The Twin Who Walks With Us

Thomas Shows Up Big in Just Three Moments

The Apostle Thomas doesn’t get nearly enough attention. In fact, he only shows up three times in John’s Gospel. And yet each time, it’s unforgettable.

He’s there when Jesus resurrects a friend. He’s there at the Last Supper asking the question no one else was willing to voice. And he’s there when the risen Christ appears, demanding to touch the wounds.

Three appearances—and Thomas is a legend.

But even his name is more than just a label. His very identity calls us to think about who he represents in the story, and maybe even how he reflects something true about our own journey of faith.

The Scene in Bethany

In John 11, Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick. Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha, and this family has a long, close history with him. Mary is the one who anointed Jesus’ feet with perfume. These are not strangers—they are friends.

But there’s a problem. Lazarus lives in Bethany, the very place where, the last time Jesus visited, the townspeople tried to kill him. The disciples know this. They try to talk him out of going back.

“Let him rest,” they say. “You can visit later when it’s safe.”

But Jesus is clear. “Lazarus is dead,” he tells them. “And for your sake, I’m glad. Because this will be a moment for you to believe. Let’s go to him.”

And then comes Thomas.

Twin, Also Known as Twin

John tells us, “Thomas, also known as Didymus, said to the rest, ‘Let us go with him, that we might die with him.’”

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Both Thomas and Didymus mean the same thing: twin. One in Aramaic, one in Greek. Twin, aka Twin.

But the strange thing is, nowhere in the Gospels do we meet this twin. There’s no story, no backstory, no reference. Just this insistence that Thomas is “the twin.”

Of course, maybe he just had a twin who didn’t factor into the narrative. But early Christians couldn’t resist asking the question: why draw so much attention to this detail if it didn’t mean something?

Some ancient texts—the Acts of Thomas and the Gospel of Thomas—suggest that Thomas was Jesus’ twin in a spiritual sense. A brotherly counterpart who even carried the gospel all the way to India after the resurrection. The Church of St. Thomas in India still traces its roots to that story.

Other church fathers, like Origen, offered a different angle. They suggested that “the twin” is not about biology but theology. Thomas is twin to all of us. The twin of every believer.

Faith and doubt, they argued, are not opposites. They are twins. Two ways of speaking about the same reality.

Thomas the Courageous

We often remember Thomas for his doubt. But that’s not how he is first introduced to us.

Here in John 11, the disciples are afraid. They don’t want to go with Jesus back into danger. But Thomas is the one who speaks up.

“Better to be close to Jesus, even if it costs us our lives.”

That’s not a doubter. That’s courage. That’s conviction. That’s someone willing to walk with Jesus into the unknown.

Maybe that’s why the tradition remembers Thomas as our twin. Because his story holds together both doubt and faith, fear and courage, hesitation and boldness.

And maybe our own story of belief is not so different.