Gospel of Mark Chapter 1 Vs. 17

 Jesus Calls the First Disciples

Mark 1:17 “And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”

Come ye after... Used frequently in the gospels in reference to discipleship (2:18; 8:34; 10:21; Matt. 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; 19:21; Luke 9:23, 59, 61; 18:22; John 1:43; 10:27; 12:26).

you to become... To become (γενέσθαι)

An addition of Mark.

Fishers of men... Evangelism was the primary purpose for which Jesus called the apostles, and it remains the central mission for His people (Mat. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

With a command Jesus summons two to be disciples. Mark may preserve here Peter’s vivid memory of this brief and direct appeal. Seen against its Old Testament background, Jesus’ call is to the task of winning men in view of the impending judgment of God.

Our Lord now calls upon them to take a decided step. But here again we find traces of the same deliberate progression, the same absence of haste, as in His early preaching. He does not, as unthinking readers fancy, come upon two utter strangers, fascinate and arrest them in a moment, and sweep their lives into the vortex of His own. Andrew had already heard the Baptist proclaim the Lamb of God, had followed Jesus' home, and had introduced his brother, to whom Jesus then gave the new name Cephas. Their faith had since been confirmed by miracles. The demands of our Lord may be trying, but they are never unreasonable, and the faith He claims is not a blind credulity.

Shall we not follow His example? It is morally certain that Abraham never heard of salvation by faith, yet he was justified by faith when he believed in Him Who justifieth the ungodly. To preach Him, and His gospel, is the way to lead men to be saved by faith.

Few things are more instructive to consider than the slow, deliberate, yet firm steps by which Christ advanced to the revelation of God in flesh. Thirty years of silence, forty days of seclusion after heaven had proclaimed Him, leisurely intercourse with Andrew and John, Peter and Nathanael, and then a brief ministry in a subject nation, and chiefly in a despised province. It is not the action of a fanatic. It exactly fulfills His own description of the kingdom which He proclaimed, which was to exhibit first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. And it is a lesson to all time, that the boldest expectations possible to faith do not justify feverish haste and excited longings for immediate prominence or immediate success. The husbandman who has long patience with the seed is not therefore hopeless of the harvest.

The words Come, follow Me are literally, Come after Me, a technical expression that meant Go behind Me as a disciple. Unlike a Rabbi whose pupils sought him out, Jesus took the initiative and called His followers.

The call included Jesus’ promise: and I will make you to become genesthai fishers of men. He had caught them for His kingdom; now He would equip them to share His task, to become genesthai implies preparation fishers who catch men (generic for people; cf. Mark 8:27).

The fishing metaphor was probably suggested by the brothers’ occupation but also had an Old Testament background (cf. Jer. 16:16; Eze. 29:4-5; Hab. 1:14-17). Though the prophets used this figure to express divine judgment, Jesus used it positively as a means to avoid divine judgment. In view of the impending righteous rule of God (cf. Mark 1:15) Jesus summoned these men to the task of gathering people out of the sea Old Testament imagery for sin and death, e.g., Isa. 57:20-21).