5:4-7
After finishing speaking Jesus spoke to Simon and told him to put out into deep water and put the nets down again. This went against all standard fishing knowledge. They had spent all night trying to catch fish, the best time to do so, and had caught nothing. So to try again now seemed futile. However, Peter says that he will do so because Jesus has said so. This again would seem to imply that Peter had had previous contact with Jesus.
As we know, they amassed an enormous catch. So large, in fact, that they needed help from another boat, and even then the number of fish was so great that the boats began to sink.
5:8-11
Peter was acutely aware that Jesus was someone special, and recognised the holiness of Jesus. This also made him aware of his own sinfulness. A natural reaction can be to want to get away from holiness, for it so highlights our own unworthiness. Note that the holiness of Jesus was demonstrated here not in some “holier than thou” manner, but in bringing about the miracle catch.
But Jesus did not come in holiness to drive us away, but to draw us near to God, and to make our lives useful. The miracle catch was not just a miracle for its own sake, but had a teaching point as well. In Mark 1:17 when Jesus first called Peter He told him he would make them fishers of men. That must have sounded strange and a somewhat weird thing to say. Now He is demonstrating more of the reality of it.
So they “left everything and followed Him”. This is part which might imply that it is part of the calling in Mark 1:16-19. However, we need to realise that the gospel accounts are very compressed accounts. They didn’t have word processors in those days, but had to write on scrolls. So we must not treat the accounts in the same way as we would treat a modern day account. It seems better to see them as giving different angles, and different aspects of events that involved a lot more than any one condensed account could possibly convey.
No comments:
Post a Comment