Wednesday of Passion Week: The Wrong People

Anyone with leadership sense knows that a good team is everything. Leadership is not about accomplishing great things by yourself. Leadership is about accomplishing great things through and with other people. Therefore, surrounding yourself with the right people on your team is crucial. Without the right people in the right place, a leader is handicapped in what he or she can accomplish.

Consider when someone is elected President of the United States. What is one of the first responsibilities? Appoint the cabinet. This advisory body helps the President not only stay informed about a wide range of issues, but also helps to accomplish the presidential agenda. The President needs an administration to lead the nation.

You see this parallel in the Biblical kingdom of Israel. David had mighty men who stuck with him during the days of Adullam and then led with him during the days of Jerusalem. When David’s son, Solomon, becomes king, he doesn’t lead the kingdom alone, but he has a host of officials within his court (see 1 Kings 4:1–19). Leaders assemble teams, presidents appoint cabinets, and kings arrange their court.

It shouldn’t surprise us, then, when Jesus gathers to Himself disciples who will become leaders within His kingdom. Each Gospel narrative contains the details of His invitation to twelve men who will make up His administration. What should surprise us, though, is who He chooses for this task. You would expect Him to scout out the most excellent yeshivas in Jerusalem, reviewing rabbinical recommendations and choosing the brightest students. Instead, He hangs around fishing villages and chooses men who are described as “uneducated and untrained” (Acts 4:13). To these twelve men, Jesus intends to not only give them menial tasks like crowd management or donkey fetching, but also legitimate authority to establish justice in the earth. At one point, He promises them, “Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28). Jesus intends to use them to establish His kingdom.

Surely, Jesus made a mistake. Surely, He got the wrong people. How could He use this ignorant group to fulfill His agenda?

First, we need to know that Jesus didn’t choose His apostles by mere coincidence. It wasn’t a random selection of whoever happened to be standing around. Luke 6:12, 13 reveals just how intentional Jesus was in His choice: “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also name apostles.” Before Jesus appointed the twelve apostles, He “continued all night in prayer.” The decision was so momentous for Jesus that He spent all night praying about it.

Secondly, perhaps Jesus’ choice gives us another insight into His kingdom. Where worldly kingdoms are built upon the strength of men, it seems God’s kingdom is built upon something else. It’s built upon the power of grace. It’s built upon God’s strength “made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

God likes choosing a team the no one else would have chosen. In 1 Corinthians 1:26–29, Paul writes, “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

If Passion Week is about anything, it’s about the power of weakness. It’s about the wisdom of foolishness. It’s about the nobility of the despised. Jesus chose the wrong people, and for any other leader, that would have been disastrous. For Jesus, it’s just the way His kingdom works.

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Devotional by Pastor Micah Wood