John 1:40-42 - Andrew

1:40,41

Andrew was one of the two of John's disciples, the other one is not identified. The other one may have been John himself, but there is no conclusive evidence on this.

Having spent time with Jesus Andrew came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Luke 3:15 tells us that people were expecting the Messiah, and Andrew here had clearly been looking for Him.

This raises a question on how we apply these verses to our own time. A typical commentary on these verses goes something like this "isn't it wonderful that Andrew went and told Peter that he had found Jesus. We should do the same", with a hint of guilt thrown at us as well for not being more evangelistic. Now we do need to be more evenagelistic, but if the urge to do this is based on some simplistic notions it will just end in disillusionment. There was a general expectation of the Messiah at the time, now in our society this is not true. The general view is that God is irrelevant. So if we adopt tactics that are appropriate for a time that is expecting the Messiah, the we are likely to be disappointed. However, this does not mean we should give up, but we need to do something different. We need to understand the times. Tim Keller, in New York, seems to be successful at this.

1:42

Andrew brought Peter to Jesus. This is the task of all of us, whether we are talking as evangelists or as looking after existing Christians. We can tell people all sorts of things, give them all sorts of advice, but ultimately they need to come to Jesus.

The first thing that Jesus does it announce that He is going to give Simon a new name, he will be called Peter. Now this does not simply mean he is going to be called something different, but that Jesus is going to  change his character. Peter will become a rock. When we come to a Jesus we come to be changed. If we look over Peter's life we se that he did indeed need to be changed, but eventually he did become a rock. When we come to Jesus we will many times be brought face to face with our old self, but we can be sure that He who has started a good work in us will bring it to completion (Phil 1:6).