Brothers
Jesus starts planning his ministry by recruiting brothers.
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. - Matt. 4:18-25
In my first real job, I had a father and son working for me.
They were messengers. We worked for a bank and their job was to travel to branch offices to pick up the daily checks for processing in our operations center.
They were network builders, connecting the remote branch offices to a central location so that the work could flow.
Having a father and son team working for me was a new experience, but so was everything else I was doing. What I learned, though, was that people who are connected to one another have each other's back.
They set an example for the rest of the team.
Jesus knew this.
Managing siblings or close family members could be challenging. Two of the brothers he chose had a reputation of being trouble together and Jesus would call them the sons of thunder.
Others on the team may have issues with the closeness of the brothers, and that could make it hard to manage, but it could be worth the effort.
Jesus needed to be able to trust that the apostles he chose could work well together, especially when they went out in twos to spread the Word. So, he chose those who already worked together in the family business.
And look how that turned out.
More to come...