The Call of the Apostles

S. Mark i. 14–20

Though it is manifest that the individual character of the Evangelist impressed itself upon all that he wrote, it is no less certain that he was supernaturally influenced to write what was best fitted to complete the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now it was foretold in the Old Testament that “the Coming One” would in His Own person represent the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king, and thereby, as gathering into one all who were consecrated by the anointing oil, prove an indefeasible right to the title of the Messiah, or Anointed. It could hardly then have been undesigned that while S. Matthew has kept mainly in view the Regal, and S. Luke the Priestly side of our Lord’s character, S. Mark should have opened the account of His ministry as a Preacher, which then at least was another name for Prophet.

“After that John was put in prison, Jesus came into 1 Cf. p. 4.

Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” He had begun His mission in Judaea; but we can easily understand that He would be anxious to remove to another scene. First, in all probability, He would be influenced by prudential reasons. Jerusalem was steeped in bigotry; the priests and rulers must have been roused against Him, and were waiting an opportunity to compass His overthrow, as they did that of His forerunner; for the cleansing of the Temple showed them what they had to fear if He were suffered to proceed unchecked.

Again, to have made Samaria the scene of His ministry, except so far as the exigences of travel should take Him there, was to alienate His countrymen.

Persea also was out of the question. It was not only too secluded and thinly-peopled, but Herod Antipas was living at Machaerus at the time. Had Jesus set foot in the neighbourhood, and lifted up His voice, it could only have been to brand him in the eyes of his subjects as an adulterer and a murderer, and the consequences would have been fatal.

It was of vital importance that any serious check to His enterprise at the outset should be avoided. We may see traces of the same circumspect prudence in the fact that He seems never to have ventured to enter Tiberias, where also Herod resided, and that He evaded him so successfully, that, notwithstanding the Tetrarch’s great desire to see Him, they met for the first time only at the close.

Excluded thus from Judaea, Samaria, and Peraea, He naturally found Himself in Galilee. No preacher or reformer could have wished for a better opening. “It was to Roman Palestine what the manufacturing districts are to England.” It was the focus of the energy and industry of the whole country. Its lake, which was the centre of the northern trade and fisheries, from its contrast to the deserted shores of the Dead Sea, has been aptly called “the Sea of Life.”

So it was that He came and preached to the eager, excitable Galileans, and the burden of His message was “the gospel of the kingdom of God.” A kingdom implied not only a king, but subordinate officers, and He proceeded at once to the selection.

Now the apparent abruptness of the Call of the Apostles has led to misconceptions of what really took place. They arise chiefly from the difficulty in discovering the true historic sequence of the earlier events. How many persons think that our Lord, as He passed by, seeing one here and another there, one in his boat, another at his custom-office, spake the words, “Follow Me,” and it was done: without delay and without reserve they gave themselves up from that moment body and soul to His service. He might, of course, have fascinated them by such a sudden spell had He chosen, but it was not in accord with His usual mode of dealing with men; and a little attentive study will show that some at least reached the Apostleship only by degrees and preparatory stages of careful training.

There was first the admission to His personal acquaintance and friendship; then followed the abandonment of their secular occupation for closer attendance upon His ministry; and lastly the solemn ordination of those whom He finally selected, and their investiture with supernatural powers.

S. Mark passes over in silence the first stage; indeed none but S. John, who was one of the first to be attracted to our Lord, notice it; and it is no matter of surprise that it should have been so. Knowing, as we do, how sacred first meetings come to be considered, when followed by momentous histories, we can easily understand how he should have cherished, even to old age, the recollection of what seemed to others an unimportant event, because it had coloured his whole life.

The first invitation to follow Him was only to occasional companionship, but He began at once to train them for something more; they witnessed the miracle at Cana of Galilee; they were with Him at the first Passover, and they saw the marvellous exhibition of His power in the cleansing of the Temple.

Then take the second stage, which S. Mark brings before us in this passage. They had returned to their occupation: “As He walked by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers;” but what they had witnessed had sunk down into their hearts. No doubt they often talked of it as they tossed upon the waves, and had fully prepared themselves for a further surrender, and so when He said, “Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men,” “straightway they forsook their nets, and followed Him;” and we read no more of their fishing, at least till after His death, when, thinking their discipleship was over, they went back to their old calling.

The second summons, then, led to an unbroken attendance upon our Lord, but time must yet elapse before their Ordination. They must hear in secret what they had to preach openly; He must whisper in their ears the truths which they should proclaim upon the housetops.

And they had much to unlearn as well. They had a catholic message to deliver, and all narrow-minded Jewish ideas must be eradicated, and their hearts enlarged by the witness of a sympathy wide as the world itself.

And they must see as well as hear — see the perfect life, that for which God had become Incarnate; they must study every feature and lineament before they could be able to proclaim Jesus, and be His witnesses to an unbelieving world.

Into all this they were more or less initiated during this second stage. The company of followers and disciples grew considerably, and the final selection was made, as we shall find in the third chapter, from a wider circle.

Now the Call of the Apostles suggests two considerations which have an important bearing upon our estimate of the Christian Ministry.

The first is, that God should have condescended to associate with Himself human agents in carrying on a Divine work.

The second, that He should have deliberately selected for the purpose such feeble helpers as ignorant peasants and poor fishermen.

He has manifestly by the counsel of His Will determined that a duly called and ordained Ministry should be an essential part of His Church on earth. If ever there was a time when we might have expected Him to dispense with human agency, it was surely when He was Himself present among men in visible form; but out of an amazing loving-kindness He preferred to give to men the honour and delight of being helpers with Him in the dispensation of grace; and of all that have since lived and believed He still says, “I drew them with cords of a man, and with bands of love.”

Yet further, it is no less a law of His kingdom that He should work the grandest results by the simplest means; and so He chooses “the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty,” and He gives us the treasure of His grace and Sacraments “in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

Note: This cleansing had taken place at the opening of His ministry. For the distinctions between it and the last, cf. infra, chap. lii.

Note: Machaerus was an almost impregnable fortress built on the south-eastern frontier of Peraea by Alexander Jannaeus, and strengthened by Herod the Great to overawe the Arab tribes. It was the favourite residence of Antipas.

Note: Tiberias was built by Antipas, and made the capital of Galilee instead of Sepphoris. Agrippa II. changed back again to the old town.

Note: The case mentioned in S. Matt. xvii. 27, where S. Peter was sent to fish with a view to finding a coin, was clearly exceptional.