6:12
Luke places great importance on many things in his gospel. As well as Jesus, these include the Holy Spirit, the role of women, and the importance of prayer. The timing of this incident is not specified, but Luke emphasises that Jesus spent the night in prayer before choosing the apostles. This emphasises the humanity of Jesus and the wonder of the incarnation. Jesus was God, so surely He knew who the disciples would be? Well, He was also man and came to earth as fully man, as well as being the Son of God. So He prayed all night to the Father. It is a pity that we do not have more detail on what went on in that night, for I guess that most of us would find it very difficult to pray “all night”.
6:13-16
In the morning Jesus called the disciples and chose twelve of them. We are not told who the “unchosen” ones were, or why these twelve were chosen, and others were not. We do not always need to know why God has made a certain decision, but we can always trust Him that His decisions are right. The twelve were a disparate bunch. They included fisherman, a tax collector, a revolutionary and one who would be a traitor. Bartholomew is probably the same person as Nathaniel in John 1:45. Zealots were political activists against the Roman rule. “Judas son of James” is probably Thaddaeus of Matt 10:13 or Mark 3:18.
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