THURSDAY 16th
John 1:37-39
NIV – ‘When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, What do you want? They said, Rabbi (which means Teacher), where are you staying? Come, he replied, and you will see. So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.’
ESV – ‘The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, What are you seeking? And they said to him, Rabbi (which means Teacher), where are you staying? He said to them, Come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.’
I do not think that I have ever used these verses before to share from, but as I was reading them there was a thought that struck me which I will share. Verse 35 tells us that John was standing with two of his disciples. This means that the two were following John the Baptist, but as soon as they heard the declaration ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ his two disciples began to follow Jesus! This leads to the verses we have today, Jesus asks them ‘What are seeking?’ Perhaps today we may say ‘What do you want?’ and the two men replied by asking him ‘Where are you staying?’ I think that they wanted to know this because they wanted to find out more about this man who the Baptist had said was the Lamb of God. Jesus invited them to go with him to see where he was staying, they went and stayed with him that day.
The identity of one of the men is then revealed, he was called Andrew and he went immediately to find his brother Simon, saying ‘We have found the Messiah’. Simon went along with Andrew to where Jesus was and verse 42 tells us that Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter.
In Luke 6:12-16 we read the list of those who Jesus chose and named as his apostles, ‘In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.’
The second name in the list is that of Andrew, and we know it is the same Andrew as is mentioned in John 1:40 as we are told it was ‘Simon, whom he named Peter and Andrew his brother’.
This was the thought I had, Andrew had changed his allegiance, in John 1:35 he was a disciple of the Baptist, now, he is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can I suggest in this devotion that once we have met with the Lord Jesus Christ our allegiance has to change! Obviously, there was not anything wrong with Andrew’s allegiance toward the Baptist, but if it had remained there, he would have missed out on what God had got planned for him! Before we met with the Lord Jesus Christ there may have been many legitimate things that we were actively involved with, which took our attention that in themselves were not a problem, but once we have come to know Jesus they could become stumbling blocks in our walk with him and so we have to make a choice, to leave them, walk away from them and choose to wholeheartedly follow Jesus. Our allegiance must be towards him. Our allegiance towards Jesus is linked to our knowing him as Saviour as well as acknowledging him as Lord.
The second thought we can draw from this is that on finding the Messiah, Andrew went to tell his brother. And as we have found him, we need to be active in telling others!
Finally, we are not told anything else about the other one who was with him. Both he and Andrew had heard what the Baptist had said, they had both spent time with Jesus, we do not know if he was ever a follower of Jesus, or perhaps he returned to the Baptist. And we do not always know the response that an individual may make when we share Jesus, all we need to do his share him, point others towards him and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.