The Third Sunday after Epiphany is January 21, 2024.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

Mark 1:14-20

1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,

1:15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

1:16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea–for they were fishermen.

1:17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

1:18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

1:19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets.

1:20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Two weeks ago, on the First Sunday after Epiphany (Year B), we had Mark’s account of our Lord’s baptism, Mark 1:4-11.

Mark then covered what happened immediately afterwards in two verses:

¹² At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, ¹³ and he was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted^[g] by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Both our commentators point us to John’s Gospel to find out what happened after the temptation and our Lord’s arrival in Galilee.

Matthew Henry says:

Here is, I. A general account of Christ’s preaching in Galilee. John gives an account of his preaching in Judea, before this (ch. 2 and 3.), which the other evangelists had omitted …

The other Gospel writers omitted those events because John was the only Gospel writer who was there at the time. Matthew’s calling came after John’s.

John MacArthur adds:

And Mark skipped the movement of Jesus when He left Judea and went north through Samaria, as recorded in John 4, encountered the Samaritan woman and disclosed Himself as the Messiah to this half-breed, outcast woman. And Mark picks up the ministry when Jesus finally arrives in Galilee, so many events and much time has passed between the temptation of Christ and the Galilee ministry.

We get to some of these passages from John 2 through John 4 later in Year B and in other Lectionary years. They include the miracle at Cana, the first driving away of money changers from the temple, our Lord’s encounter with Nicodemus and His meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well.

MacArthur explains the brevity of Mark’s Gospel, which, incidentally, was written for the Romans:

And the question comes, why does Mark pull these things together the way He does? Why these brief little vignettes almost? And the answer is because Mark is endeavoring to establish something for us. We now know that Jesus is the new King. This is the book that is written, verse 1 says, to be the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. It is the annunciation that the new King has arrived, God’s King, the anointed one, the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God, Jesus Christ has come. This is His story.

And as the story begins, all Mark wants to do is get the groundwork laid down. The first important thing that happens to Christ is His baptism. This is His coronation as the new King from heaven. The Father says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Holy spirit descends, settles upon Him, empowers Him, fills Him for the rest of His life, and the Holy Spirit becomes the intermediary between His divine nature and His human nature so that the two are blended together by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is now Spirit-empowered. He is now granted divine authority. This is His crowning, this is His coronation, this is His inauguration.

What comes out of that is His authority. Mark then immediately wants to demonstrate that authority … He demonstrates the authority of Christ over three realms. One, over Satan and his realm. Two, over sin and its dominion. Three, over sinners. It is important for us to know that if the new King is going to take His throne, if the new King is going to reign, if the new King is going to overthrow the usurper, the temporary king, Satan himself, and if the King is going to conquer Satan and sin and sinners, He has to demonstrate the power to do that.

And so that’s where Mark establishes His authority. First in His temptation, His authority over Satan becomes clear. And then in His preaching, His authority over sin becomes clear because He preaches the good news that if you repent and believe, you will be forgiven and enter His Kingdom. He can overpower and will overpower Satan. He can overpower and will overpower sin.

And thirdly, He can and will overpower the souls of sinners, and that is illustrated in the fact that out of nowhere, He approaches four men and lays a command on them, which they immediately and instantly obey – at immense cost and sacrifice to them. So this is what is established in these three little paragraphs.

Now on to today’s reading.

After John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God (verse 14).

Henry gives us an overview of the verse:

Observe,

1. When Jesus began to preach in Galilee; After that John was put in prison. When he had finished his testimony, then Jesus began his. Note, The silencing of Christ’s ministers shall not be the suppressing of Christ’s gospel; if some be laid aside, others shall be raised up, perhaps mightier than they, to carry on the same work.

2. What he preached; The gospel of the kingdom of God. Christ came to set up the kingdom of God among men, that they might be brought into subjection to it, and might obtain salvation in it; and he set it up by the preaching of his gospel, and a power going along with it.

MacArthur gives us the timeline between the time of our Lord’s baptism and His arrival in Galilee:

… time has passed. His baptism is long behind Him, many, many months behind Him. He has been in Judea, cleansing the temple, ministering there. And now He has finally gone to Galilee. But He doesn’t really launch His ministry there until after John has been taken into custody. Six months or more after Jesus’ baptism, John was arrested by Herod. A year later, his head was chopped off.

It was after John was taken into custody that Jesus came into Galilee. Prior to that, John was still baptizing in the Jordan, and Jesus was ministering in Judea, and their two ministries overlapped. You read about the overlap in John 1, 2, and 3, the gospel of John. And you will hear John the Baptist say, “I must decrease, He must increase,” and God saw to that by taking him off the scene, having him arrested. The story of John the Baptist’s arrest is a fascinating one, and Mark will tell it in chapter 6 …

But he makes no comment on that here because he’s following Jesus and the ministry of Jesus. So Mark skips the early ministry of Jesus in Judea, Mark skips His transit across Samaria and has Him end up finally in Galilee. And so, he says, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God. Galilee was the northern part of the land of Israel, the hinterlands, the outskirts, far from the religious center in Jerusalem. The fact that Jesus really launched His ministry in full power there was a testimony to the apostasy of the core, the corruption of Jerusalem.

MacArthur explains ‘the good news of God’, which in his version is ‘the gospel of God’:

… please notice the simplicity of subject, preaching the gospel of God. Somebody said God only had one Son, and He was a preacher. God had one method, and that was preaching. Preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; to those who believe, it is the power of God. Preaching is the means that God ordained, proclamation, heralding the good news. And what is the good news? The gospel of God he calls it, the good news of salvation. What do you mean the gospel of God? I thought it was the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, it is.

It is the gospel about the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is the gospel of God in the sense that God is the source of it. The gospel from God. It is not the idea that the gospel is about God, although certainly it is about Him and about His manifestation in Christ, but it is the gospel that comes from God about Jesus Christ. The gospel of God is a common New Testament term. Romans 1:1, Romans 15:16, 2 Corinthians 11:7, 1 Thessalonians 2:2, 8, and 9, 1 Peter 4:17 refer to the gospel of God.

Jesus said, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’ (verse 15).

Note that Jesus did not preach a socio-political gospel, which He could have done at that time with all of the inequality in that Roman-dominated Jewish society.

MacArthur says:

Jesus came preaching the good news from God. The message that we have for the world is from God. I mean how basic is that, right? So when you’re going to do ministry, what you do is you repeat the message that came from God. This is not about analyzing the culture. This is not about finding people’s psychological hot buttons. This is not about seeking people’s interest. This is not about devising a message that somehow meets with what they want. We come as heralds announcing a message from God. That’s what we do …

We don’t have a social gospel, folks. We don’t have a social gospel. There’s nothing about our gospel that is designed to relieve society’s inequities. There’s nothing about our gospel that is designed to gain us political ground. There’s nothing about our gospel that’s supposed to have any effect on people’s psychological wellbeing. We have one simple message, and faithful ministry always articulates that saving message of the gospel alone.

Henry alludes to the misplaced expectations of the Jews who did indeed want a socio-political gospel from the Messiah:

… they fondly expected the Messiah to appear in external pomp and power, not only to free the Jewish nation from the Roman yoke, but to make it have dominion over all its neighbours, and therefore thought, when that kingdom of God was at hand, they must prepare for war, and for victory and preferment, and great things in the world; but Christ tells them, in the prospect of that kingdom approaching, they must repent, and believe the gospel.

Henry explains Christ’s Gospel message of repentance, forgiveness and salvation:

They had broken the moral law, and could not be saved by a covenant of innocency, for both Jew and Gentile are concluded under guilt. They must therefore take the benefit of a covenant of grace, must submit to a remedial law, and this is it—repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. They had not made use of the prescribed preservatives, and therefore must have recourse to the prescribed restoratives. By repentance we must lament and forsake our sins, and by faith we must receive the forgiveness of them. By repentance we must give glory to our Creator whom we have offended; by faith we must give glory to our Redeemer who came to save us from our sins. Both these must go together; we must not think either that reforming our lives will save us without trusting in the righteousness and grace of Christ, or that trusting in Christ will save us without the reformation of our hearts and lives. Christ hath joined these two together, and let no man think to put them asunder. They will mutually assist and befriend each other. Repentance will quicken faith, and faith will make repentance evangelical; and the sincerity of both together must be evidenced by a diligent conscientious obedience to all God’s commandments. Thus the preaching of the gospel began, and thus it continues; still the call is, Repent, and believe, and live a life of repentance and a life of faith.

Then there is the element of time, which does not refer to chronological time but rather to prophecy being fulfilled.

Henry says:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. This refers to the Old Testament, in which the kingdom of the Messiah was promised, and the time fixed for the introducing of it. They were not so well versed in those prophecies, nor did they so well observe the signs of the times, as to understand it themselves, and therefore Christ gives them notice of it; “The time prefixed is now at hand; glorious discoveries of divine light, life, and love, are now to be made; a new dispensation far more spiritual and heavenly than that which you have hitherto been under, is now to commence.” Note, God keeps time; when the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, for the vision is for an appointed time, which will be punctually observed, though it tarry past our time.

MacArthur says:

The administration of the fullness of time, it’s called in Ephesians 1:10. God’s sovereign moment. The significant hour in human history.

This is it for which the world has long waited, the most significant era in the world’s history, the arrival of the Savior who will pay the penalty for sin and thus provide salvation for all who have believed from the beginning of history to the end. The time is fulfilled. This is God’s great epochal moment. The promises of the Old Testament regarding Messiah, the promises regarding the Kingdom, the promises of salvation are about to be fulfilled. What is the message? That Christ has come not only to conquer Satan but to conquer sin – to conquer sin through the gospel.

The new King has arrived and with Him the Kingdom. The Kingdom is here because the King is here. Wherever the King is present, the Kingdom is. Jesus’ message, very simple, unmistakable: the Kingdom of God is at hand, here it is. I’m here, the Kingdom’s here.

When He was in Nazareth in Galilee, Luke 4, just after His temptation, right at this same time, goes in to the synagogue and He says, “Today this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears.” And He was talking about the Messianic prophecy from Isaiah 61. It is the message, the good news, God’s hour has come, the Kingdom is here because the King is here. How do you enter that Kingdom? Repent and believe in the gospel, writes Mark. Repent of your sin. Believe in the gospel, the good news concerning Jesus Christ.

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen (verse 16).

MacArthur describes the Sea of Galilee:

The word sea is really much too big a word for that place. It’s kind of Semitic. It’s a lake, thirteen miles at its longest point, seven miles at its widest point. The real name of the place was Gennesaret or Kinnereth, which is a form of the word that means harp. And the reason they called it harp is it’s kind of harp-shaped. Also called the Sea of Tiberias or the Lake of Tiberias for the biggest city on the lake, which is on the western shore. But it’s a harp-shaped lake, seven hundred feet below sea level …

Sea of Galilee, by the way, was a really busy fishing place. There were at least sixteen harbors on that little lake. Sixteen harbors. Josephus commandeered 230 boats off the lake for a war called the Galilee War in 68 A.D. So there were some formidable fishing going on in that lake. It was a repository of a great amount of fish.

MacArthur tells us more about the two brothers’ names. Recall that Galilee was known for its Gentile population:

Those are very familiar Greek names. The Hebrew form of Simon is Simeon, and there’s even a use of the Hebrew form of Andrew in the Talmud, so they may have been Jewish names that got sort of Hellenized.

Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people’ (verse 17).

I still prefer ‘fishers of men’ (verse 17), which actually includes both sexes, but we are not allowed that usage anymore.

MacArthur describes the fishing technique in that era, which is still in use today:

They were casting a net in the sea. Now, this is how they used to fish. They still do in some cases now there on the lake, casting, amphiballō, to throw around – throw around.

They had a circular net, as much as twenty feet in diameter. The perimeter of it had weights in it. They were very good at draping it over their arm in a certain fashion so that it would unfold, and with great dexterity after lots of practice, they could spin that thing and it would fly to its extremity, and it would land on the water fully unfolded and it would begin to sink on the edges, and it would capture the school of fish that they knew were in the middle. And as the weights took it down to the bottom, there was a rope also in the perimeter, the fishermen would dive to the bottom of the water, get the rope, pull the rope tight, drag the fish to the shore. That’s what they did.

Immediately, they left their nets and followed Him (verse 18).

MacArthur says that these men were not itinerant fishermen. They were well established:

There was not any other meat, it wasn’t sheep or anything else, it was fish. So there was a huge market for fish … This was a business. These weren’t day laborers. These men had a business, they were in the business of fishing. They were prominent men, as were James and John, who were in the same business, and they were partners of Peter and Andrew. We learn that later in the gospel accounts …

They had a very successful business. It may well be that these men spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and even Greek because they had to do business on an international level. 

Some will say that Jesus already met Simon (Peter, Cephas) and Andrew, which is true. They had been followers of John the Baptist, and John the Baptist directed their attention towards Jesus, as chronicled in John 1:29-42, read on the Second Sunday of Epiphany in Year A. It ends with this:

1:40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

1:41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).

1:42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

That was the first call. This was the second. There were others, each one greater than the last. You can read more about this subject in ‘John MacArthur on our Lord’s various calls of the Apostles‘.

MacArthur discusses our Lord’s unusual call to Peter and Andrew. Peter was married, incidentally:

So Jesus comes along to them. They’ve already declared their interest in Him back with John the Baptist months before. So He said to them, “Follow me, and I’ll make you become fishers of men.” This is a command, by the way, that’s highly unusual. Rabbis didn’t do this. We have no record in all Jewish writings of a rabbi commanding people to follow him. Like the prophets, they told people to follow God, obey God, follow the law, but there’s no record they told their hearers to follow them. Some did, but Jesus does something that’s absolutely unique.

He called people to follow Him. He called them in an extreme way. He basically called them to abandon absolutely everything. In fact, this is what He said, as you’ll see in Mark 8:34 and following, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, follow me.” It’s the end of your life, drop everything, follow me, I’ll make you fishers of men. They would understand that analogy, wouldn’t they? There was one use of that in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 16:16, fishing for men, but it was with a view to judgment. This is with a view to salvation.

What is He saying to them? Drop your family business. Drop your life the way it is. Join me, let me train you to be a preacher of the gospel, a herald of the Kingdom. Here Jesus established the means by which the Kingdom will advance. He will use transformed sinners that He sovereignly identifies and sovereignly calls. This is dramatic authority, folks, solely belonging to Jesus in which He demands everything.

What is even more remarkable, verse 18, “Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” Wow. These guys are not pushovers. Would you call Peter a pushover? I don’t think so. Did Peter have a mind of his own? I think so. They dropped everything. What was going on here? A sovereign call and a sovereign enabling. I think this is where the power of God came upon these men, and sovereignly they were moved to follow. And now Jesus has His first two, Simon and Andrew – or Peter and Andrew.

As Jesus went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John (the Gospel writer) who were in their boats mending the nets (verse 19) for the next fishing trip.

John had also followed Jesus from John the Baptist’s exhortation, hence the aforementioned missing episodes from Christ’s ministry that Matthew did not experience because Jesus called him in Galilee.

Immediately, Jesus called James and John, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him (verse 20).

MacArthur thinks that Zebedee must have been irked with his sons leaving him:

I think the father could be a little upset at that. Just jumped out of the boat, “We’re out of here, Dad, and we won’t be back.”

However, Henry is more sympathethic:

Perhaps it is an intimation of their care for their father; they did not leave him without assistance, they left the hired servants with him.

MacArthur discusses the names and the relationships:

James is the Greek form of Jacob. John is the Greek form of Johanan. Zebedee of Zebediah, the Hebrew of that. Zebedee was married to Salome who may well have been a sister to Mary, the mother of Jesus. James and John were in partnership with their dad, with Simon and Andrew, according to Luke 5:10. So they were in the same business.

MacArthur has more about these initial apostolic calls from Jesus:

Go over to chapter 2, verse 14, “As Jesus passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus” – otherwise known as Matthew – “sitting in the tax booth and He said to him, ‘Follow me,’ and he got up and followed Him.” And that’s the way it was with all of them. Amazing, sudden, drop-everything, instantaneous obedience. Really shocking …

And by the time you get to chapter 3, verse 13 and following, you get all twelve of them in place.

MacArthur mentions the later call at the Last Supper, once Judas had left:

And, of course, behind this is the words of Jesus in John 15:16, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and then called you and then empowered you to follow me.”

MacArthur discusses the lessons here for ministry, beginning with Christ’s calls:

He had power over Satan, He had power over sin, and He had power over sinners to call them to Himself. And what we learn about ministry is that what matters is sanctity of soul, simplicity of subject, and selectivity of successors … We need to do the same.

I will tell you this, folks. Nothing has been more important in my entire life of ministry than surrounding myself with the right men. That’s how the Kingdom advances. And I’ve always tried to work on the principle of 2 Timothy 2. Second Timothy 2, Paul says, “The things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Paul says, “I had the truth, I gave it to you, Timothy. You give it to faithful men who are able to teach others also.” Paul to Timothy, to faithful men, to others also.

But the key is this: Entrust these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So you’re looking for the faithful and the able. The ministry advances through the faithful and the able. Faithful speaks of their character, and able speaks of their giftedness. The Kingdom advances when we are both faithful and able to proclaim the truth.

Here’s the model for ministry: Sanctified heart, overcoming sin and temptation, commitment to the singularity of the glorious message of the gospel that has come to us from God through the pages of Scripture concerning Christ, and selectivity of successors, choosing carefully who you surround yourself with so that you can multiply and extend your ministry on and on.

That’s how our Lord did it. At the same time, demonstrated His power over Satan, sin, and His power even to sovereignly call and transform sinners. He is the King, and the King has given us a strategy for following Him.

May all reading this enjoy a blessed Sunday — despite the cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment.