My Dad was one of nine brothers and one sister. He often said he and his brothers could have been a baseball team. But he became a minister, and must have suffered much disappointment because the others didn’t come to the Lord he spent 50 years preaching. Actually, late in Dad’s career, two of them…James and Julian…seemed to see the light, but the boys had scattered to the four winds, and his only real contact was by letters, and those were few and far between.

Jesus had the same disappointment. He had four; James, Joses, Simon and Judas (not the Judas who betrayed Him, of course). Actually they were half-brothers, since their father was Joseph, Mary’s husband, while Jesus was the Son of God. And Jesus had sisters, who aren’t named, because that was the way back then; women didn’t count. And apparently the girls didn’t accept His teaching, since they’re only mentioned with His brothers twice in the Bible, in Matthew 13:55-56 (Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas)?

And in Mark 6:3 (Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us)? Judas and James are named in Luke 6:16, and again in Acts 1:13. Matthew 27:56 mentions Mary, mother of James and Joses when she was at Jesus’ crucifixion. John 7:2-5 notes that they (his brothers) didn’t believe Him.

In Galations 1:19, the Apostle Paul mentions that he had seen James, the Lord’s brother, and of course the book of James in the Bible was written by Jesus’ brother. Then finally in the book of Jude, the last book before the book of Revelation in the Bible, he mentions that he is a brother of James and a servant of Jesus Christ. It’s clear that he had accepted Christ, not only as family, but also as the Son of God.

There are so many places the brothers are mentioned one way or another that I may have missed some…and there are more “James, and Johns, and Judas’ and others in the Bible that I could have mis-interpreted at some point. But as I’ve always stressed…look for yourself. I’m the soup; the Bible is the entrée, and Heaven is the dessert. Think about it!

37BT Bill Thornton December 27, 2006 *same title 3-25-95