Matthew 4:18-22 Casting Nets
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: January 22, 2019, Matthew 4:18-22
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
(Understanding the Text) These four men had already become followers of Jesus in Judea, but they were not His students yet. Jesus had moved to Capernaum with them and was staying with Peter. However, He had not yet called any official students as a rabbi. After returning to Capernaum, the two sets of brothers had gone back to earning a living. They had gone out fishing the night before and now they were getting their equipment in order. Peter and Andrew were casting their net into the sea. Were they fishing, or cleaning their net? I think the latter and that they had more than one net there to work on. Just down the shore were James and John. Had they watched the call of Peter and Andrew? Were they waiting impatiently to see if they would get the call to be students also? James and John were mending their nets after the night of fishing with Peter. Their father was with them. Jesus called to them and they immediately left also. John was just a teenager when he was called. I wonder how old James was. Was he only slightly older? Was that why they had so little control over their tempers?
What were Peter, James, John, and Andrew doing in Judea anyway? Did the four men go there to see John the Baptist? Maybe, but I’m wondering if they routinely traveled there to sell their fish. They had to be making money from selling the fish, and they wouldn’t have received much around the lake where anybody and everybody could fish. If they dried the fish, they could each carry a big bundle and take it to the city where they could charge higher prices and make more of a profit. Then, being near John the Baptist, they would have gone over to listen and been convicted of their need for repentance. They were in the right place at the right time to have John the Baptist show them the Messiah. Maybe, they made the trip to Judea frequently and had seen John the Baptist a number of times before he pointed out Jesus.
Andrew and Simon were originally from Bethsaida, but it makes sense to have moved to Capernaum as it is the next town over that is right on the sea. Bethsaida seems to be a little removed from the sea. Most of Jesus’ ministry would take place in the area around the Sea of Galilee, so it makes sense to have disciples from the area who could handle the transportation on the water. The disciples may have been called away from their profession of full-time fishing, but they would still use their skills of sailing boats and their knowledge of the area around the sea. It will only be after Jesus’ resurrection that they become landlocked away from the water. James will die. John and Peter will be stuck in Jerusalem and traveling around Judea and Samaria. Later, they will travel around the Roman Empire with John ultimately settling in Ephesus and Peter dying in Rome. John will ultimately end up on the prison island of Patmos, landbound with the sea always around him as a barrier rather than a highway. Andrew may have been crucified in Achaia (Greece). The dictionary gave many Gentile places that he may have preached in, but none were definitely credible.
Jesus did not call Zebedee to follow, but evidently Zebedee approved of Jesus. He allowed his wife Salome to follow and minister to Jesus and even provided financial support through his wife. This tells me that Zebedee believed that Jesus was the Messiah even at this stage. The point I am getting to is that not everyone who believed in Jesus was called to leave behind their occupation and home to follow Jesus. Peter was married and had at least one child. His wife and mother-in-law lived in his house and were not called to follow Jesus around the countryside although later Peter’s wife would accompany him on his missionary journeys.
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) Matthew here is referring once again to the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus told Simon and Andrew that He would make them fishers of men. This refers back to Jeremiah “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks” (Jeremiah 16:14-16). I read one place where that said that the fishers in Jeremiah are judging people to bring punishment on them, but that’s not what these verses say. This is a promise by the Lord that even though judgment has scattered His people among other countries, He will bring them back. He will send fishers and hunters to catch the exiled people and lead them back into Israel. Nehemiah and Ezra would have been examples of these fishers. Thus, Jesus was saying that He had many people who were in darkness, in exile within their own people, who needed someone to go get them and bring them back to their place in God’s kingdom. Jesus needed men to bring in His people who had mixed with the world. Jesus was planning to gather people from among the apostate Jews, but also from among the Gentiles and gather them in to His kingdom and He was calling Peter and Andrew to be the Nehemiah and Ezra of their day.
(Application) I don’t really have an application for myself from this passage except to go when Jesus calls me and not delay, and to be aware that Jesus may call me to stay where I am or He may call me to go somewhere else. I need to simply keep doing Jesus’ will wherever He places me.
(Prayer) When You call me to serve, give me the faith and energy and enthusiasm to go fishing for You. I have no more qualifications to be a “fisher of men” than Peter did, so if You want me to serve You, You will have to transform me so that when people see me, they will say that I have been with You, just as they did of Peter.