Daily Bible Reading 1st June 2026 // Luke 6:12-19
12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
17 And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.
The appointment of the disciples to the apostleship recorded here needs to be taken along with earlier references to discipleship (see Notes on 5:1-11). Here, we take note of the background of this appointment. Luke indicates that it was in the context of the growing hostility of the Pharisees that Jesus called them to be apostles. This should not be interpreted in negative, defensive terms, as if to say that His message must be preserved at all costs and the succession secured should anything happen to Him. Christ was never on the defensive: the initiative was always His; and here, He was intent on carrying the war into the enemy's camp. This bears a real lesson for us today. 'When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord raises a standard against him.' In times of opposition, in times of crisis, this is the Lord's answer: He gives gifts unto men, and sets in His Church some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. This is how we should look at these appointments. It is the evidence of the inexorable, ongoing work of the gospel. He is always on the initiative to bless men; and what we read in 17-19 serves to confirm this: multitudes of needy people came to Him, and He healed them all. But not without cost: virtue, we are told, went out of Him; and it may be that Luke is implying that this is how it would have to be with the apostles also. A price has to be paid for spiritual fruitfulness.