Twelve men who changed the world…
Twelve men who knew the voice of God, the hands of God, the face of God, and the tears of God…
Twelve men who gave the Gospel of Jesus Christ to us…
The Master’s Men.
Jesus called twelve men to be His apostles. As we examine the pages of the four gospels closely, we find that Jesus first called His Twelve to salvation (knowing that one was not genuine) and then successively called them to ever higher levels of commitment. In fact Bible teachers over the years have identified three, four, and even five different calls Christ made to His Twelve.
As we’ve seen in the two previous lessons, these twelve men were drawn to the perfections of Christ—His character, His teaching, and His miracles—and they were loyal to Him to the end of their lives. In this lesson, we will see that the Master’s men were called—first to salvation and then to ever-deepening levels of commitment—and followed Him all their days.
The Gospel by Mark is probably the oldest of the gospels; that is why Matthew and Luke use it in writing their own gospel accounts. Amazingly, they were so deeply moved by Mark’s account through Peter’s eyes that they reproduced all but a few verses. However, though Mark is the very first systematic account of the life, deeds, and words of Jesus, only by comparing the gospel accounts can we discover that there were at least five different phases of Jesus’ calling of the twelve.
Each gospel writer emphasized those phases or levels or calls that best suited his particular purpose. In Mark 3:13-19 we find what a chronological study of the gospels would note as Christ’s fourth call to His twelve disciples. Let’s trace those different calls and then study the first one, Christ’s call to salvation.
• The first call is recorded in John 1:35-51 and 2:11. CHRIST’S CALL TO SALVATION, to faith in the Messiah. As believers in Christ, the disciples were His occasional companions accompanying Him at a marriage in Cana, at a Passover in Jerusalem, on a visit to the scene of the Baptist’s ministry, and on the return journey through Samaria from the south to Galilee.
• The second call, in Matthew 4:18-22, was CHRIST’S CALL TO WITNESS. After neither the first nor the second call did the disciples permanently leave their occupations. Matthew Henry states, “In the second stage, fellowship with Christ assumed the form of an uninterrupted attendance on His person, involving entire, or at least habitual abandonment of secular occupations.” Of this call John MacArthur writes, “God similarly calls all believers. First, He calls us to salvation, apart from which no other call could be effective. He then calls us progressively to more specific and ever-expanding service.
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