Introduction
Jesus is now ready to begin what will be another year and a half of fishing-for-men expeditions with His disciples. We will be looking at the first six expeditions. These are the first six outreach events that Jesus does in order to train His young ministry team to reach the masses with the Good News that He is the Messiah. There is a progression to these fishing trips, a good pattern for us to follow, and much to learn about fishing for men. Read the story from the three different points of view, or better yet, print them out and try to piece the event together chronologically. Jump right in and learn to fish Jesus-style.
Reading [You can read as much as you can, depending on your availability]
Luke 4:31-37
(or)
Mark 1:21-28
Meditating [Use these questions to start your thinking]
- Where is Jesus fishing?
- Who is Jesus fishing for?
- What is Jesus modelling about fishing for men in a religious setting?
- How is Jesus fishing?
- What other questions do you still have?
Sharing: Text ONE of your answers to the questions above to your team. Each team should post a sharing from a team member in the comments below.
Jesus begins these fishing-for-men expeditions in the religious center of His day, the Jewish synagogue. After issuing the call to follow closer so that He could teach them to fish for men, Jesus takes His new disciples back into Capernaum and decides the first fishing expedition will be at the synagogue. The event takes place on a Saturday, the Sabbath. Jesus most likely did some training on how to fish for men before the event, maybe at a home.
Jesus comes in ready, ready to model for His team how to fish for men and ready to share with the masses in this large synagogue at Capernaum who He is. Jesus enters and begins to teach. Remember His strategy of sharing with the religious lost? Is it the same? He goes straight to the Torah, the books of Moses, the first five in the Bible, and shares with them who He is (Luke 24:27). Remember, Jesus is now not only sharing who He is, but also preaching that the time has come to repent and believe the Good News, because the kingdom of God is at hand. While He is teaching, the crowd is filled with amazement. What was so amazing about what Jesus said and did? First, they were amazed that He taught with authority, like He really believed what He was saying, in comparison to the scribes who must have been teaching half-heartedly (Mark 1:22). Second, they were amazed at this new teaching (Mark 1:27). And lastly, they were amazed that Jesus was in command of the evil spirit in this man.
How many demons have Jesus cast out so far? That’s right — none! More than a year and a half of ministry and this is the first demon that Jesus has cast out. Jesus does this major miracle in the synagogue to capture the attention of the people to His message. Something really cool to notice as you keep your eyes open to the declaration of Jesus’ deity and humanity is what this demon calls out about Jesus. Take a look back at Mark 1:24. Cool, huh? The demon jeers at him “‘Jesus of Nazareth’” and “‘the Holy One of God.’” There is no doubt in this old demon’s mind who Jesus is. The “‘Jesus of Nazareth’” illustrates how fully human Jesus was, while “‘Holy One of God’” shows that even the demon knows that Jesus was sent from God Almighty. [In His previous teaching from John 5, Jesus has been saying that He has come from God and that He is equal to God. He is God in human form, raised in Nazareth with a real family.]
Well, let’s evaluate the success of this first fishing expedition. This allows me to challenge you to consider how you evaluate your fishing expeditions. I like to ask three questions to evaluate these types of events. Question #1: Were there non-believers at the event? Question #2: Was Jesus presented clearly in a culturally relevant way as the Messiah or the Saviour of the world? Question #3: Did anyone believe the message and put their faith in Jesus for salvation, or move closer to accepting His claims to be the Messiah? Take a moment and evaluate this first expedition. How did Jesus and His team do?
I am going to ask you to start praying about an expedition of your own in the next week — something simple, not a concert with 50,000 people, but something small. What might you do? Who can you invite to join to help you in this fishing expedition? Get together with a few friends and start thinking and praying for those around you who do not know that Jesus is the Saviour of the world. Start thinking of something you can do to present the claims of Jesus in a culturally relevant way. Your assignment today is to begin to form a group of friends whom you disciple, and start to think about what you could do. Meanwhile, keep studying how Jesus conducted His fishing expeditions, and each day you will learn more in the process. But get started. Pray about whom to invite. Jot down their names…
HAPPY FRIDAY everybody! Hope your week was splendid and filled with blessings!
What is Jesus modeling about fishing for men in a religious setting? -> Jesus was modeling for us that the harvest is plenty but the workers are few. What that means to me is that even if you are at church/house of worship, there is still a lot of people who need to be reached out to and called back to His fold. Training outreach at a religious setting is good practice as well before going out to others.
What is Jesus modelling about fishing for men in a religious setting?
Jesus is modeling the importance of knowing and believing in what you’re sharing as you go out. Just as He invested a lot of time in people before calling them to be His disciples, He’s invested in the message He preaches because He truly believes it, setting it apart from the teachers of the law. The people in religious settings are most likely familiar with scripture, but upon hearing it from Jesus, it struck them in a new way. Similarly, we can also be caught in periods where “familiar” passages don’t impact us as they should or did before, which would affect how we share that with others. But if we approach the word as children and allow meditate on His word and listen to what He has to teach us, we can experience it in a refreshing way that we can then share with others
Jesus clearly knew who he was and the power he had. He deeply knew his purpose, message and mission and preached what he truly believed. Upon witnessing that, the people were amazed at how profound Jesus was and believed his message because what he spoke of was true. Even the most evil and wicked knew who Jesus was and obeyed him. It goes to show just his great authority over all, and the power within him given from the Father.
In todays reading, Jesus was teaching at the synagogue, so the people he was trying to reach were the Jews. The people who already had at least some knowledge of the scripture. And he fishes by astonishing them with his understanding of the word. This kinda doesn’t make sense at first, but for people to hear someone who isn’t a scribe have such authority would draw a lot of interest. It obviously also helped that he drove out a demon in their midst, giving him even more authority. In terms of how we can fish in our churches, we typically don’t drive out demons ar church, but we can learn scripture and be able to talk about it with authority and help grow each other.