What will believers in Christ know about you and me in 200 years?  Unless all our blogs, face books, Twitters and text messages are still available, believers in Christ nor anyone else will know of us at all.

I raise the above question, because when you say Bartholomew you’ve said all we know.  2000 years ago he was among the list of Jesus’ disciples in Matthew, Mark and Luke.  In John the name Nathaniel is listed instead.

 

The epistle for his day from 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 begins, “We have this treasure in jars of clay.”  Though we will not be much remembered in a hundred year, yet like Bartholomew (Nathaniel) we carry the treasure of Jesus’ death and resurrection in our mortal bodies.   Bartholomew was a disciple of Jesus. He, with the other disciples, proclaimed the power of the Gospel, which lives on far beyond the time when his weak mortal body breathed its last and died.

 

Bartholomew reminds us that what is important is not how much influence I have and how well known I am.  What is of the utmost importance is that I know Jesus’ and am known by him.

As John the Baptist said in referring to Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

 

Some traditions say Bartholomew preached in India or Armenia following the resurrection.  In art, Bartholomew is pictured holding a flaying knife to indicate the manner in which he was killed.

 

The hymn, By All Your Saints in Warfare (LSB518) has a stanza dedicated to Bartholomew

 

Stanza 23

All praise for him whose candor

Through all his doubt You saw

When Philip at the fig tree

Disclosed You in the law.

Discern, beneath our surface,

O Lord, what we can be,

That by your truth made guileless,

Your glory we may see.