Five-year Bible reading plan for 21 August 2021

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Mark, Chapter 1, verses 14-20

¹⁴ he preacheth, ¹⁶ calleth Peter, Andrew, James and John

¹⁴Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

¹⁵And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

¹⁶Now 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.

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

¹⁸And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.

¹⁹And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.

²⁰And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.

Read more:Mark, Chapter 1

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1

1:14 Mat 4:12.

1:15 The time is fulfilled - The time of my kingdom, foretold by Daniel, expected by you, is fully come.

1:16 Mat 4:18; Luk 5:1.

1:18 Straightway leaving their nets, they followed him - From this time they forsook their employ, and constantly attended him.Happy they who follow Christ at the first call!

NOTES

One of the main themes we encounter in the Gospel of Mark is that of calling and our response to it. The point here is not spontaneity: these four were apparently already acquainted with Jesus...

What is a calling? How can we find our calling and understand what God wants from us? So much has been said and written on this subject over two thousand years of Christian history that one might think no questions should remain, yet they do not grow any fewer. The apostles, however...

What is a calling? How can we find our calling and understand what God wants from us? So much has been said and written on this subject over two thousand years of Christian history that one might think no questions should remain, yet they do not grow any fewer. The apostles, however, or one might say the future apostles, faced no problem of choice and had neither doubts nor hesitation. Curiously, Jesus says nothing special to them, does not teach them anything or deliver long sermons; He simply invites each of them to follow Him. And they go, as though they had always been waiting for this encounter. Of course, they had most likely heard something about Jesus before and may even have heard Jesus Himself. But hearing is one thing, and leaving everything to follow Him is quite another. It is clear that a true calling is always revealed to a person with complete certainty.

One might, of course, say that this was a unique situation, for the Saviour Himself stood before them, and if the future apostles understood Who stood before them and where He was calling them, there was nothing surprising in their resolve. And yet the evangelists give examples of far less resolve among some of those whom Jesus called to follow Him in exactly the same way. On the other hand, can there be any discussion of a Christian's calling without that personal encounter with the Risen One, without which not only any calling, but Christianity itself is impossible? Apparently, the question of calling is resolved quite simply: a calling is that without which it is impossible to live, because life loses its meaning. And if a person still has questions, doubts or hesitation about whether a particular activity is his calling, then the answer is most likely negative. If the answer were positive, the person called to serve, whatever that service might be, could and would have no doubts or hesitation.

Of course, what is meant here is specifically doubts and hesitation concerning the content of the service itself, not the difficulties that may accompany it. Sometimes the cunning human mind, in its desire to spare its owner the difficulties and problems inherent in the service to which God is calling him, supplies doubts about whether the call is genuine and whether the decision already made or being made is right. But that is another matter, a question of spiritual honesty, without which no one can find his calling.

The Saviour's earthly ministry begins with the descent of God's Spirit, followed by the trial in the wilderness (described in greater detail by the other evangelists) and the ministry itself, the testimony to the Kingdom (Mark describes all this briefly and concisely). What, then, do we have before us: a unique feature of Jesus' ministry as Messiah, or...

The Saviour's earthly ministry begins with the descent of God's Spirit, followed by the trial in the wilderness (described in greater detail by the other evangelists) and the ministry itself, the testimony to the Kingdom (Mark describes all this briefly and concisely). What, then, do we have before us: a unique feature of Jesus' ministry as Messiah, or a certain universal spiritual algorithm (insofar as one can speak of algorithms in spiritual life at all)? Or perhaps both?

Of course, Christ's path is unique. Yet, on the other hand, Jesus was not born as a human being in order to have nothing in common with us, including in matters of spiritual life. We will probably not face trials like those that awaited Him in the wilderness, although something similar may quite possibly await us as well: the devil is not as inventive as he is sometimes thought to be. We will in any case have to bear witness to the Kingdom, provided that we are Christians not merely in name. And the descent of God's Spirit will also certainly become part of our spiritual life, unless, of course, we remain forever, in the spiritual sense, children who have taken the first step towards the Kingdom and stopped as soon as they crossed the threshold.

But how all this will happen remains an open question. Similar or identical spiritual processes sometimes take very different forms under different external conditions. They take their own form for each person, and there is no point in imitating someone else's spiritual life: it is useless in any case and almost always brings only harm.

Quite apart from the fact that, in the Messiah's case, such efforts look simply ridiculous as well. Jesus did not come into our world so that we would imitate His life, nor to force each of us to travel the same path that He travelled (in the end, none of us is capable of this, for one would have to be free from sin). Jesus came into the world to give us the Kingdom, to give it to everyone who wishes to enter it, and also to help us get there.

Of course, the way into the Kingdom is no less difficult than the way of righteousness in pre-Christian times, and it is just as impossible to travel it without God's help as it was to travel the way of righteousness without His help. But on the way into the Kingdom there is an obstacle that is in principle insurmountable for a human being: the sinfulness of fallen human nature. Even if a person is somehow able, with God's help, to walk the way of righteousness, any one of us can only be carried into the Kingdom in His arms. And Jesus' entire earthly path was necessary precisely so that He could later carry each of us into the Kingdom in His arms.

This, of course, by no means implies that there will be no trials in our lives or that we will not need the help of God's Spirit. It is impossible to travel the whole way in the Messiah's arms, and life in the Kingdom also requires the ability to walk. But He will help us overcome what is insurmountable for us. Otherwise we would have to forget about the Kingdom forever.

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