The Twelve

 The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)

Our true story comes from parts of the Bible called the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, and the Gospel of John. The word gospel means “good news!”

We begin with Jesus’ twelve friends who followed Him. Their names were Peter, Andrew, James, John, the other James, Matthew, Phillip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Judas, Thaddeus, and Simon. They were twelve of Jesus’ closest friends. They were His disciples, and they followed Him. Let’s learn about these twelve friends.


Peter and Andrew were brothers. And there was also James and John. All four of these men were fishermen. Matthew was a tax collector and collect money. They were all very different, right? 


They all came from different places and had different families. But you know what? They were ALL friends with Jesus! And when Jesus said, “Follow me,” they all said, “Yes!” They followed Jesus to so many places and saw Him be a friend to everyone.


Jesus was a friend to people who were sick. He even made some better.


Jesus was a friend to people who were hungry, and He gave them food. 


Jesus was a kind and loving friend to children, and He listened to them. 


So, when Jesus went away, His friends went everywhere, telling everyone that they can be friends with Jesus. 


We can tell our friends that they can be friends with Jesus, too. Who can be friends with Jesus? Everyone can be friends with Jesus!






Bible Paraphrase: “Come and follow me,” Jesus said. —Matthew 4:19, NIrV

Text Truth: Everyone can be friends with Jesus.



Family Devotional

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
—Mark 3:13-19

Our Bible story was about twelve of Jesus’ special friends, the disciples. The disciples went everywhere with Jesus. They heard Jesus teach and watched Him do things that only He can do. When some people saw the disciples, they wondered why Jesus chose fishermen and tax collectors who had done wrong things to be His friends. Other people were happy Jesus chose them to be His friends because it meant everyone can be friends with Jesus! 

“‘Come and follow me,’ Jesus said.” —Matthew 4:19, NIrV

Before Peter was friends with Jesus, his job was catching fish. Before Matthew was friends with Jesus, his job was collecting money. It didn’t matter what kind of jobs Peter and Matthew had, because everyone can be friends with Jesus. So, with your family, make a list of other jobs. It can be a builder or a doctor or a teacher—it can be any job!

Pray with your family. Allow any family members to pray if they wish. In your own words, say, “Dear God, thank You for sending Jesus to be friends with everyone. Thank You that fishermen can be friends with Jesus and tax collectors can be friends with Jesus and (read the list your family made) can all be friends with Jesus. Everyone can be friends with Jesus! And we are so, so happy about that, because it means we can be friends with Jesus, too. We love You, God. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

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Some story illustrations are made possible by a joint venture of Good News Productions, International and College Press Publishing Co. Artist. Paula Nash Giltner (http://www.theglobalgospel.org).  FreeBibleimages (http://freebibleimages.org) have been granted permission to make these images freely available for personal, teaching and ministry use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Some story illustrations are the copyright of Sweet Publishing and licensed by FreeBibleimages (http://freebibleimages.org) for free download under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike 3.0 unported license.

All story illustrations are the property of their respective owners.
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