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
