My little addition to Our Daily Bread (11/17/11):
Again the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look! The Lamb of God!" … So they went and saw where He was staying, and they stayed with Him that day. … Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed Him. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, "We have found the Messiah!" (which means "Anointed One"), and he brought [Simon] to Jesus.
(John 1:35-36, 39b, 40-42)
While David Roper’s ODB devotional chose to highlight Matthew’s account of Simon and Andrew being called to follow Christ, the title “A Companion on the Road” reminds me more of this passage. Some people might contend that this is a contradiction in Scripture, but it’s my belief that it is not a matter that either John was right or Matthew was right, but rather that both Matthew and John are right having recorded separate events.
The marvel to me then becomes not that Simon & Andrew would walked away from their livelihood to follow Christ, but just down the road, without any prior introduction (at least none recorded in Scripture), James & John follow at just the call. Since there is no specifics in Scripture, I tend to imagine that these colleagues and/or neighbors of Andrew & Simon overheard them talking of Christ and perhaps had conversations with them about Him. So, when they “were in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and He called them,” (Matthew 4:21) seeing Simon & Andrew were with Christ, they knew from their testimony the He was the real deal and “immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him.” (Matthew 4:22)
This is why, though Scripture does not record much about specifically about Andrew, I am challenged by my namesake. Am I walking with Him in such a way that others who see me on the path would join the journey?
- Andy Jentes
(All Scripture quotes from the Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers. All rights reserved.)
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