I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Mark 1-3.

    The first thing I was struck by as I read today was something I have thought about before. Mark tells the story of Jesus with less rhetorical flourishes than Matthew (or Luke, or John). He gives a very spare account of the events, using no extra words. Which means that every verse is dense with meaning. I could write quite a bit on this passage. I am going to start with Mark’s account of Jesus calling the first disciples.
    When Jesus saw Simon Peter and Andrew fishing He called them to follow Him by telling them that He would teach them to fish for people. Most of the time when someone preaches about this I think of fishing for people the way I have fished, with a fishing rod catching one fish at a time. However, Andrew and Peter did not fish that way. They did not catch fish one at a time. They caught them in large quantities. So, when Jesus told His disciples that He would teach them how to fish for people, He was not talking about teasing them out one by one from where they were hiding. As Christians today we spend too much of our time trying to reach people one by one. Jesus taught how to bring them in by the multitudes. There is an account later where Jesus has the disciples catch so many fish the boats were overwhelmed. We should be seeking to bring so many people to Christ that our facilities are overwhelmed.