Everyone is taking surveys these days. Political advocacy groups are always calling with their carefully crafted questions, devised to show their candidate in the most favorable light. Online retailers, restaurant chains, banks, and research organizations all use surveys. That led me to wonder: If there were a survey for everyone’s favorite apostle, who would win?

I found a thread on Reddit in response to the question, “Who Is Your Favorite Apostle?” Many people mentioned Peter, citing the remarkable turnaround the flawed apostle made after Jesus’s resurrection. A few mentioned Andrew, who first introduced Peter to Jesus. Others mentioned John, the brilliant apostle whose spiritual discernment was extraordinary. Some Reddit users preferred Doubting Thomas, who became the Apostle to India.

Matthew would have been an interesting choice. After making some terrible life choices, he turned his life around and followed Jesus. Though no one in the Reddit crowd mentioned him, James the brother of John had the distinction of being the first apostle to be martyred. Simon the Zealot is another possibility. He was a political hothead whose efforts were redirected to the kingdom of God.

No one on the Reddit thread chose the Apostle Philip, my personal favorite. That is not surprising. Not counting the lists where his name appears, he is only mentioned in four New Testament passages. He is, nevertheless, my favorite. I wish I were like the brilliant John, but I identify with Philip.

Philip, I realized years ago, was the dull point of the apostolic band. When Jesus and his disciples found themselves in a deserted wilderness with thousands of hungry people – probably festival-goers from the Galilee region – Jesus asked Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for all these people to eat?”

Jesus was not serious about buying bread – an impossibility in that wilderness. He “asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.” But poor Philip was oblivious to Jesus’s intention and burst out, “That would cost a fortune!” If Jesus was testing him, he failed the test.

A couple of years later, things had become very serious. The hostility directed toward Jesus from government and religious leaders – the two were largely the same – had reached fever pitch. Jesus and his disciples were in Jerusalem for the biggest religious festival of the year, and the net was closing around Jesus. He had warned his disciples repeatedly that he would be arrested, humiliated, and killed.

On the very eve of his arrest, Jesus encouraged his disciples: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” He invited them to trust God and to trust him. He told them that his Father God was just like him, and, since they knew him, they knew God.

That was when Philip, befuddled yet again, said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Show us the Father? Bring the infinite God into this small, upstairs room and put him on display? Capture the Eternal One in a moment of time, like a lion in a cage? Once again, Philip just didn’t get Jesus.

So, why is he my favorite apostle? Because I am not a great leader like Peter. I don’t have a brilliant mind like John. Like Philip, I am sometimes a dull point. I don’t always get Jesus. But Jesus gets me, just like he got Philip.

He literally got Philip. Of the twelve apostles, Philip is the only one, at least as far as we are told, that Jesus went after to make his own. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus went and found Philip. He wanted him. He chose him.

Jesus didn’t choose Philip because he was brilliant. He didn’t go looking for him because he couldn’t get along without him. There was nothing extraordinary about Philip, at least nothing that other people could see. Jesus chose Philip because he wanted him.

That means there is hope for me, an ordinary guy, who brings nothing special to the table. Yet, Jesus wants me too and went looking for me. That is a source of infinite hope.