Thomas the Twin

In the book of John, the apostle Thomas is also given the name “Didymus.”  Three times John mentioned that Thomas was also called Didymus, which according to the LDS Bible Dictionary, means “twin.”  Thomas is the Hebrew form of the word, and Didymus is the Greek form, and both mean twin.  John didn’t include details like this haphazardly, and I have to wonder if there is not a message for us as disciples of Christ that we are all like Thomas in some respect.  He is our spiritual “twin” as we try to follow the Savior. 

Thomas is most well-known for the fact that He did not immediately believe that Christ was resurrected when he was told this by the other apostles: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).  His faith was not perfect, and He needed the Lord to come to him individually, which the Lord did, saying, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing” (John 20:27).  At that point Thomas did believe and fell down in worship of the Savior.  As those who strive to follow the Savior in our day, aren’t we all like this in some respect?  We love the Lord and seek to follow Him, but we don’t always have the faith that we should have.  On earth we are learning to “live by faith” as Paul put it, but there will be times when we struggle to do that and ask the Lord to help us see like Thomas did (Hebrews 10:38).  What I love about this story with Thomas is that the Lord did not say, “Sorry, Thomas, you will never see—you’ll just have to remain in doubt your whole life.”  Instead he came to Thomas and helped him believe, but he also left him this caution: “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29).  In other words, I think the Lord was telling Thomas that he needed to continue his work as an apostle with more faith.  I don’t think it’s fair to think of Thomas only in the context of this one event in his life; rather, this was a chance for Thomas to grow his trust in the Lord, and I have to believe that as he served in his apostolic calling after Christ’s ascension he did prove to be a man of great faith helped build the kingdom.  We already know that he was willing to give up his life; when he believed the Savior was going to be killed by going to Judea he said “unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16).  There will surely be times in our lives when we all struggle like Thomas to believe like we should and may cry out, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5)  If we truly desire it, the Lord will come to us in His own way and encourage us to continue trusting Him—the Way—on our road of discipleship.