Period 5 -- Leadership Multiplication

Period 5: Leadership Multiplication: around Late 28 AD – Spring 30 AD

Multiplication of the movement: prayerfully selecting and developing new leaders, sending proven multipliers to continue as movement building leaders

• This period lasts for about 15 months and begins with the appointing of the Twelve as Apostles. The Apostles become “leaders in training” within the larger group of ministry workers. There is still a larger group of followers and seekers (Luke 6:12-19). 

  The Twelve Apostles

  ¹² One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.¹³ When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles:¹⁴ Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew,¹⁵ Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot,¹⁶ Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

  ¹⁷ He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon,¹⁸ who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured,¹⁹ and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

   The Twelve are the fruit of Jesus’ deliberate selection, appointment, training and personal investment. This is further demonstrated after Pentecost through the Kingdom expansion captured in the Book of Acts.
• Later in this period, Jesus sent out 72 others (Luke 10:1) .

  ¹ After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

   Even though they were not given the same formal leadership status within the Gospel record as the Twelve, they too were commissioned as “apostles” (i.e. sent ones). We see the built-in multiplication of leaders as this new group was commanded to pray for the next generation of workers that would be raised up through their work (Luke 10:2). 

  ² He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

   No doubt many of these un-named 72 missionaries were present in the early church, among the 120 in the upper room and included among the 500 people Jesus appeared to after His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:6). 

  ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.