Who was Bartholomew (sometimes referred to as Nathanael)? If you said one of the twelve disciples, you get a gold star.

Now, what do you know about this man? That’s where I got stuck the other morning. It dawned on me that I know almost nothing about this follower of Jesus except that the Lord called him to be one of those in His inner circle of twelve men. Scholars believe Bartholomew and Nathanael to be one and the same. If so, Bartholomew is the first recorded person to declare Jesus to be the “Son of God.” And Jesus said of him, “He is a man in whom there is nothing false.”

That’s pretty much all we know. Yes, Bartholomew was among the twelve that Jesus sent out to perform miracles and to share Christ. Yes, he was with the others at the Lord’s supper in the upper room. And he was among those who watched as Jesus ascended into heaven.

But there is nothing else about him in the Bible.

So, what is my point? There are many followers of Christ who receive no recognition. They get no “press.” They serve faithfully and do so in obscurity. That goes against our culture today. We think we need to be honored and recognized to know if we are really effective in serving the Lord. Not so.

Oswald Chambers taught about this several times. In the book So Send I You, we read this:

Jesus warned His disciples that they would be treated as nobodies; He never said they would be brilliant or marvelous. We all have a lurking desire to be exhibitions for God, to be put, as it were, in His showroom.

Adoniram Judson, an American missionary to Burma for forty years, once said: “Permit us to labor on in obscurity, and at the end of twenty years, you may hear from us again.”

The Apostle Paul came at this subject another way:

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ. -Colossians 3:23-24 NLT

That verse may have led Oswald Chambers to ask:

“If God chooses to have you labor in total obscurity, what is that to you?”

No, we may not make it into the world’s “Hall of Fame.” Yet we have the assurance that no matter how little people know of our efforts or even how much attention we may receive, we can all look forward to those words spoken by a master to His faithful servant:

“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

That should be enough.

God’s best,