AS A KID, I was not what you would call “athletic.” Part of the problem was that I had skipped two grades in elementary school, meaning that when I got to middle school and gym class, I was two years younger and two years smaller than everyone else. My parents had taught me nothing about sports, I was a bit overweight, and had a relatively sedentary childhood—so gym class was a nightmare to me. Eventually, after I broke an ankle playing flag football (yes, flag), the doctor sent a note to the school saying that I was to be permanently excused from gym.

Amen, and hallelujah.

You won’t be surprised to learn, therefore, that I was almost always the last kid to be chosen for anyone’s team. Sometimes, the team captains would even bargain with each other over what they were willing to concede to not have me on their team.

So, as you might imagine, when I read the gospel of Luke and the description of Jesus choosing twelve people for his ministry team from what may have been a large pool of disciples, I’m left wondering what that was like for everyone involved. Did the Twelve do the first century equivalent of pumping their fists? Yes! I’m in! Did the people who weren’t chosen feel left out?

Luke, of course, has no interest in such things. But nevertheless, it’s worthwhile pondering who made the cut. Here again is the text:

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16, NIV)

Let’s deal with a couple of preliminary questions. For the six in the middle of the list, Luke simply names them and moves on. The other six, however, get additional descriptions. Why? Let’s start with Andrew, whom Luke describes as Peter’s brother.

There are four formal lists of the apostles in the New Testament, and Peter’s name heads every list, signaling his special position among the Twelve. The first four apostles in the list are Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and they’re the first four in every list. We’ve met Peter, James, and John already, and in the incident of the miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5, Andrew was probably present but not mentioned. Thus, Luke begins his list with the four men who were in the fishing business together, listed as two pairs of brothers, and Luke makes sure we know that Andrew is Peter’s brother before moving on. We might also note that according to the Fourth Gospel, Andrew is the one who brought Peter to Jesus in the first place (John 1:40-42).

In every other place in the list where Luke adds an additional description, it seems to be because there are two men in the group with the same name, and some distinction is needed. Thus, we have two Simons, so one is known as Peter and the other as Simon the Zealot, meaning that he had once been something of a revolutionary with a deep desire to liberate God’s people from Roman rule. There are also two men named James. We’ve already met the son of Zebedee, so only the son of Alphaeus needs distinction. And there are two Judases, one listed as the “son of James” and the other as a traitor-to-be, adding a dark note to the end of the list—indeed, to the end of every such list in the gospels. Just as Peter always comes first, Judas always comes last.

The other preliminary question is why there are small differences between the gospels in the names of the Twelve. Luke mentions “Judas the son of James” both here and in Acts 1:13; but the lists in Mark and Matthew have the name “Thaddeus” instead. In the ancient world, people were often known by more than one name, such as a Hebrew name and a Greek name. Simon the fisherman, for example, was given the Aramaic nickname “Cephas” by Jesus the moment they met (John 1:42). “Cephas” means “rock,” and the equivalent name in Greek was “Peter.”

And since I’ve included the gospel of John here, we might as well deal with the case of Nathanael, the one famous for wondering if anything good could come from Nazareth (John 1:46). There’s no one named Nathanael mentioned anywhere in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Meanwhile, the lists of the Twelve in Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include a man named “Bartholomew,” but there’s no mention of a Bartholomew in the gospel of John. Although it’s impossible to be certain, it’s generally assumed that both names refer to the same man.

Think of it this way. In Matthew 16:17, Jesus calls Peter “Simon son of Jonah.” In Aramaic, “son of Jonah” would be “Bar-Jonah.” It’s what’s known as a patronymic, a name or part of a name that identifies the person as the descendant of a particular male ancestor, like one’s father or grandfather. In English, for example, someone descended from a man named “David” would have the name “Davidson.” In Russian, the sons of “Peter” could all be called “Petrovich,” while the daughters might be called “Petrovna.” And remember the nursery rhyme about “Old McDonald” and his farm? In Scottish (as rendered into English), “McDonald” means “son of Donald.”

Similarly, then, the name “Bartholomew” is a patronymic meaning “son of Tolmai.” It’s quite possible, then, that the apostle in question was named “Nathanael son of Tolmai,” just as Luke lists apostles named “James son of Alphaeaus” and “Judas son of James.” Some may have called the man Nathanael, while others called him Bartholomew.

So much for the names. And remember, Luke’s way of telling the story suggests that all these men were chosen as the result of Jesus praying through the night. What we need to consider next is this: why did they make the cut?