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

One of the things I like about the Gospel of Mark is that it is concise and quickly covers each incident before moving on to the next.  Of course, this means it makes a lot of points in a relatively short passage.  My understanding is that in the first century, those Jewish young men who wished further training as the disciple of a rabbi requested that he take them on.  Then the rabbi selected a few students from among those who applied.  However, the account here suggests that Jesus used a different approach, at least for some of His disciples.  We have two accounts here of Him selecting and calling disciples who had not applied for the position.  He called Peter, Andrew, James, and John to leave their jobs as fisherman to become His disciples.  Later, He called Levi away from being a tax collector to follow Him.  Finally, He called out a number of people to follow Him as He went up on a mountain away from the crowds.  Out of that group He selected twelve to be His Apostles.

So, there are a couple of things here.  Jesus selects His disciples before they select Him.  More importantly, in reaction to the fuss which was created over His choice of Levi the tax collector as one of His disciples, Jesus tells us that He does not call those who think they are righteous.  Rather He calls those who know they are sinners.  This explains why Jesus called His disciples instead of selecting them from among those who requested to be His disciples.  Until He called them< Jesus’ disciples would never have thought that they could be the disciples of a Holy teacher.  Of course, only those who know they are sinners understand the importance of forgiveness.