36-37. Healing Many and Calling His Disciples

BACKGROUND AND LINKS 

36. Jesus preaches throughout Galilee:  Mark 1:35-39, Luke 4:42-44, Matthew 4:23-25

We see from the previous post, that Jesus had a busy ministry schedule, yet he rose in the early morning to pray after His busy day and before another busy day of ministry.

While He performed healing to authenticate Himself Jesus' primary mission was to preach the good news of the kingdom of God. He was the "anointed one" who would proclaim the favorable year of the LORD (Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2)

37. Jesus provides a miraculous catch: Luke 5:1-11

Luke 5 begins a new phase of Jesus' ministry about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 years into it. He is in the Galilee region -- settling into Capernaum. In this phase, He is concentrating on investing in a few key people and calls them to be involved with Him in ministry as "fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17). We see an increase in His miracles resulting in more followers because news about Him spread and great multitudes began to follow Him (Matthew 4:24-25). 

Many commentators see this as a "second call" by Jesus. The first call is in the same account described in Matthew 4:18-22 and Mark 1:16-20 (Event 33). They believe that Peter, Andrew, James, and John had gone back to fishing after the tour of Galilee with Jesus (Matthew 4:23-24, Mark 1:35-39, and Luke 4:42-44) but continued to watch Jesus as He established His authority in the synagogue, healed the sick, and drove out demons. 

The incident recorded here is obviously not the first time Jesus had been in contact with the men whom He called to be His disciples. Luke already had stated that Jesus had healed Simon’s mother-in-law which denotes previous contact with Simon and Andrew. This seems to be at least the third time Jesus had contact with these men. In John 1:41 Andrew told Peter that he had found the Messiah. Apparently the men at first did not follow Jesus on a “full-time” basis, for in Mark 1:16-20 (also Matt. 4:18-22) Jesus called Simon, Andrew, James, and John. Mark recorded that that call was before Jesus entered the synagogue in Capernaum and healed a man who was demon-possessed. It is no wonder Peter invited Jesus home after the synagogue incident.

Now, sometime later, Peter and the others were still fishermen. It was at this point, now that Jesus had established His authority (Luke 4:31-44), that He called these men to full-time discipleship. (The Bible Knowledge Commentary: NT, p. 216)

Regardless of when it happened, the important point is that they followed Him!

REFLECTION

"When Jesus calls a man

He bids Him come and die."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Cost of Discipleship

The call to these initial disciples meant that someday most of them would pay the ultimate cost for following Jesus: their lives. Read what happened to each of them HERE. 

APPLICATION

I have three possible applications from this section of Jesus' life and ministry:

1) Jesus' call to follow Him involves sacrifice even unto death. Read excerpts from The Cost of Discipleship by clicking the link above. It is a very challenging but important book to read!

2) Are you too busy to pray? Jesus was so busy that he couldn't afford not to pray. 

Surveys show the average Christian prays 15 to 30 minutes a week. If the statement, "No Christian is greater than his prayer life," is true, then it would explain, in part, why so much of the world is still not evangelized." ("Prayer, the Unsung Hero") 

My application is to go and take a prayer walk through our local university campus today with my friend, Kathleen. How about you? 

3)  This video explains how Jesus lived in a Cycle of Grace, and He is the example we follow! The first 35 minutes ("input") are about two things we have observed in Jesus' life as we have read the Harmony of the Gospels: Acceptance (Belovedness) and Sustenance (Ex: He departed to lonely places to pray before He went out in ministry): 

PRAYER

Lord, teach us to pray and give us the courage to leave everything and follow You. Amen.