As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen… (Matt 4:18, NIV)
Good morning Church.
I have always wondered why Jesus didn’t go to the synagogue and grab theologians or go to the temple and grab priests to build His church while he was here conducting his earthly ministry all those years ago. No, Jesus didn’t go to the obvious, but he went out to those casting their nets into the lake looking for fish and it was to them that He first said “come follow me” and it was with them that He would start building His visible new testament church in this world (Matt 4:19a; 16:18).
Now there may be some obvious reasons as to why Jesus did this, as we have seen in our Matthew series. First, there was compromise among the religious leaders of the day. For example they had the location of the birth of their Messiah, yet advised a paranoid tyrant as to where Jesus would be born and then proceeded in doing nothing about it, knowing full well what Herod was going to do (Matt 2:3-6). Second, and we will see this more and more as we make our way through the Matthew series, when Jesus confronted the Rabbis of the day, they were blinded and found it hard to accept Jesus’ teaching in light of their own traditions. Thus their presuppositions caused them to argue with their Messiah more than listen to Him, which caused incredible conflict (Matt 16:1-12, 21:23-27).
So why fishermen? Well, on one level, they were the working class of society. Meaning their pastors in the local synagogue saw no reason for any further theological education than what they were getting on the sabbath day which meant that these men were most likely not the most educated men that Jesus went looking for. This in turn would have probably meant that these fishermen weren’t looking for a so-called theological knife fight. However this also says a couple of things about Jesus right? First, though education is important, He’s not impressed or swayed by the standard that people measure each other by (Lk 16:15) and second, Jesus will use anyone who has faith in Him to build his kingdom in this world (Matt 16:18 c.f. Eph 2:8). Though it must be said, those He calls must turn to Him, sit at His feet to learn and then obey His commands if they are going to be effective servants (Matt 4:17, 25:14-30, Lk 10:42, Jn 14:23).
Church, all this to say, no matter who you are or where you come from, what you have done or how educated or non-educated you are, if you have turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have called upon his name and are putting your trust in Him alone and your heart has been softened to know and see the truth then you have been called like those fishermen all those years ago. That’s right, you have been called to go and fish for people no matter who you are. So why don’t you this week ask Jesus to show you who He has put in your life to share the good news with and ask him, like he tells us to, to give you wisdom in the doing. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with just how he answers that prayer.
Michael