How old were the disciples?

Hey y'all, this is a post that I put on my blog. I encourage you to discuss this with your family and friends, enjoy!

How old do you think the disciples are?

I came across this article this morning from churchleaders.com. The title was "3 things your church can't afford to lose" and the main focus of this article was about youth! It talked about how to retain our youth and college-aged people in the church. An interesting section was about the disciples. In Matthew 17:24-27, Peter and Jesus come to the temple and had to pay a temple tax. Of course, Jesus' "posse" (a.k.a. the disciples) were with him when at the temple. Jesus told Peter:

"But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake, and thro out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth, and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."

But here is the interesting part, in Exodus 30:14, it says that the tax was for those who were 20 years old or older. So that must mean that Peter and Jesus were older than 20, but the other disciples were younger than 20 right? I think so! So you could say that Jesus was a Youth Leader (of course he was a leader for everyone!)? Interesting isn't it?

You might say what about Luke? He was a doctor wasn't he, so he must be older? Well of course. Luke wrote his Gospel almost 20 years after Jesus' death and he wasn't any of the 12 disciples. He carefully investigated everything from all accounts. Being a doctor, you would obviously be thorough with your work. You wouldn't want a doctor to operate on you if he/she just finished year 1 of med-school do you?

Ok, now here's a twist with the disciples age. Jesus and Peter had to pay a tax, but did the other disciples pay the tax and were already inside of the temple? Well, it's up for debate. I don't think so because if you look at verse 24, it says:

"After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked 'doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?'"

It says that Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum and then the tax collectors came to Peter. It doesn't say that the other disciples had to pay.

What's your take on it?