Faithful on Fridays Blog

Part Ten

We’ve already looked at one James (Zebedee), but now it’s James of Alphaeus’ turn. There’s actually three James’ included in the New Testament with Jesus’ half-brother being the third, apparently it was a popular name. The early Christian writers entitled him James the Less or the Younger not because he wasn’t important, but due to the lack of information about him. Interestingly, Matthew/Levi had the same last name, Alphaeus, were James and Levi brothers? We don’t know, some theologians think so, others don’t. There’s more speculation about this James, however, our job is to find the heart of this disciple and examine Jesus’ choice.

James of Alphaeus, like the others, had to respond a difficult calling,

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26-28, 33 

Yikes. It looks like all of The Twelve, including this mysterious James of Alphaeus, counted the cost of following the Messiah leaving one life for another. In the Greek translation of James’ name we find ‘of Alphaeus’, the word ‘son’ is not there, it was assumed. This additional name means to change or exchange something, a swift transition, or even to pass through. So James wasn’t necessarily the son or relative of this man, but could’ve been just passing through Judea. Speculation: was he a drifter, a transient, a guy just passing through when Jesus called him? Hmmmmm, I love the uniqueness of Jesus’ choices.

We do know that James of Alphaeus was given the same authority to cast out evil spirits and heal every kind of disease (Matt. 10:1) as Peter or any of the other Twelve. We do know that James was willing to pay the price for following Him, literally abandoning family and friends, dreams or career, in exchange for being on Jesus’ ministry team. Yes, he was obscure, but he learned to faithfully preach the gospel with little recognition, seemingly unnoticed by anyone but the hearers; that’s the heart of a disciple. We don’t know where he traveled (some say Persia/Iran) or how he died (some say a martyrs death), but we do know that Jesus specifically chose Him to tell others about the Kingdom of God and lead them to eternal life. 

One last thought, Jesus showed the apostle John a city with twelve foundations in Rev. 21:14 and etched on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. James of Alphaeus, this quiet and unassuming disciple has the privilege of being listed there.