In John’s gospel, it’s pretty clear where Peter first got the idea that Jesus was the Messiah:

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST

“The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.” —John 1:41–42

But that’s kind of the story of Andrew’s life. Whenever he and Peter are mentioned together, Andrew is always mentioned second, and he’s referred to as Peter’s brother—but Peter is never referred to as Andrew’s brother, indicating that Andrew was either younger or less important.

Fun fact: Andrew’s name is Andreas in Greek, and it’s most often translated as “manly.” It comes from the root word aner or andros, meaning “man.”

Andrew in the Bible

Before he was called by Jesus Christ, Andrew was actually a disciple of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist:

“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’

They said, ‘Rabbi’ (which means “Teacher”), ‘where are you staying?’

‘Come,’ he replied, ‘and you will see.’

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.” —John 1:35–40

Interestingly, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) don’t give us this account of Andrew’s calling. Instead, they suggest Andrew was called at the same time as Peter, James, and John, when they were either fishing or cleaning their nets. (Luke never actually mentions Andrew being there, though.) Many would say this represents an obvious contradiction in the Bible, but it’s also possible for both of these accounts to be true. (One just had to happen first.)

In John’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:1–15), Andrew is the disciple who finds the boy with five loaves of bread and two fish. Apparently, John was the only gospel writer who cared enough to give him a shoutout for that.

Later, when a group of Greeks wanted to see Jesus, they came to Philip, and for whatever reason, Philip deferred the decision to Andrew:

“Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we would like to see Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.” —John 12:20–22

In Mark 13, Peter, James, John, and Andrew share a private moment with Jesus and ask him about the destruction of the temple (Mark 13:3–4). Since Peter, James, and John are clearly Jesus’ closest disciples, this suggests Andrew was pretty important to Jesus, too. This, plus the fact that Philip wanted Andrew to decide what to do about the Greeks in John 12, could indicate that Andrew held a position of leadership among the disciples.

The Bible doesn’t tell us much else about Andrew. And while there’s plenty of church tradition to fill in details about his life and ministry, much of it is rooted in legends and apocryphal texts that were written about him later. However, Eusebius of Caesarea, the father of church history tells us that Origen (a scholar from the second and third centuries) claimed Andrew was sent to Scythia (an ancient region in central Eurasia).

How did Andrew die?

Tradition claims Andrew was crucified in the Greek city of Patras around 60 AD, and that like Peter, he didn’t consider himself worthy of dying the same way as Jesus. Instead, he was bound to an X-shaped cross, which became a symbol known as Saint Andrew’s Cross. According to Acts of Andrew (an apocryphal text), he hung there for three days, preaching the entire time.