Boat Brothers

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. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. Matthew 4:21-22

Jesus had just called Peter and his brother Andrew away from their nets, and then he found James and John and called them away from the their boat. Being an analytical type, I want to analyze the Lord's choices. Did He need two sets of brothers or simply four fishermen who happened to be two sets of brothers? Did our Lord need Peter, Andrew, James, and John specifically because of who each man was? Maybe our Lord just needed four Galileans and it didn't matter what their names, jobs, and relationships were. Coming when called is a quality we desire in a pet, but I don't think that could be it. So what could be the reason for these four men?

Our Lord kept His own counsel when it came to His choices for the twelve disciples. In this age we might ask, why no women? But we will get no explanation in the Gospels. Our Lord chose the boat brothers and that is who He chose. Later, our Lord would make even stranger choices such as a tax collector right out of his booth, and why choose that treacherous Judas? We don't know. However He chose, out of all of Israel these twelve men were chosen to accompany our Lord Jesus and learn directly from the Master. Perhaps there was nothing special about them at all to the fallen eyes of Israel, and maybe that was the point. It may be that their only special quality was that they dropped their nets and left their boats to follow the Lord.

Why didn't the Lord go to Pharisee U and ask for the twelve top students? Can you imagine Jesus with twelve junior Pharisees each trying to impress Him with their knowledge of the scripture? Would any of them have said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt 16:16) as Peter did?

It may well be that each and every one of us called by the Lord is far more special than is possible for the other children of the family to see here in this time. We'll just follow Him in faith!

Bucky