DO YOU PLAY fantasy sports? I don’t mean fantasizing about being a famous athlete. I mean participating in online games in which, as a team manager, you draft your own sports team based on real players and then earn points depending on how your players perform in actual games. If you do play fantasy sports, you’re not alone, not by a long shot. I’ve seen statistics estimating that over 50 million people in the United States play fantasy sports, with the majority playing fantasy football. Not surprisingly, it’s the players with proven performance—often MVPs or former MVPs—who get picked the most often.

What does that have to do with the gospel of Luke? Let me put it this way: when Jesus drafted twelve men from a large pool of disciples to be his ministry team, they were nobody’s fantasy picks, no one’s MVPs. They were rookies. They included four fishermen, a tax-gatherer, a former revolutionary, and someone who would later sell him out. What was Jesus thinking?

Or perhaps we should ask the question this way: how could these twelve men be the answer to Jesus’ prayer?

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LET’S START WITH THIS: the choice of twelve men was not accidental; no Jew would have missed the significance of that number. Nor is it a coincidence that the story of Jesus choosing twelve apostles comes directly after two incidents in which Jewish leaders, particularly the Pharisees, opposed Jesus on matters related to the Sabbath and the Law of Moses. In so doing, they were unwittingly opposing God’s Messiah, and showed that they could not be trusted to lead or exemplify God’s people. For Jesus to choose twelve Jewish men as apostles, therefore, symbolized the creation of a new Israel, superseding the former twelve tribes.

To me, that would make the choice of the twelve even weightier. Here’s the list again. There were the four fishermen: Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and their business partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee. There was Philip, and Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael in the gospel of John. There was Matthew the tax collector, whom we’ve already met, and Thomas, often thought of—unfairly!—as “Doubting Thomas.” There was another James, the son of Alphaeus, and another Simon, who may have once been a violent revolutionary. And finally, there were two Judases. The first was also known as “Thaddaeus,” as recorded in Matthew and Mark, and the second was Judas Iscariot.

One theory holds that the name “Iscariot” marks Judas as something of a revolutionary himself. The Latin word sica means dagger, and some believe Judas was one of the Sicarii or “dagger-men” who worked secretly as freedom-fighters against Rome. The more widely accepted though less exciting theory is that “Iscariot” simply means “man of Kerioth”—in other words, his hometown was Kerioth in southern Judea.

What do we know about these men? In truth, not much. Matthew is traditionally credited with the authorship of the first gospel, and John the fourth, plus three epistles and the book of Revelation. Peter has by far the most prominent role of the Twelve, both in the gospels and the book of Acts. By contrast, we know almost nothing about James the son of Alphaeus or Simon the Zealot. What we know of the others is gleaned from the rare scenes in which they’re given a speaking part.

This is why I said earlier that it’s unfair to think of Thomas as “Doubting” Thomas. He gets that name from the story told in John 20. The risen Jesus appeared to the disciples (John never uses the word “apostle”) when Thomas wasn’t with them. When they told him about it, he famously said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (vs. 25).

But think about it. Would you want others to remember you only in terms of one mistake or one weak moment on one day? Why do we not remember Thomas for what he said to Jesus the following week: “My Lord and my God!” (vs. 28)? Or for being the one who insisted that they all return with Jesus to Bethany after the death of Lazarus, despite the fact that their lives would be in danger (John 11:16)? Or for being the one who was desperate to know where Jesus was going when he told them during their last meal together that he was leaving (John 14:5)? We don’t get to see much of Thomas in the gospels, but don’t we see more of his devotion than this doubt?

Or take the example of Nathanael. Philip, who had already been called by Jesus, tried to tell him that they had found the Messiah, and that it was Jesus of Nazareth. With skepticism and prejudice, Nathanael famously replied, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46). We could let that one sentence determine how we see Nathanael. But why not remember instead how Jesus described him as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit” (vs. 47)? Why not remember him as the one who said to Jesus, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel” (vs. 49)?

We simply don’t have all the stories we might like to have about what each of the Twelve said and did in the company of Jesus and after. But if we did, I imagine we would learn the same things about them that we learn about Peter in the gospels and the book of Acts. Peter could be blessed by Jesus for knowing him to be the Messiah, and in the very next story, be scolded by Jesus for being the tool of Satan (Matt 16:13-23). He could be walking on water one moment and sinking like a stone the next (Matt 14:25-31)—and no, that’s not the reason Jesus called him the rock! Peter announced at the Last Supper that he was ready to die with Jesus, but later in the same chapter denied three times that he even knew him (Matt 26:35, 69-75). And while he was one of the first to preach the gospel to the Gentiles and baptize them as believers (Acts 10:44-48), he got in trouble with the apostle Paul in Antioch for shying away from the Gentiles for the sake of appearances (Gal 2:11-13).

In short, the Twelve were not Jesus’ Dream Team. What they were was highly fallible men who nevertheless believed. We don’t know their whole story, nor do we know the whole story of any believer in the church today. Let’s just say that God recruits the most unlikely people to be part of his story, and we would all do well to not judge his choices too quickly.