Matthew 4:19

Matthew 4:19

Christ's Training of the Ministers of the Word.

I. Who are they that are chosen by our Lord to receive the signal benefit of training in His school? Not one of the twelve is a priest or a priest's son. There is not a man with Pharisaic relationship among them. They were all "provincials" of a very decided type, plainly as strange to the springs of metropolitan power and habit as though they had never been to the chief city of the people. In the possession of faith and hope and love they were all alike and in nothing else. Christ did not, never does, call duplicates, but men, individuals, having an absolutely original "make," bent, bias, or personal force in them.

II. Note the means adopted by our Lord in equipping the Apostles for His service: (1) A constant and habitual companionship with Himself; (2) the Gospel accounts fully demonstrate that unselfish and helpful work for men formed a most essential factor in the education of the first disciples for the duties of the apostolate; (3) a third potent agent in the upbuilding of the character of these first Gospel fishermen is disclosed in the sharp sorrows, sudden shocks, and painful and repeated sufferings they encountered in the way of their useful and helping work for men; (4) these men were fitted for their work by their deepening experience of the power and riches of the life of Christ.

III. And for what is all this prolonged and varied discipline? What is the Teacher's aim? Clearly, concisely, and comprehensively is it stated in this guiding word of the Preacher. It is to catch men.The aim is directly at men.Man fills the whole vision; the steadfast gaze is on him, the anxious work is for him, the lengthened discipline is for him. As Jesus came to save men, so His servants are sent out on precisely the same errand. He lives for men. We have to do the same. It is each man for Christ, and the whole of each man for Christ. That is the aim of every minister who knows what He has to do, as it is the well-defined purpose of Christ in calling him and training him for the ministry.

J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 257.

Christ's call to us is essentially that which He addressed to these first disciples.

I. What was His call to them? It was this they were to leave their work that they might engage in a higher work. The secular was to be exchanged for the spiritual. They were fishers. Henceforth, they were to be something more than fishers. They were to become fishers of men. And that, I say, is the call He addresses to us.

II. "How is that so?" you may ask. "Are we all to abandon the work which we are doing? Is the child at school to leave his books, and the clerk his desk, and the workman his tools, and the painter his brushes and easel? and are we all to become preachers or missionaries?" Of course that would be impossible. We should not be too quick to conclude that because we do not like the drudgery of our secular work, or meet with indifferent success in it, we are therefore designed for something higher and more sacred. Other things being equal, it is more likely that Christ will call to His side those who have prospered in their worldly undertakings, than those who have not prospered. Do not suppose that it was because Peter's heart was not in his work, or because he was clumsy with his net, that he was called to be one of the twelve. In the Kingdom there is need for the capable men, as well as room for the feeble and the incompetent. The summons to all men is not to forsake altogether their secular work. In what sense, then, is their work to be given up and exchanged for a higher work? In this sense, that it is no longer to be the end of their life, the final object of ambition and endeavour. What was an end becomes, in the case of those who hear the call of Christ, no more an end, but a means.

III. "Fishers of men" that is what we must be if our Master's ends are to be ours. For this is what He was a Fisher of men. And His disciples are to follow Him, and they are to follow Him not merely that they may be safe under His protection, or that they may be happy in His companionship and sympathy, but that they may share in His work, that they may make His holy mission their own. And how shall we hope to be successful in it? Note these two conditions which, really, are one: (1) We must follow Christ, and (2) we must submit to His teaching and influence.

Arnold Thomas, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 8.

References: Matthew 4:19. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxii., No. 1906; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts,p. 12; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 240; vol. vii., p. 279; H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 17; D. B. Hooke, Ibid.,vol. xxiv., p. 261; J. de Kewer Williams, Ibid.,p. 132; J. H. Shakespeare, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 278; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2,673.