The Barefoot Evangelist

Read Matthew 4:12-23 with your family.

Jesus had many people following him from place to place. Women, men and children went to hear Jesus when he spoke, and some of them went with him when he moved to another town or village.

In this story we hear about the first four men who were called to follow Jesus. Simon, whom Jesus named “Peter”, and his brother Andrews, as well as brothers James and John. All of them worked in the fishing industry in their little part of Galilee.

Fishing was one of the main industries in that part of the world, and the Romans told the Hebrew people how much fish they were supposed to catch every day. Sometimes the fisherfolk only caught enough to meet the Roman amount and had nothing to sell to make money for themselves. Other times there were lots of fish to eat.

Families owned the fishing licences and fished together. It was important to stay with their family so there were enough people to work.

But one day Jesus came to town and something he did or said convinced Andrew, Simon Peter, James, and John to leave their family business for a while and follow Jesus.

Now… they returned home regularly, they were not always on the road following Jesus, but they shifted their priority from their family business to what Jesus called “Fishing for people”. That meant learning as much as they could so that when the time came, they could to out into the world and tell people about the world Jesus taught about, the world God wanted everyone to build together.