NOTES for Mat 10:1-7
These are the verses that are usually read with extreme inattention: a list of names - what is more boring? Who remembers the names of all twelve apostles? Twelve seconds, time starts now. Hard to remember? There is no harm in that. The main thing is that the Lord remembers them.
Yet it is important that the evangelist considered it necessary to name each one. He could simply have said that there were twelve - and that would have been all. He could have. But then they would have remained completely faceless. By naming each one, the evangelist reminds us that every person is important and dear in God's eyes precisely because he is himself. The Lord does not love "everyone in general"; He does not choose "someone," but concrete people.