Thoughts on Simon Zelotes

Jesus called his disciples from several different walks of life. Now, what we know about the disciples outside of what is given to us in the Bible is a bit tricky to navigate. There are conflicting accounts and a lot of it is based on tradition and there isn't much as far as reliable sources to go off of.

That said, we DO know the names of the twelve that Jesus chose to follow him and among those names are two people that I want to contrast. Levi (Matthew) and Simon Zelotes.

So the political landscape of New Testament Israel was basically Roman rule. There was technically a king in Judea but he didn't really have much authority. Pontius Pilate would have been the regional "supervisor" for the Roman Empire and this is why, when the Jews wanted to kill Jesus, they had to get him convicted by the Roman system because they didn't have the authority to execute anyone. Obviously, there was a lot of political tension because of Roman occupation.

Okay, so Simon Zelotes is an interesting character and we know next to nothing about him. Aside from being mentioned as a Disciple, the Bible doesn't talk about him. The surname "zelotes" was given to him to distinguish him from Simon Peter or Simon of Cyrene or any of the other Simons in the Bible. But what does "zelotes" mean?

It's actually a transliteration of the Greek work that it's translated out of. In other words, if you swapped the Greek letters with its English equivalent you'd be left with "Zelotes." This Greek word occurs 7 times in the New Testament. Twice as Simon's surname and the other 5 times it is translated as "zealous."

There are two prevailing thoughts: Either, one, Simon was zealous about the things of God and the law of God or, two, Simon was associated with a group of people who would later be formally known as "zealots." This group was a political sect devoted to driving out the Romans however they can. Now, again, we don't know for a fact which one Simon was, but considering the fact that he never speaks in Scripture, or distinguishes himself in any way leads me to the opinion that he was probably a political extremist.

WHICH MEANS that among Jesus's disciples were BOTH a political zealot who had previously been devoted to driving out the occupying army AND a Jew who had basically defected to the Romans and was collecting taxes on his own people for the Roman empire.

The point I want to make is this: true Bible believers will sacrifice their political ideologies, their natural biases and prejudices, their passions and pursuits for the interest of knowing Christ and making Him known.

There are a lot of myths surrounding what Simon Zelotes did with the rest of his life but they almost all converge on two things: he went to unreached peoples to preach the gospel and was almost assuredly killed for it.

May God use this thought to bring us into greater obedience to Him.