Journey Through Matthew: The First Disciples
Jan 26 in General
The second half of Matthew Chapter 4 finds Jesus in the region of Galilee, on the shores of the sea of Galilee, sometimes called Lake Tiberias or Gennesaret. What we see in verses 12 -25 is a build-up of Jesus’ ministry from a few fisherfolk to myriad people from far and wide.
Matthew is at pains to make clear that all of this is in fulfilment of God’s intention as illustrated by the quote from Isaiah in verses 16-17.
You can read Matthew 4.12-25 by following this link
This passage in Matthew’s Gospel shows a meteoric rise in fame for Jesus and comes immediately after the famous temptations, which we look at separately. Sometimes it can help to use a map Jesus’ movements can become a little bewildering – in verse 12 Jesus moves to Galilee from Judea (Judah) where he had encountered John the Baptist. There are some maps online – try www.knowingthebible.net*
The rise in Jesus’ fame includes the calling of disciples. A story which is found in all the Gospels – Mark 1:16-20 and Luke 5.1-11 are similar to Matthew. John is characteristically different (John 1.35-51).
Verse 23 summarises three facets of the ministry of Jesus, teaching, proclaiming and healing. These are not, of course, the only things that Jesus did but we see the same three again in Chapter 9.35 and in Mark 6:6b-13 these three are found in the ministry of Jesus and the disciples. Throughout history these three aspects of ministry have been mainstays of the Church.
What do you think that Matthew is saying about Jesus by picking out teaching, healing and proclaiming (preaching)?
Do you think that Matthew is intending us to use these three as a model for our own ministry or are there other things that Jesus did that we must include in our faith lives? You might think about prayer for example, look at Matthew 6.5-14.
How might you write a description of the various parts of Christian ministry?
An extra bit…
We have been asking what Matthew might be getting us to think about. We have looked at the this story in the other Gospels and seen some similarities and differences. Luke is the only Gospel writer who includes a miracle in the story. John writes about a similar miracle but after the resurrection of Jesus (John 21.1-8) When thinking about this passage consider why Luke builds his account around a miracle. And … is the story in John (21.1-8) the same miracle but put in a different place in the story (the gospel) of Jesus, or is it a different miracle altogether?
* A better approach might be actually to buy a book! The Oxford Bible Atlas provides a very good start and is not expensive.
Image created by Zachi Evenor and released under Creative Commons CC-BY license.
