Twelve is also an important number. Do you know how many numbers there are on a clock? Twelve. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Do you know how many months are in a year? Twelve. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. Do you know how many disciples Jesus had? Twelve. Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, the other James, Thaddeus, Simon, and Judas.
There were also men who wrote short books in the Old Testament of the Bible. They were called minor prophets and there were twelve of them. Their names were Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Some of them had funny names.
God also divided the children of Israel into twelve tribes. Each tribe was a very large group of people and they lived in the same area and were a close family. The children knew each other and played together. It’s kind of like at Thanksgiving or Christmas when you get together with all your other family. There are aunts and uncles and cousins that you get to visit with and play with.
God used the number twelve to show a complete group, like the disciples and the tribes of Israel. Twelve is the number that symbolizes the church --- a complete group. And we use twelve to show a complete group --- a whole year of twelve months or a whole dozen eggs is twelve.