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Catholic Commentary
The Appointment of the Twelve Apostles
13He went up into the mountain and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him.14He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach15and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:16Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);17James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder);18Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot;19and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
Mark 3:13–19 describes Jesus ascending a mountain and sovereignly choosing twelve apostles to be his companions and to proclaim the kingdom through preaching, healing, and exorcism. The passage lists their names, including Simon Peter, James and John, and Judas Iscariot, with the startling note that Judas "also betrayed him," establishing that the Church's foundation included both faithfulness and betrayal from its inception.
Jesus didn't recruit a team of reliable professionals—he called twelve broken, conflicted people into intimate companionship, and Judas the traitor was on the list from the start.
Typological Sense The Twelve recall not only the twelve tribes but also the seventy elders appointed by Moses (Num 11:16–25) and the twelve oxen bearing the bronze sea in Solomon's Temple (1 Kgs 7:25). In the fullest typological register, this scene anticipates the post-resurrection commissioning (Matt 28:18–20), where the mountain reappears and the mission of the Twelve becomes the mission of the whole Church to all nations.
Catholic tradition reads Mark 3:13–19 as nothing less than the founding charter of the apostolic office and, through it, of the Church herself. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus "constituted the Twelve as the seeds of the new Israel and the beginning of the sacred hierarchy" (CCC 877). This is not a later ecclesiastical development imposed on an undifferentiated early community — it is a deliberate act of the historical Jesus, recognized as such by the earliest tradition.
St. Irenaeus of Lyon, writing against Gnostic claims to secret apostolic lineages, grounds the Church's authority precisely in this public, named, enumerable list of Twelve: the faith is identified by apostolic succession running back to these specific men (Adversus Haereses III.3). The names matter; the bodies matter; the history matters.
The two-part purpose of verse 14 — being with and being sent — resonates with the Second Vatican Council's teaching in Lumen Gentium (§28) that ordained ministry is constituted by both communion with Christ and service to the People of God. The bishop is not merely an administrator but one who first "is with" Christ in prayer, sacrament, and contemplation, and from that union exercises apostolic authority.
The name-change of Simon to Peter (v. 16) is the seed of what Matthew 16:18 will make explicit: Peter is the rock on which the Church is built. St. John Chrysostom notes that the renaming signals not what Peter currently is but what grace will make him — a pattern of transformation that the sacrament of baptism enacts in every Christian. Pope St. John Paul II, in Pastores Dabo Vobis (§14), reflects that the call to apostolic ministry is always a gratuitous gift that precedes and exceeds human worthiness — Judas's presence on the list being the starkest proof.
Mark 3:13–19 speaks with urgent clarity into a Catholic Church navigating questions of authority, vocation, and institutional credibility. Three practical invitations emerge.
First, notice that being with Jesus precedes being sent by him. Contemporary Catholic life — parish ministry, lay apostolates, even priestly service — can be consumed by activity. This passage insists that mission evacuated of contemplative communion with Christ eventually runs on borrowed capital. Before Catholics ask "what should I do for the Church?", this text asks "are you with him?"
Second, the scandalous diversity of the Twelve — the collaborator and the zealot, the impulsive fisherman and the quiet doubter — rebukes any fantasy that the Church should be a community of the similarly minded and similarly virtuous. The Body of Christ holds together people who would otherwise never share a table. That tension is not a bug; it is constitutive.
Third, Judas's name at the end of the list is a standing mercy for those who have known failure, betrayal, or spiritual collapse in the Church. Jesus called him knowing. The Church is not founded on the myth of perfect apostles but on grace that risks itself in real, fallible human beings — including you.
Commentary
Verse 13 — The Mountain and the Initiative of Jesus Mark opens this scene with unmistakable intentionality: Jesus ascends the mountain and calls "those whom he wanted" (hous ēthelen autos). The mountain setting is theologically charged in the Hebrew imagination — it is the place of divine encounter, covenant, and revelation (Sinai, Horeb, Zion). By summoning his chosen ones on a height, Mark subtly frames this as a new covenant act, a new constitution of God's people. Critically, the initiative belongs entirely to Jesus: he calls whom he wanted. This is not election by merit, acclamation, or seniority. It is sovereign, gracious choice — the same freedom by which YHWH chose Israel "not because you were more numerous than all the peoples" (Deut 7:7), but simply because he loved them.
Verse 14 — The Double Purpose: Communion and Mission The appointment carries a two-part purpose that must be held together: "that they might be with him" and "that he might send them out to preach." Mark's syntax is precise. Before mission comes communion. The apostles are not primarily functionaries or religious professionals; they are first companions of Jesus — those who share his table, his prayer, his weariness, and his joy. Only out of this intimate participation does proclamation flow. The Greek word apostolos (one sent) is embedded in the word apostellō used here — they are defined by the sender, not by themselves. The number twelve is equally deliberate: it mirrors the twelve tribes of Israel, announcing that Jesus is reconstituting God's people around himself as their new center.
Verse 15 — Authority Shared, Not Merely Delegated The apostles receive exousia — authority — to heal and to cast out demons. This is not a bureaucratic delegation of tasks but a genuine participation in Jesus's own power, which Mark has been demonstrating since chapter 1. The linking of preaching, healing, and exorcism is programmatic: the Kingdom of God arrives as word that creates faith, as healing that restores creation's wholeness, and as liberation from the demonic powers that distort human life. The apostles do not generate this authority; they exercise what is given to them by Christ.
Verses 16–19 — The Names and Their Weight Mark's list begins with Simon, who immediately receives a new name: Peter (Petros, the Rock). The renaming is an act of creative sovereignty — as God renamed Abram and Jacob, Jesus constitutes a new identity. James and John are surnamed , "Sons of Thunder" — a vivid epithet suggesting volcanic temperament (see Luke 9:54), yet these same men will be called to drink the cup of suffering (Mark 10:38–39). The diversity of the Twelve is striking: Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot represent opposing ends of the Jewish political spectrum — one a Roman collaborator, the other a nationalist resistant. Jesus brings them into a single body. The list ends with devastating economy: "Judas Iscariot, ." Even the traitor belongs to the constitutive Twelve. Mark does not explain or soften this; he lets it stand as a permanent, troubling feature of the Church's foundation — grace given, grace refused.