Chapter 4
The only things I noted here were the conversion of Peter and
Andrew and James and John. And you get the idea that Jesus walks past,
meets them for the first time and they get up and follow as some incredible act
of instant faith. MacArthur pointed out that in fact, in the other
Gospels, most of these disciples had met them months before and knew his
ministry well, being first associated with John. It takes some doing, but
if you compare the Gospel, what seem like initially contradictory accounts,
allow you to piece together a good timeline for how Jesus called the disciples.
Second thing is, sometimes we have this idea of Jesus doing a
miracle here or there, but if you run through the Gospels, paying good
attention to the wording, you get the sense that throughout Israel, over his
years of ministry, Jesus pretty much banished all disease and afflictions which
is sort of a large scale model of what the kingdom would be like. You can
imagine that if his healing is so widespread, that it is hardly a leap of faith
to see him as Messiah, which is why the protests of the religious elite seem so
foolish. You really have to want to be blind to ignore what’s happening
throughout the country. Yet, their skepticism persisted and eventually killed
Jesus.
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