3:16 — Mark 3:16

The 3:16 series turns to Mark 3:16 and the appointing of the twelve apostles. The number twelve is deliberate, signaling new spiritual leadership and a rebuke to the corrupt leadership of Israel, the heirs of the twelve tribes who failed to recognize the Messiah they were meant to prepare the world for. Jesus does not assemble a dream team. Set against history's great sports and military teams, the apostles are fishermen, farmers, a tax collector, a zealot, remarkably ordinary men with no qualifying credentials. The teaching argues this was intentional, so the power could never be attributed to them. Acts 4:13 explains their authority: untrained, ordinary men who had been with Jesus. The same call rests on every believer through the Great Commission, and the message presses the point with the bench-warmers God has always used, from Moses to Gideon to Paul.