse 13 and the words, "And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He Himself wished." In the Greek, stress is on His unilateral, sovereign, and deliberate choice of these men.  It was not their choice, but His alone.

This is just God's way of telling us that the apostles were uniquely important to the New-Covenant Kingdom of our Lord, and that His choice of them was therefore equally important. In fact, as we compare Mark with the parallels in Matthew and Luke, it becomes evident that apostleship is a once-only, never-to-be-repeated set of responsibilities and accompanying authority, sovereignly placed upon 12 men by the the King.

According to Mark's account, the apostles were given four specific charges:

1.   They were to be "with Him."

2.   As His direct representatives, they were to become heralds to proclaim the King's will to His earthly Kingdom.

3.   They were to have authority even over evil spirits.

4.   They were to have authority to heal every kind of sickness.

According to Luke (Lk. 6:12-16), our Lord's choice of these men was so important to Him that He spent the entire previous night in prayer! We don't know what He said in His prayer (though His high-priestly prayer of John 17 may give us some insight), but it seems likely that He considered in great detail the personalities and abilities of each potential apostle. Knowing the future, He probably prayed in detail for each situation these men would face in their lives and ministries.

Undoubtedly, He talked over with His Father the awful apostasy of Judas and the temporary fall of Peter. Undoubtedly, He also prayed concerning the special call of Paul so long after the others in addition to the details of that apostle's letters to the churches.

He probably prayed over the very words the Gospel writers wrote in the Gospels, as well as all the details of the entire New Testament, which after all issued from the ministries of the apostles or of those under their authority. We can safely assume that our Lord prayed for all those who would ever read and consider the words and teachings of His apostles in the New Testament - so He prayed for you and for me! It would indeed require the entire night for His praying!

According to the Gospel accounts, the apostles were chosen out of the entire body of disciples, which by this time must have numbered several hundred. Their lives would be entirely changed by this calling, since they were to be with Him 24 hours every day. Some of them, of course, had already left their former professions to travel with Him, but now their attachment to Him was formalized so that they understood that they were never to return to their former lives. Mark makes this abundantly clear.  He says, ". . . and He appointed twelve, in order that they might be with Him. . . and they came to Him." The Greek translated, "and they came to Him" is more literally translated, "they left . . . and came to Him" - they entirely left their former lives in order to commit their days and hours to their new Master!

From this time onward, these men were to represent their Lord in every detail of their lives, and they were to have all the authority of Christ Himself. Every word they spoke or wrote had His authority.

Matthew (28:18-20) records their commissioning. Our Lord said to them, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

We should be careful to see that when this commission was originally given, it concerned only the apostles. It's evident that it was only to them (at that time) that the authority of their Lord was given, since they were to teach "all that I have commanded you." In fact, it was to be their Lord Himself Who would exercise that authority through them by His Spirit, for He says, "lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Later on, the apostles might delegate many of their tasks to evangelists and others, but the original commission was theirs alone.

In Acts 1:4-8, Luke records the Lord's further instruction to them to wait for the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Following that empowering, they were to be no ordinary witnesses, but they would speak by the enabling of the Holy Spirit. With this enabling, and because they were specially commissioned and empowered by the Lord of the Kingdom, they were therefore infallible witnesses of all that their Lord did and said!
As Paul makes clear in 2 Cor. 12:12, the credentials they carried were supernatural: "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles." The signs and wonders performed by Paul and by the other apostles weren't to be performed by the entire Church, but they were "the signs of a true apostle." (see also Acts 2:43, 5:12) Such signs and wonders might later be performed by those who were not apostles – though under apostolic supervision - but the promise given by our Lord in John 14:12 was first given to them alone.  It was the promise that said, "Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father".

What then was the apostolic task? It was a kingdom task. Apostles were the King's direct representatives (Eph. 6:20, 2 Cor. 5:20), and they were to speak the King's Words with kingly authority. By means of their words, they were to establish the New Covenant Kingdom, the Church. They were, in fact, to establish it, regulate it, and set forth its task in the world. For this purpose they either directly wrote or delegated others to write the infallible Word of God as found in our New Testament. It's infallibility rests on it's source - the personally chosen witnesses of Christ, and we should therefore listen to it as we would listen to our Lord Himself. What we hold in our hands in fact, is nothing less than the New Covenant, and we who believe it are His New Covenant Kingdom.

By way of application, we may conclude that, since the signs and wonders exercised by these men were the credentials of the "true apostles," they were only exercised by them or by those who were directly under their supervision. They are not for our day, since they were exercised for the purpose of announcing apostolic authority.

Such a conclusion should not be taken to extremes. God still heals and does other wonderful things in response to prayer. But even these gracious acts of our Lord are regulated through His apostle's written words. James (5:14, 15) says, "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him."

Before the written Word of the Covenant was available in its entirety, there were prophets who spoke its principles to the Church. That prophetic ministry was regulated by the apostles. It was just such regulation in which Paul was engaged in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapters 12-14). The regulation was necessary then as it is now because of the fleshly reaction even of genuine Kingdom people to the glamour and excitement of "the gifts of the Spirit."

In our day, the New Testament is entirely available in written form. We don't need to receive its principles through the prophetic gift. Instead, we need to have its principles drawn from the text and taught to us through the gifts of teaching and shepherding and by the inward work of the Holy Spirit. May we not be moved by the glamour and excitement of "the gifts" to ignore the written Word of the King given through His representatives.

Al, you are a gifted man, thank you very much for your expositions,
regards, Chris.

Thank you very much, Chris.  I rejoice if and when our Lord stoops to using me.  May His Word bless you, and may we together glorify Him alone.

He uses you Al, because you make yourself available, God bless you