When Jesus started his ministry, he called several people to follow him. Matthew tells us that Jesus saw Peter and Andrew fishing and said, “follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”. And the Bible tells us not just that they followed him but that they immediately followed him (Matthew 4:18-22). It mentions that he called James and John, too, and they left their livelihoods and their father and immediately followed him. After this, the same chapter says he healed many, and great crowds followed him.

When you read this, you think, but it seems so strange that they just left everything to follow this man who claims to make them fishers of men. Did they even know what that meant? Was there more conversation than mentioned? These are some of the questions we think of when we first read this but are we missing the point? 

I’ve learned that the Bible is a perfect work where every letter and punctuation is intentional. And I’ve learnt that sometimes because of our modern background and context, we look for things in the scriptures and miss the author’s main point. 

So what’s the main point here? It’s that they followed him and did it immediately. Let us ask ourselves, if we met Jesus, are we willing to immediately follow him? If we knew that this was he, the son of God, would we immediately drop life as we know it, drop our family and friends and follow him? Are we willing to give up this world for him?