Note: Devotional taken from last Sunday's sermon on Mark 1:16-20.
“And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).
Christ’s public ministry began with his preaching (see Mark 1:15). It continued with his calling men to come after him and become his disciples or followers.
In Mark 1:16-20 we have the account of our Lord calling two sets of brothers to be among his first disciples: Simon (Peter) and Andrew (vv. 16-18), then James and John (vv. 19-20). Two sets of brothers by nature became brothers in Christ.
So often our picture of the disciples come from medieval artists that depict the Lord Jesus and the disciples as frail, pale, and sickly. They hardly seem to have had strength enough to pick up a heavy net! But the picture here in Mark 1 is of strong, sun-darkened, solid, working men. Simon and Andrew were busy at their trade, casting a net into the sea, “for” Mark says, “for they were fishers” (v. 16).
The occupation of fisherman must have been a common livelihood in this area. Many have noted that when the Lord Jesus went looking for followers, he did not go to the royal court, or to the religious schools, but to the shipyard. He chose sturdy, common, ordinary men. The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry observed:
The instruments Christ chose to employ in setting up his kingdom, were the weak and foolish things of the world; not called from the great Sanhedrin, or the schools of the [rabbis], but picked up from among the [tarps] by the seaside, that the excellency of the power might be wholly of God, and not at all of them.
Do you get it? Why did Jesus choose men like these? Because if he had chosen princes and scholars we might have been tempted to give them glory. In this way, to God alone through Christ alone be all the glory.
Note the language used by Christ. He does not say to these men, “I see within you the inner fishers of men.” His hopes for them did not rest on any inherent potential that they held within themselves. When we see an exquisite vase that has been beautifully shaped and crafted and decorated by a master artisan, we do not say, “Wow, that was some great clay!” The focus is not on the raw material but on the artist.
Nor does the Lord Jesus say, “Come after me and become whatever you want to be.” He has a very definite end in mind, and he is not leaving this up to these men. He says he will make them to become fishers of men.
There is great significance in this, is there not? They had been spending their lives casting out nets to gather in fish and the Lord Jesus says instead, that he will make them cast their nets to gather in the souls of men. These rough fishermen will later, of course, become apostles. They will be the foundational heralds of the gospel. Here the Lord Jesus is giving the church its central apostolic commission. We are about fishing for the souls of men. Our fundamental calling as a church is evangelism, endearing the gospel of God to the hardened hearts of men.
In 1773 the Puritan Thomas Boston at the tender age of 22 published a little book titled, “The Art of Man-Fishing” in which he meditated on these words of Christ. Boston applied these words to the preacher who, through the nets of his public preaching and teaching ministry and his one-on-one private ministry appointments, was constantly striving to see men drawn to a place of settled commitment to Christ.
Note also that the Lord Jesus does not say, Follow Me and I will make you to become social workers, or Red Cross volunteers, or school teachers, or political revolutionaries. Now there is a place for acts of Christian charity and mercy, for education and Christian citizenship, but our primary calling is evangelism, endearing the gospel of God to the hardened hearts of men. Let us not drift from this calling.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff
