“‘Come, follow Me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’” (Mark 1:17, BSB)

Jesus’ calling to Simon, Andrew, James, and John has long been used as a foundational teaching in God’s modern-day movement to convey Jesus’ expectation for all of His disciples to become “fishers of men.” This exciting purpose is paramount to Christianity, and must be embraced by anyone who claims to be a true follower of Jesus Christ! However, as I was preparing to preach for our Campus Devotional last Friday night, I saw something that I have never seen before in all of my 22 years as a disciple.

Just before Jesus walked the sandy shores of the Sea of Galilee to call His four would-be disciples, Mark records that John the Baptist had already been arrested. (Mark 1:14) This is an important notation because it gives us the timing of this entire account. Many of us mistakenly believe that Jesus’ ministry began in Mark’s first chapter, in Galilee. But that is actually incorrect. Mark’s gospel was the first gospel written, but it is not an eye-witness account. Most scholars agree that the information provided in Mark’s writings came from Simon Peter, since Mark was Peter’s son in the faith. (I Peter 5:13) Therefore, it would make sense that his gospel would begin at the Sea of Galilee because that is where Peter first started following Jesus! That being said, Jesus’ ministry actually began in the deserts of Judea.

In John’s gospel, John writes about the first time he encountered Jesus; which was as he and Andrew curiously followed Jesus to see where He was staying after John the Baptist pointed Jesus out to them. (John 1:36-37) He records that they spent that day with Jesus, and then Andrew went and found his brother Simon and brought him to Jesus as well. It was during this interaction between Jesus and Simon that Jesus tells him, “‘You will be called Cephas’ (which, when translated, is Peter).” (John 1:42) Interestingly, Jesus did not call Simon, Andrew, and John to follow Him at that time. Why? Because at that time they were John the Baptist’s disciples.

Shortly thereafter, John records that Jesus took His disciples with Him to the Judean countryside, where He spent some time with them and baptized. (John 3:22) We do not know who Jesus’ disciples were at this point, but we can conclude that they did not include Simon, Andrew, James and John. These disciples were not called to follow Jesus until John was put into prison, and the Bible clearly notes that this account took place before John was put into prison. (John 3:24) Therefore, Simon, Andrew, James, and John would still have been John the Baptist’s disciples when Jesus was baptizing with His disciples.

That makes this whole account even more interesting because the Bible records that “John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim,” (John 3:23) and that His disciples started to get competitive with Jesus. They complained to John the Baptist, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan – the one you testified about – look, He is baptizing, and everyone is going to Him.” (John 3:26) It is presumable that these frustrated disciples would have included the four men mentioned earlier. They were bothered that Jesus was out-baptizing them!

Just one chapter later, John tells us that the reason Jesus was able to out-baptize John the Baptist – a man given that very nickname because he was a baptizer – was because “it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples.” (John 4:2) It’s at this juncture that Jesus left Judea and then goes to Galilee to begin His Galilean ministry.

Why is all of this background information crucial to understanding what is happening in Mark’s account of Jesus’ calling? I always thought that the emphasis of Jesus’ calling in Mark’s gospel was that Jesus was calling His soon-to-be disciples to allow Him to make them into “fishers of men,” a concept that they had not previously understood.

But they were with John the Baptist when John was baptizing. So they understood what it meant to fish for men. They saw him doing it. The difference between Jesus’ ministry and John the Baptist’s ministry was not that one was about fishing for men and the other wasn’t; it was that John did not teach his disciples how to do it. Thus, the emphasis of Jesus’ calling is actually on the fact that He was going to make THEM fishers of men! No wonder they left everything so quickly to follow Jesus! They had previously been frustrated that He was baptizing more disciples than they were, and now they had an opportunity to learn how to baptize themselves!

Since John the Baptist had been put in prison, (Mark 1:14) Jesus was now free to poach his disciples and pull them into His orbit. Combining this group of John’s disciples with Jesus’ previously baptized disciples, Jesus now had access to a group of good-hearted Christians in which He could choose His twelve Apostles from. (Mark 3:13-14) He chose Simon, Andrew, James, and John, along with others; some of which were likely from Jesus’ Judean ministry. Together, Jesus trained them to fish for men, eventually leading to Him send them out with His great commission! (Matthew 28:18-20)

Although there is so much to be learned from comparing Jesus’ ministry to John the Baptist’s ministry, no lesson is as important as these three: 1) every disciple must be a baptizer, 2) every true disciple wants to baptize, and 3) a ministry where every disciple is baptizing will always crank!

It has been an exciting start to the year here in Toronto, where we have already seen the Lord bless us with 24 awesome baptisms in just 16 weeks! I believe we have in our Church the makings of a Jesus-style ministry, where every single disciple is passionate about the mission to seek and save the lost, and deeply desires to be made into a baptizer! My plea for all of us is that we never settle for anything short of this all-to-important calling; and that we, like Simon, Andrew, James, and John, would be willing to give up everything, again and again, in order to achieve the highest purpose one could ever aspire to – to be, and to never stop being a “fisher of men!” To God be all the glory!

Evan Bartholomew