Last Sunday I had the privilege of speaking at St Theo’s, Rushey Mead. I will publish the message in three parts and the background readings are Luke 22:24-30 and 1 Corinthians 4:9-17.

If I may, I would like to start with a few questions. Firstly, how many apostles did Jesus have during his earthly ministry? [Pause] If you define that as the ones called as his core group, the ones who had invitations to the Last Supper, the answer is twelve. Now for a slightly harder question: how many of them can you name? Some should be easy, because they had major speaking parts in the gospels and beyond. I expect you will find some of the names a bit harder to remember, because they are hardly mentioned or because they seem to go by more than one name. I’ve got a list I prepared earlier, so let’s see if we can check off all twelve:

• Simon (later known as Peter)
• Andrew (brother of Simon)
• James (brother of John)
• John (brother of James)
• Philip
• Bartholomew (Nathanael in John’s gospel)
• Thomas
• Matthew (also known as Levi – not mentioned in John)
• James (son of Alphaeus – not mentioned in John)
• Thaddeus (or Judas, son of James – Luke / not Iscariot – John)
• Simon (the Canaanite or the Zealot – not mentioned in John)
• Judas Iscariot

Not Matthias (added in Acts 1 to replace Judas Iscariot and never mentioned again) or Paul (the “Apostle to the Gentiles”) or others.

Do you know which of those 12 has a feast day today, 24 August. If it helps you guess, it isn’t one of the more famous ones. [Pause] The answer is Bartholomew, generally regarded in Christian tradition to be the same person John calls Nathanael. Some have suggested that Nathanael, meaning “gift of God”, is his first name and “Bartholomew”, potentially meaning “son of Tholmai”, was his surname. The first three gospels simply mention Bartholemew as a name following Philip in their lists. Meanwhile, John describes how Philip tells his friend Nathanael about Jesus. It isn’t a very strong link but is the best we’ve got, particularly given that John is clear, in chapters 6 and 20, that there was a clear group of 12 disciples. Let’s remind ourselves of John’s account (John 1:43-50, ESVUK):

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree’, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”

Later traditions suggest Bartholomew may have travelled as far as India before coming back to Asia minor and being martyred in Armenia. You can identify Bartholomew in artwork because he is often seen carrying his flayed skin or a flaying knife; it is often suggested he was skinned alive! That is gruesome and quite possibly not entirely true though, like most of his fellow apostles, he probably did die a martyr’s death. If you want to raise a cup to him over your Sunday dinner, it is probably better to set the artistic depictions on one side and remember him as someone who became convinced that, yes, something good could come out of Nazareth.