The Apostles' Names Tell a Story!

I was reading the Book of Matthew for a couple of days and this morning I started chapter 10. It starts with saying that Jesus Christ sent His 12 apostles out, giving them power of unclean spirits, with the ability to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and disease. Then it goes on to formally introduce the 12 apostles, in order.

I looked at the first name which was Simon Peter. I knew that Peter meant "Rock or Stone" and then I wondered if I look up all of the names of the 12 apostles, what story it would tell. So I decided to do that!

It is amazing how God's Word is layered with so many deeper meanings and the order of which His Word is designed just blows my mind. Here is what I found (with commentary):

1. Simon Peter – He who hears/has heard; Rock or stone
When I found this definition, the first thing I thought about was How Yahweh heard the children of Israel calling out for him to save them while in Egyptian bondage. But as I am typing this, I'm thinking of an earlier time that Yahweh heard his children. When Abel was killed by Cain, the bible tells us that Yahweh came forth and questioned Cain because Abel's blood cried out to God from the ground! God hears and He does not forget to answer. Just as the LORD exacted judgment and vengeance on Cain for murdering Abel, He saved mankind through Jesus Christ because there was a need and a call to Him for a Savior. Isaiah 59:16 says that Yahweh saw that there was no one that could intercede for mankind and therefore He reached His hand (Jesus Christ) to the earth to bring salvation to mankind. Simon Peter was the first apostle because it gives us the beginning of the fulfillment of a New Covenant. Yahweh heard the cry of man to save us, so He sent a part of himself (Jesus Christ) to be that Salvation.

2. Andrew – Man Warrior, manly
The perception of Christ is often displayed through paintings and other subliminal symbolism or writings to be our society's definition of feminine. Yes, Christ is humble and meek. However, He is also The LORD of Armies! Our Savior is a fighter and He does not shy away from protecting His children. Isaiah 59:17-18 says " For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
¹⁸ According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence."

Our LORD is ready for battle! It is wonderful to see the manly or masculinity of our Savior! Death (the result of sin) is STRONG and we MUST have a force stronger that it to OVERCOME IT! Jesus Christ is the ONLY one that could do this job! We must remember that our Savior is a Warrior!

3. James, Son of Zebedee – He who Supplants/Abundant Portion
This brought me to tears because the synonyms for the word supplant is the following:

• annul
  
• overrule
  
• set aside
  
• discard
  
• remove
  
• replace
  
• takeover

We must be so grateful to know that our LORD gave mercy to make a New Covenant through Jesus Christ because we broke the Old Covenant. Jesus Christ supplants.... He overruled the Old Covenant for our sake to save all who come unto Him from eternal damnation! This goes back to Isaiah 59:16-18. When God saw that nobody else could fulfill the Old Covenant but Himself, He did it! His Word is perfect and He knows it. Yet, because we are imperfect, He loved us enough to bring Himself  a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5, Hebrews 2:7) in physical form to do what we had no power to do, although it was our disobedience that made us helpless in the first place!

Zebedee means Abundant Portion (Existing or available in large amounts), which speaks strictly about the Salvation that Christ is. He is overflowing with room for everyone. No matter how great the sin is that any human has committed, Christ is Salvation enough to overcome it and give everlasting life. Again, how great is that Salvation to overcome something so powerful as death? The Greatest!

4. John – Graced by Yahweh (God is Gracious)
We've already covered how gracious our LORD is... But to explore the characteristics of the word Gracious, it will further show each component of who Christ is. Consider the following synonyms:

• accommodating
  
• considerate
  
• merciful
  
• mild
  
• tender
  
• loving
  
• compassionate
  
• pleasing
  
• easy
  
• charitable
  
• approachable
  

No matter how wicked or righteous anyone has been, God has given his grace to us. Making a New Covenant in place of the Old Covenant can be explained with no other word but accommodating. Our Heavenly Father was clearly considerate when he chose to come to earth in a physical human form to feel ALL of the temptations and emotions that we deal with everyday. Our sin separated us from God. The only way for God to be reconnected with us was to conquer sin, but also come in our fallen state and experience life as we would. The mercy displayed in this act is undeniable. Even after accepting Christ, mankind sins. Although we are conscious about it and repent and pray for change within us, we still are not perfect but Jesus is so mild and tender toward our condition yet he does not have to be! He gently chastises His children by reminding us not to be judgmental toward others that have yet to accept Him because we were once the same as them. He is so loving and compassionate toward everyone at all times and He calls us to be the same. Remember, our Savior WEPT when Mary and Martha lost their brother Lazarus. He feels our pain and meets us where we are, JUST to feel as we feel. How could this type of person be anything less than pleasing? Whoever is not pleased with such a gentle God, is not worthy of Him. He says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. When we receive Christ's salvation, we no longer have to carry the world on our shoulders. We realize that He has overcome all of the problems we had and will ever have. The bible tells us that with this knowledge of who God is, we can boldly come to the throne. Knowing that we will be heirs to His Kingdom because He is truth; we can believe that He has done all that He says. There is no other God as powerful, yet so approachable. Christ has given us His charity in love, having pity on all mankind. This is being Graced by Yahweh.

5. Phillip – Greek: Lover of Horses; Hebrew: War Like

• Job 39:19-25 tells us the character of a horse. We are shown that they are unafraid, knows when battle is near and does not back down from it YET they fully obey the command of their captain. Jesus Christ was obedient to Yahweh. Although He did not desire to lay His life down, He still did. The bible says Christ prayed so hard in the Garden of Gethsemane, that the sweat from Him was as BLOOD! So we are aware that if Yahweh told Jesus Christ that He did not have to fulfill the mission, Christ would have walked away. However, when Yahweh made it clear that He must carry out the purpose He was physically born, Christ did so. To the human mind, this may seem as if Christ didn't put up a fight. But actually, Christ's obedience shows His spiritual armor was strong and He went into battle by keeping the Will of His Father. Like a horse prepared for battle, Christ carried out the Will of the Father and used His power to do so. Gives a whole new perspective to the duty of horses in battle right?!

6. Bartholomew – A Son that Suspends the Waters; Abounding in Furrow
   

I was absolutely astonished at how this spoke volumes of Christ. Suspend means to "Temporarily prevent from continuing".... Which is what Yahweh did with the Old Covenant in preparation of the New Covenant. A Furrow is a long narrow trench made in the ground by a plow for planting seeds or for irrigation (supplying dry land with water)... In other words, when Yahweh suspended the covenant between Him and man, He was preparing for a New and more effective covenant for us. Only to reinforce that He IS the WAY and that He would plant the seeds of righteousness among mankind, replenishing life (waters) in dry land (our hopelessness before we received salvation). Tell me this isn't mind blowing?!!!

7. Thomas – Twin
At first glance, one could be confused with the meaning of Thomas, thinking it had nothing to do with Christ. However, if you look at some of the synonyms for twin, you can clearly see the connection:

• joint
• same
• matching
• like

Yahweh and Jesus Christ are joint. They are the same and match/like. We are to know that Christ is a piece of God in the flesh and that everything He teaches us through the bible with the Holy Spirit is exactly what God the Father wants. Remember, Jesus Christ IS "The Word". Therefore, we are communicating with Christ himself when we read the bible with the Holy Spirit as our teacher OF that Word.

8. Matthew – Gift of Yahweh

A gift is something given willingly to someone, without payment; present. Some words associated with gift is

1. favor
   
2. offering
   
3. charity
   

Isn't this exactly what salvation is? Yahweh willingly gave us the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, without receiving anything in return. We could never conquer death. If we could, it would've been done without Yahweh having to sacrifice a part of himself for our safe return to him. Mankind was kidnapped from Yahweh by Satan. The only way to get us back was to pay a sufficient ransom. That ransom was Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of His very life and power to rise again, forced Satan to release us back into the hands of Jesus Christ. Remember, the favor of God is not anything we can buy, or earn. It is willingly given and it is up to us to accept it.

9.  James, Son of Alphaeus – Changing

• substitute
• swap/switch
• in place of
  
  

 As you see, the synonyms for "changing" shows what Christ did for us. To keep us from receiving eternal damnation, Yahweh swapped/substituted/switched our payment with Jesus. Yahweh had Christ to physically die in place of us! When Christ physically died, He made us exempt from having to.... Now, we can pass from death to life. If Christ had not done this for us, once we physically died, there would be no possibility of receiving life again.

10. Thaddeus – Valiant or Wise

• fearless
• courageous
• brave
• discerning
• prudent
• aware/sober
• knowledgeable
• understanding
• sane
• sharp
  
  

Again, the above synonyms of Valiant and Wise makeup the character of Christ. He was fearless in paying the price that we could not and courageously died in our place. The bravery of being treated poorly by those that He created just to save us and them (if they received this salvation) is incomparable. The LORD's discerning made Him overlook the ignorance of mankind treating Him poorly and choose to be noble in saving us no matter how we mocked Him. The awareness of this fact makes Him rightfully called the Living God. I want to speak about the sanity of God because in this world, we wrongfully define sanity as the standard by which society lives. However, true sanity is of God and it has NOTHING to do with social constructs and EVERYTHING to do with truth. Our LORD's reasoning is perfect and shown through His perfect plan that mankind is still trying to accept and comprehend. Let us NEVER believe that we know the mind of Christ. We will forever be the created, not the creator. Let's stay in our lane, amen!

11. Simon, the zealot (zealous or having zeal)

• Extremist
• Radical

When Jesus Christ physically walked this earth and taught, no doubt was He looked upon as an extremist or radical. He introduced the people of that time to the Word that although was here years before, was intentionally misunderstood by members of mankind for generations. Jesus Christ IS purpose and He shared that purpose when He taught. Therefore, His zeal in truth and of spiritual things was not embraced by flawed humans. Christ was either faced by adversity or awe, but this is clear: Until he physically died and sent His Holy Spirit to dwell with mankind, nobody truly understood anything about Him.

12. Judas Iscariot -

This was tough because no matter how much I looked, it did not have a rooted meaning for this name! The meaning was always shown to have appeared AFTER he betrayed Jesus Christ. Therefore, the true meaning of the name PRIOR to betrayal cannot be placed on this blog because I cannot find it. As a result, the only meaning I found for this name was traitor, which fits.

 I did was find the meaning of the disciple Matthias, which replaced Judas in the Book of Acts. The name Matthias is a variation of Matthew... See above for meaning.