One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter).
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John 1:40-42 sits inside this longer paragraph.
One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter). On the next day, he was determined to go out into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
Parallel Translations
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One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ).
He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter).
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One of the two which hearde Iohn speake and folowed Iesus was Andrew Simon Peters brother.
The same founde his brother Simon fyrst and sayde vnto him: we have founde Messias which is by interpretacion annoynted:
and brought him to Iesus. And Iesus behelde him and sayde: thou arte Simon the sonne of Ionas thou shalt be called Cephas: which is by interpretacion a stone.
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Andrew, Simon Peters brother, was one of the two which had heard it of Iohn, and that followed him.
The same founde his brother Simon first, and said vnto him, We haue founde that Messias, which is by interpretation, that Christ.
And he brought him to Iesus. And Iesus behelde him, and saide, Thou art Simon the sonne of Iona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone.
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Contradictions (3)
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Cross-references (41)
- Mark 1:16-20 (v40) Passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.…
- Matthew 4:18-22 (v40) Walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers: Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea; for…
- John 4:25 (v41) The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
- John 21:15-17 (v42) So when they had eaten their breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” He said to him,…
- 1 Corinthians 3:22 (v42) whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours,
Show all 40 cross-references
- John 1:45 (v41) Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son…
- 1 Corinthians 15:5 (v42) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
- 1 Corinthians 1:12 (v42) Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”
- Matthew 10:2 (vv40, 42) Now the names of the twelve apostles are these. The first, Simon, who is called Peter; Andrew, his brother; James the son of Zebedee; John,…
- Isaiah 2:3-5 (v41) Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his…
- John 1:40-42 (v40) One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him,…
- Acts 13:32-33 (v41) We bring you good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this to us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus.…
- 1 Corinthians 9:5 (v42) Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
- Galatians 2:9 (v42) and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, those who were reputed to be pillars, gave to Barnabas…
- Psalms 89:20 (v41) I have found David, my servant. I have anointed him with my holy oil,
- Matthew 16:17-18 (v42) Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I…
- Luke 5:2-11 (v40) He saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them, and were washing their nets. He entered into one of the…
- Luke 5:8 (v42) But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.”
- John 6:70-71 (v42) Jesus answered them, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Now he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for it…
- Daniel 9:25-26 (v41) “Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince,…
- Mark 3:16 (v42) Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);
- Luke 2:17 (v41) When they saw it, they publicized widely the saying which was spoken to them about this child.
- John 1:36-37 (v41) and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
- John 1:47-48 (v42) Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said about him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” Nathanael said to him, “How do…
- John 4:28-29 (v41) So the woman left her water pot, went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can…
- John 21:2 (v42) Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.
- Acts 10:38 (v41) even Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were…
- 2 Kings 7:9 (v41) Then they said to one another, “We aren’t doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we keep silent. If we wait until the morning light,…
- Psalms 2:2 (v41) The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh, and against his Anointed, saying,
- Psalms 45:7 (v41) You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
- Isaiah 11:2 (v41) Yahweh’s Spirit will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of…
- Isaiah 61:1 (v41) The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken…
- Luke 2:38 (v41) Coming up at that very hour, she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of him to all those who were looking for redemption in Jerusalem.
- Luke 4:18-21 (v41) “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to…
- Luke 6:14 (v42) Simon, whom he also named Peter; Andrew, his brother; James; John; Philip; Bartholomew;
- John 2:24-25 (v42) But Jesus didn’t entrust himself to them, because he knew everyone, and because he didn’t need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he…
- John 6:8 (v40) One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,
- John 13:18 (v42) I don’t speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with me has…
- Acts 1:13 (v40) When they had come in, they went up into the upper room where they were staying; that is Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas,…
- Acts 4:27 (v41) “For truly, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together against your holy servant,…
40 distinct cross-references across this passage (41 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv40–42 40. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. The design of the…
40. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. The design of the Evangelist, down to the end of the chapter, is to inform us how gradually the disciples were brought to Christ. Here he relates about Peter, and afterwards he will mention Philip and Nathanael. The circumstance of Andrew immediately bringing his brother expresses the nature of faith, which does not conceal or quench the light, but rather spreads it in every direction. Andrew has scarcely a spark, and yet, by means of it, he enlightens his brother. Woe to our indolence, therefore, if we do not, after having been fully enlightened, endeavor to make others partakers of the same grace. We may observe in Andrew two things which Isaiah requires from the children of God; namely, that each should take his neighbor by the hand, and next, that he should say,
Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and he will teach us, (Isaiah 2:3.)
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For Andrew stretches out the hand to his brother, but at the same time he has this object in view, that he may become a fellow-disciple with him in the school of Christ. We ought also to observe the purpose of God, which determined that Peter, who was to be far more eminent, was brought to the knowledge of Christ by the agency and ministry of Andrew; that none of us, however excellent, may refuse to be taught by an inferior; for that man will be severely punished for his peevishness, or rather for his pride, who, through his contempt of a man, will not deign to come to Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v41 That is, anointed, and King after the manner of…
That is, anointed, and King after the manner of the Jewish people.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv40–42 40 One of the two which heard John speak,…
40 One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
Ver. 40. One of the two] See here how mean and slender the Catholic Church was at first. Two poor men only follow Christ, who yet had the promise of the "heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession," Psa 2:8; "Despise not therefore the day of small things," Zec 4:10. The cloud of a hand breadth may shortly muffle the whole heaven: the little stone cut out without hands may bring down the huge image, and break it to pieces, Dan 2:45: the dry root of Jesse prove a tree so tall, that, like that of Nebuchadnezzar, the height thereof shall reach unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth, Dan 4:11. Nec minor ab excordio nec maior incrementis ulla, said he of Rome, say we of the Church. (Eutrop. Hist. lib. 1.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv40–42 Concerning the call of this Andrew to the apostleship,…
Concerning the call of this Andrew to the apostleship, See Poole on "Mat 4:18-19". See Poole on "Mar 1:16-17". That was at another time, and in another manner: Christ here only invited them to come and see where he lodged.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv40–42 One of the two which heard John speak,.... The…
One of the two which heard John speak,.... The above things, concerning Jesus being the Lamb of God:
and followed him; that is, Jesus, as the Syriac and Arabic versions read; and the Persic version, Christ: and the Ethiopic version, "the Lord Jesus"; for not John, but Jesus they followed:
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was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother: see Mat 4:18 the other, as before observed, might be the writer of this Gospel.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv41–42 He first findeth his own brother Simon - Probably…
He first findeth his own brother Simon - Probably both of them sought him: Which is, being interpreted, the Christ - This the evangelist adds, as likewise those words in ver. 38, that is, being interpreted, Master.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv41–42 Verse 41. Findeth his own brother Simon] Every discovery…
Verse 41. Findeth his own brother Simon] Every discovery of the Gospel of the Son of God produces benevolence, and leads those to whom it is made to communicate it to others. Those who find Jesus find in him a treasure of wisdom and knowledge, through which they may not only become rich themselves, but be instruments, in the hand of God, of enriching others. These disciples, having tasted the good word of Christ, were not willing to eat their bread alone, but went and invited others to partake with them. Thus the knowledge of Christ became diffused-one invited another to come and see: Jesus received all, and the number of disciples was increased, and the attentive hearers were innumerable. Every man who has been brought to an acquaintance with God should endeavour to bring, at least, another with him; and his first attention should be fixed upon those of his own household.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v40 Joh 1:40-42. One of the two who heard John…
Joh 1:40-42. One of the two who heard John speak — In the manner above related; was Andrew — And probably this evangelist, John, was the other, it being his custom to conceal his own name in his writings. He — Andrew; first findeth his own brother Simon — Simon may perhaps be here called Andrew’s own brother, to distinguish him from some other person that belonged to the family, who possibly might be his brother-in-law, or related to him only in half-blood. Peter was so remarkable a person, that it was proper to mention who was the first means of bringing him acquainted with Christ; and if John was the other disciple that is here referred to, he might intend this as an humble intimation that Andrew’s zeal was, in this respect, greater than his own. We see here, that Peter was not the first of Christ’s disciples, but that another was the means of bringing him to an acquaintance with him. In that respect, therefore, the Papists have no room for glorying. And saith unto him, We have found the Messiah — It seems the Baptist’s testimony, joined with the proofs offered by Christ himself, in the long conversation which the two disciples had with him, fully convinced Andrew. And he brought him to Jesus — That by conversing with him he might be satisfied of the truth of what he had told him. And when Jesus beheld him — Εμβλεψας αυτω, looking steadfastly upon him, as if he had read in his countenance the traces of his character, and of his future service in the church; he said, Thou art Simon — Though Jesus had never seen Simon before, and no one had told him his name or his parentage, immediately on his coming in Jesus saluted him by his own and his father’s name, which could not but greatly strike Peter. He added, Thou shalt be called Cephas, which — Says the evangelist, (for they are his, and not Christ’s words,) is by interpretation, a stone — Or rock, that is, it signifies the same in the Syriac which the word Peter does in Greek. It must be observed, to account for the insertion of this explanatory clause, that John “wrote his gospel in Greek, and in a Grecian city of Asia Minor; and therefore was the more careful to translate into Greek the Hebrew, Chaldee, or Syriac names, given for a special purpose, whereof they were expressive. And there was the greater reason for doing so in the two cases occurring in this and the preceding verse, as the Greek names were become familiar to the Asiatic converts, who were unacquainted with the oriental names. The sacred writer had a two-fold view in it: 1st, To explain the import of the name; 2d, To prevent his readers from mistaking the persons spoken of. They all knew who, as well as what, was meant by Χριστος, Christ, but not by the Hebrew word, Messiah. In like manner, they knew who was called Peter, but might very readily have mistaken Cephas for some other person.” — Campbell.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv41–42 He first findeth - He found him and “told…
He first findeth - He found him and “told him about Jesus” before he brought him to Jesus.
We have found the Messias - They had learned from the testimony of John, and now had been more fully convinced from conversation with Jesus, that he was the Messiah. The word “Messiah,” or “Messias,” is Hebrew, and means the same as the Greek word “Christ,” “anointed.” See the notes at Mat 1:1. From the conduct of Andrew we may learn that it is the nature of religion to desire that others may possess it. It does not lead us to monopolize it or to hide it under a bushel, but it seeks that others also may be brought to the Saviour. It does not “wait” for them to come, but it goes “for” them; it seeks them out, and tells them that a Saviour is found. Young converts should “seek” their friends and neighbors, and tell them of a Saviour; and not only their relatives, but all others as far as possible, that all may come to Jesus and be saved.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v42 Thou art Simon, the son of Jona, or of…
Thou art Simon, the son of Jona, or of John. Jesus, who knew all things, knew his name, and at the first meeting told him he should hereafter be called Cephas, or Petrus, a rock, designing to make him the chief or head of his whole Church. See Matthew xvi. 18. (Witham) --- Cephas is a Syriac word, its import is the same as rock or stone. And St. Paul commonly calleth him by this name: whereas others, both Greeks and Latins, call him by the Greek appellation, Peter; which signifies exactly the same thing. Hence St. Cyril saith, that our Saviour, by foretelling that his name should be now no more Simon, but Peter, did by the word itself aptly signify, that on him, as on a rock most firm, he would build his Church. (Lib. ii. chap. 12. in Joan.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv40–42 One . . . was Andrew--The other was doubtless…
One . . . was Andrew--The other was doubtless our Evangelist himself. His great sensitiveness is touchingly shown in his representation of this first contact with the Lord; the circumstances are present to him in the minutest details; he still remembers the Very hour. But "he reports no particulars of those discourses of the Lord by which he was bound to Him for the whole of His life; he allows everything personal to retire" [OLSHAUSEN].
Peter's brother--and the elder of the two.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv40–42 40. Followed him—Followed him at his invitation to come…
40. Followed him—Followed him at his invitation to come and see where he dwelt. We note this particularly, as some have interpreted it to follow him as already a chosen apostle; whereas he was not chosen as apostle until the miraculous draft of fishes. See Luk_5:1-11.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv40–42 40. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother] Before the end of…
40. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother] Before the end of the first century, therefore, it was natural to describe Andrew by his relationship to his far better known brother. In Church History S. Peter is everything and S. Andrew nothing: but would there have been an Apostle Peter but for Andrew. In the lists of the Apostles S. Andrew is always in the first group of four, but he is outside the chosen three, in spite of this early call.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv40–42 (40) One of the two.—The Evangelist will even here…
(40) One of the two.—The Evangelist will even here draw the veil over his own identity (see Introduction). The one is Andrew, even now marked out as brother of the better-known Simon Peter. On these names comp. Note on Mat_10:2-4; but it should be observed here, that on this first day, as the earnest of the harvest to come, we have the two pairs of brothers, the sons of Zebedee (comp. next verse), and sons of Jonas, who are ever leaders in the apostolic band.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv40–42 Vers. 40-49. (2) The naming and convictions of the…
Vers. 40-49. (2) The naming and convictions of the disciples.
One of the two who heard from John that Jesus was the Son of God and the Lamb of God, and who, on that astounding intelligence, and at their teacher"s own suggestion, followed (became henceforth followers of, akolouyoi) him, was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter (notice a similar construction at Joh_6:45, where a clause commences with the copula). The other disciple, with the studied reticence ever preserved about his own designation, is left unnamed by the writer. "Simon Peter" is here spoken of as the better-known man. The bestowment of this designation on Andrew shows that the Gospel was written when Peter"s greater name was widely recognized, and the reference is made without the faintest touch of depreciation. Simon Peter"s reputation gives force and importance to the record of Andrew"s faith. The evangelist"s intimate friend Andrew is thus lifted out of his comparative obscurity among the apostolate, not by his association with John, but by his relationship with Simon.
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Vers. 40, 42. A brother"s love and service.
Little as we know of Andrew, that little presents him in a most interesting and attractive light. The record of his conduct upon the occasion of his attaching himself to Jesus is especially full of instruction and of inspiration. The opportunity which family relationships afford to spiritual usefulness, and the employment of the feelings peculiar to human kinship, are brought out in this brief narrative with exquisite beauty. We have revealed in this incident
I THE IMPULSE OF A BROTHER"S HEART. Andrew found in Jesus the Messiah for whom he was looking and hoping. Rejoicing in the great discovery, his earliest impulse was to make those dearest to him partake his joy. He thought of his brother Simon that noble, eager, affectionate nature, that came afterwards to be consecrated to the friendship and the service of the Christ. A brother"s insight divined that news such as that he had to communicate would awaken emotions in Simon"s breast similar to those enkindled in his own. Sympathy and love urged him to hasten to his brother, the companion of his boyhood and youth, the sharer of his interests and occupations. Love is never so admirable as when it aims unselfishly at another"s good, and especially at his spiritual enlightenment and. happiness. Christianity presses into its service all the beautiful emotions belonging to our humanity.
II THE TIDINGS FROM A BROTHER"S LIPS. The words which Andrew addressed to his brother seem to have been few; but this brevity was the fit expression of the ardent affection of the speaker and the fit vehicle for tidings so momentous. Andrew"s feelings would admit of no delay. His eager, almost blunt, communication must have awakened surprise in Simon"s mind. "We have found the Messiah." Did brother ever convey to brother tidings so interesting, so heart stirring? Surely we have here a lesson upon the duty we owe to those nearest akin and nearest in affection to ourselves. In the Church of Christ is room for such services alas! how often neglected through either carelessness or reserve!
III THE ACTION OF A BROTHER"S ENERGY. Andrew was not content simply to tell the news. He would have Simon see for himself who Jesus was. "He brought him to Jesus." In this record we have the principle of Christian missions condensed into a few words. It seems a small thing to have done, yet more than this man cannot do for his brother man. A happy exercise of Christian sympathy and enterprise. To wish our dear ones well is good; yet it is not enough. It is for us to exert ourselves to secure their welfare. And how could this end be promoted so surely as by bringing them to Jesus under the influence of his sacred presence and his winning love?
IV THE REWARD OF A BROTHER"S DEVOTION. The sympathy, benevolence, and brotherly friendship of Andrew were not in vain. When Simon was brought by Andrew to Jesus, Jesus looked upon him with favour, appreciated, by the exercise of his spiritual insight, the good qualities of the new disciple, designated him by an appropriate name, and implicitly predicted his future eminence and service. This was indeed a rich return! "Who art thou, that wouldst grave thy name Thus deeply in a brother"s heart? Look on this saint, and learn to frame Thy love charm with true Christian art. "First seek thy Saviour out, and dwell Beneath the shadow of his roof, Till thou have scann"d his features well, And known him for the Christ by proof; "Then, potent with the spell of Heaven, Go, and thine erring brother gain, Entice him home to be forgiven, Till he, too, sees his Saviour plain. (Keble.) T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv40, 42 One of the two which heard John speak
Joh_1:40-41
One of the two which heard John speak
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Andrew
I.
THE EARNEST SEEKER AFTER SALVATION.
1. His mind had been prepared
(1) By the preaching of the Baptist
(2) By independent reflection and Bible study.
2. He came to Jesus with an openheartedness worthy of imitation. He had his own notions, doubtless, about the grandeur of Israels Messiah; but was not offended when the solitary, unattended man was pointed out to him. Some, in the hasty revulsion of feeling, would have turned away in disdain. But Andrews faith mastered his prejudice.
3. His search was marked by indomitable earnestness. He followed Jesus, and by addressing Him as Rabbi, puts himself under His teaching, and follows Him home.
II. THE SATISFIED BELIEVER IN JESUS.
1. The openheartedness of Christianity. Behold the Lamb! Come and see. There is no disguise, for none is needed. Christianity requires intelligence, reliance, not blind credulity. Ancient mythology and modern superstitions at Delphos, or Mecca, or Rome, had and have their reserve and mystery; but Christianity has light in herself, and studies no concealment.
2. The satisfactoriness of Christianity. When you come and see, there is always something to be seen. The search for Christ yields an intellectual and emotional satisfaction. The charge is warmly felt as well as intelligently realized. We have found the Messiah.
III. THE ENERGETIC MISSIONARY.
1. He proclaims the truth to his brother.
2. He resumes his secular duties. It was a great soul that could bear to be with Jesus at night, and to be fishing in the morning.
3. What a contrast between the first two brothers in the New Testament and the first two brothers of the Old. (W. M. Punshon, LL. D.)
The conduct of Andrew
illustrates
I. The general duty of ENDEAVOURING TO IMPART TO OTHERS THE SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS ENJOYED BY OURSELVES. There is all the difference here between natural and Spiritual things. The discovery of a hidden treasure would beget no anxiety that others should know of it. The discovery of a remedy for a direful disease would inspire eagerness in most men to give it a wide notoriety; but not necessarily in all cases, inasmuch as the discovery involves no change in the character. But the man who has lighted on heavenly treasure has found that, the direct tendency of which is to the overcoming of selfishness. A man renewed by Gods Spirit, who does not desire and seek the renewal of others, is a contradiction in terms. The wealth acquired by the believer is kept through being dispersed; the cure accomplished through the blood of the Redeemer is a cure which is radical only in proportion as it seeks its own extension. Let, then, men take it as a test by which to try their own spiritual condition. Andrew findeth his brother Simon. He felt at once the communicative and diffusive nature of religion.
II. The special duty of BEGINNING WITH THOSE WITH WHOM WE ARE MORE IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED.
1. Our own household and relatives have the first claim upon us; parents and masters are bound, if they would imitate Andrew, to provide first for their own children and servants; or parishioners or citizens are bound to provide for their own poor, before they attempt the relief of other parishes and other cities. To Englishmen, their necessitous countrymen especially come first, before they turn their attention to the African or New Zealander. There is nothing of selfishness in this. We must enlarge our operations with the enlargement of our ability. But God may be said to have parcelled out mankind into concentric circles, and he hath made it incumbent upon us that we go carefully round the inner circle before we pass on to the outer; so that, while benevolence is not to be churlishly limited, she is not to leave waste ground here, in her eagerness to spread culture over some remote and savage section of the earth.
2. But as Andrew did not stop short at his brother, so home missions must expand into foreign.
3. The great lesson, however, is that we should care for the conversion of those with whom we were associated when unconverted. The merchant, who nearly lost his soul in hunting after gain, but who is now seeking treasure above--is he doing his best to cause those who were one with him in the struggle after perishable wealth to be one with him in labouring for the incorruptible? The young man who was the slave of vice, driven headlong by his passions, and who has now forsaken the haunts of licentiousness--is he striving to withdraw from those pleasures his former associates, and to lead them to take delight in heavenly things? The young woman whose whole mind was engaged in frivolous amusements, but who now seems awake to the solemnities of eternity--is it her endeavour to teach the thoughtless With whom she squandered away life that there is something more to be cared for than dress, and something more communicative of happiness than the dance? All such cases may be gathered under the first of our text. The converted mans first care will be for those with whom he has been intimately associated, either in relationship, or friendship, or business. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Andrews ministry
I. WHATEVER THERE IS IN FAMILY RELATIONSHIP THAT CAN BRING MEN TO JESUS SHOULD HAVE ITS FULL AND FAIR PLACE. Many people who ought not only be more useful, but more happy and healthy, by sharing as far as possible their new found light and joy with those who are near and dear to them, have become the merest religious recluses. Sometimes it is difficult to bring any direct influence to bear. How important, therefore, that every indirect influence should be wisely employed. And all have this.
II. THE VALUE OF THIS UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE. Let the fountain of our inner life be pure, and its manifold streams entering the most arid wastes will promote verdure and blessing in a hundred unforeseen forms.
III. THE DIRECT INFLUENCE OF A PERSONAL TESTIMONY. Men need to be told of the source of blessing, and the burden of the testimony rests with those who have heard. There are some things, the knowledge of which would brighten mens lives, and these things you know. Tell them. God takes hold of the natural love of communicating, and uses it for the good of humanity. You are ready enough with your advice on most matters, be ready with these good news of God.
IV. THE QUESTION OF PERSONAL CONVICTION AND EXPERIENCE. An inward intelligent experience will ever be the first demand of the Church. If we felt the power of the indwelling Christ, He would speak in us and work by us. If we have no light we cannot let it shine; but if we have we must not put it under a bushel, or it will go out.
V. A WONDERFUL ENCOURAGEMENT TO MEN OF RETIRING DISPOSITION OR LIMITED CAPABILITIES. We never read much of Andrew; and since we cannot tell the possible result of any act or influence, however insignificant, it becomes us not to disparage anyone. And who shall call an action insignificant? Like a winged seed carried by the wind to some barren islet, bearing in its bosom the germs of all future loveliness and verdure; so blessed oft is the deed of a good man. (G. J. Procter.)
Coming to Jesus, a motive for bringing others to Him
I. TRUE RELIGION IS THE RESULT OF PERSONAL CONVICTION RESPECTING THE CLAIMS OF JESUS CHRIST. You must possess that religion or you can never impart it. I will bless thee and thou shalt be a blessing. He that believeth on Me shall never thirst, and from within him shall flow rivers of living water. The truth of Christ must first be known, and the knowledge of Christ is essentially connected with the love of Christ as the medium and material of that knowledge. We have in the narrative an illustration of the way in which personal religion commences. When directed to Christ, the first disciples were not satisfied with a passing glance, but they looked to Jesus and followed Him. Then commenced their friendship with Christ. There is an immense diversity in the operations of the Spirit. Some are brought at once outer darkness into light. Others by a gradual method: but the results are the same. They are brought to Jesus as the result of inquiry marked by prayer and solicitude. And there is everything in the character and religion of Christ to deserve and challenge inquiry. These things were not done in a corner; everything will bear the light.
II. THOSE WHO HAVE BECOME THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST WILL BE ANXIOUSLY CONCERNED TO BRING OTHERS TO HIM. Everything in religion is gloriously expansive.
1. Our object in all our Church operations is not sectarian, but to bring men to Christ. Keep this object before you in your families, neighbourhood, communities. If you aim at anything short of this you will fail to reach even your subordinate object. While, on the other hand, in enlarging our minds to the amplitude and sublimity of this higher object, we shall lay the most enduring basis for the accomplishment of even the minor object.
2. Contemplate your responsibility. You have the great remedy for the worlds moral diseases; you dare not keep it to yourselves.
3. Your opportunities. No man was ever disposed to do good who did not find ample opportunities as the member of a family, as a master or a servant, as a Church member.
4. Your encouragement: The command of Christ, the assurance of His presence, the success already secured, and the certainty of final success. (J. Fletcher, D. D.)
The magnet and the turning-point
No literature is more interesting or instructive than biography. Sacred biography has peculiar demands upon us. There is no part of the life of an individual which possesses more interest than its turning-point in the case of a statesman, soldier, merchant, but above all a Christian. Our text describes the turning-point of a man who stands conspicuous in sacred biography, the spiritual first moment of Peter. Notice
I. THE BEING WHO IS THE OBJECT OF ATTRACTION.
1. His name: Jesus, Saviour, who was perfect God and perfect man.
2. His title, Messias: inclusive of all His offices, Prophet, Priest, King, Lamb of God, Baptizer with the Spirit.
II. THE WORK WROUGHT. He brought him to Jesus.
1. Andrew was the instrument, and the means he used was the proclamation of Christ. Have you a brother? Bring him to Jesus.
2. God was the efficient agent (1Co_2:14; Joh_6:44-45).
III. THE CONSEQUENCES RESULTING FROM THIS WORK. The Christian Church. (J. T. Whitestone, A. B.)
The Sunday-school teacher
I. THE GREAT OBJECT SOUGHT TO BE ACCOMPLISHED.
1. Introduction to Jesus.
2. Interest in Jesus.
3. Instruction from Jesus.
4. Intimacy with Jesus.
II. THE QUALIFICATIONS WHICH TEACHERS OUGHT TO POSSESS TO SECURE THIS GREAT OBJECT.
1. Sincere and ardent piety.
2. An enlightened knowledge of Christ and the method of salvation by Him.
3. An adaptation in the mode of instruction to the disposition of the child.
4. An exhibition of the practical effects of the knowledge of Christ in your conduct.
III. THE SPECIAL EFFECTS RESULTING FROM THE ATTAINMENT OF THIS GREAT OBJECT.
1. Christ will be glorified.
2. The Church will be enlarged.
3. The world will be benefited.
4. Your labours will be rewarded.
Conclusion: Notice
1. The importance of looking out for souls to bring them to Jesus.
2. The value of union. (J. Sherman.)
Simon Peter brought by his brother to Jesus
I. JESUS IS THE BEING TO WHOM MEN SHOULD COME.
1. What is it for men to come? Andrew and his brother came corporeally. The corporeal was the sign of a mental state which is equivalent to believing.
2. Why men should come to Christ for salvation.
II. WHEN MEN HAVE COME TO JESUS THEY SHOULD ENDEAVOUR TO BRING OTHERS TO HIM.
1. The argument by which this duty is confirmed. Christ has committed His cause into their hands. They are His property. He appeals to their love to Him and their tender concern for souls, to bring the world to Him.
2. The manner in which that duty must be performed.
(1) By the exhibition of the truth in the exercise of the ministry, the circulation of the Bible, the spread of good literature, education, visitation, and the ordinary intercourse of domestic and social life.
(2) By supplicating the influence of the Divine Spirit to sanction and bless the means employed.
III. IN ENDEAVOURING TO BRING OTHERS TO CHRIST, MEN SHOULD CHERISH ESPECIAL ANXIETY AND EFFORT ON BEHALF OF THEIR OWN CONNECTIONS AND FRIENDS. This is beautifully illustrated in the New Testament. Andrew, the woman of Samaria, Cornelius, etc.
1. In justification of this principle, notice that
(1) The relationships of kindred or affection are formed under the physical or moral providence of God.
(2) God has implanted or inspired in connection with these relationships certain affections which grow out of them and are appropriate to them.
(3) The due culture of these affections issue in important results, and neglect and failure are fraught with great evils.
(4) The solicitude ought to operate in matters which affect the interest and happiness of the soul.
2. The order of exertion will not disqualify or prevent from the larger and more expanded sphere of operation as regards the general welfare of mankind.
3. Inquire how you who have been brought to Jesus have fulfilled your obligations.
IV. ENDEAVOURS TO BRING OTHERS TO JESUS, WHEN RIGHTLY CONDUCTED, ARE MUCH ENCOURAGED BY THE HOPE AND PROSPECT OF SUCCESS.
1. Success does frequently attend such endeavours, as is seen in the cases of Andrew and the Samaritan woman. And many a preacher, Sunday-school teacher, tract distributer, etc., could tell a similar tale; and so could parents and brothers.
2. Success in these endeavours is eminently and surpassingly delightful, because
(1) Of the value of the soul.
(2) Of the opening up of channels of usefulness in connection with the cross of Christ. Who can tell where a single conversion will terminate? Think of Doddridge, Whitefield, Morison.
(3) Of the connection of success with our everlasting reward. (J. Parsons.)
Simon Peter
I. THE WITNESS OF THE DISCIPLES. We see
1. How instinctive and natural the impulse is when a man has found Jesus Christ to tell someone else about Him. Nobody said to Andrew, Go and look for your brother! If a man has a real conviction, he cannot rest until he has shared it with some one else. Even a dog that has had its leg mended will bring other limping dogs to the mender. How is it in the world? And are Christians to be dumb when worldlings are in earnest? This man before he was four and twenty hours a disciple had made another. Have you made one in the same number of years?
2. He first findeth his own brother. There was a second, then, that found somebody. Andrew found Peter before John found James. Each of the original pair of disciples brought the nearest to him in blood and affection to Christ.
(1) Home, then, presents the natural channel for Christian work. It is a poor affair if all your philanthropy and Christian energy go off noisily in Sunday-schools and mission stations, and if the people at your own fireside never hear anything of Him whom you say you love.
(2) But the principle has a wider application. Why has God placed you where you are? For business and personal ends? Yes, partly. But where a man who knows and loves Christ is brought into neighbourly contact with thousands who do not, he is thereby constituted his brothers keeper. If you live in luxury in your own ventilated and well-drained villa, and take no heed to the typhoid fever or cholera in the slums at the back, the chances are that the disease will find its way to your wife and children. And Christians who, living among godless people, do not try to heal them will be infected by them.
3. The simple Word, which is the most powerful means of influencing most men. Andrew did not argue. Some of us cannot do that, and some of us are not influenced by argument. The mightiest argument is, We have found the Messias; and if you have you can say so. Never mind how; anyhow.
4. Remember the beginnings of the Christian Church; two men, each of whom found his brother. Two snowflakes on the top of the mountain are an avalanche by the time they reach the valley.
II. THE SELF-REVELATION OF THE MASTER.
1. He shows Himself possessed of supernatural and thorough knowledge.
(1) The look described by an unusual word was a penetrating gaze which regarded Peter with fixed attention. It must have been remarkable to have lived in Johns memory for all those years.
(2) The saying was meant to imply more than natural knowledge. Thou art Simon. Thou God seest me, an unwelcome thought to many and to us unless, through Christ.
2. He changes Simons name, and so
(1) reveals His absolute possession of him. Jehovah changed the names of Abraham and Jacob. Babylonian kings changed the names of their vassal princes; masters those of their slaves; husbands those of their wives. We belong to Him altogether because He has given Himself altogether for us.
(2) Reveals His power and promise to bestow a new character, new functions, new honours. Peter was by no means Peter then. Like the granite, all fluid and hot, he needed to cool in order to solidify into rock. But he eventually became all that Christ here meant him to be. No mans character is so obstinately rooted in evil but Christ can change its set and direction. He will not make Peter into a John, but He will deliver Peter from the defects of his qualities, and lead them up into a nobler region. The process may be long and painful, but it will be sure. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Introductor to Christ
This is the appropriate name given by Bede to Andrew, who brought his brother and the Greeks (Joh_12:20) to Christ.
I. SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS BEGINS IN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Before we can introduce any one to the Saviour we must have found Him ourselves.
II. SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS OFTEN WORKS BY PERSONAL TESTIMONY. The prevalence of a blatant religionism should not hinder the Christian man or woman giving the witness not only of life, but also of lip, on all right occasions.
III. SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS MAY BEGIN WITH THE MEMBERS OF OUR OWN HOUSEHOLDS. Sometimes the influence to be exerted must be indirect and quiet, rather than by appeal and word; but even then the time comes to speak, in order to lead others nearer to the truth who are of our own kith and kin.
IV. SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS DOES NOT DEMAND OUTSHINING ABILITIES. St. Andrew, of whom we read little, led St. Peter, of whom we read much. (Family Churchman.)
Finding and following
(cf. Mat_4:19)
I. FOLLOWING TO FIND. Christ was found
1. By association with the godly.
2. By listening attentively.
3. By unhesitating action.
4. By reverential inquiry.
II. FINDING TO FOLLOW.
1. The first to become a disciple is the first to be selected as an apostle.
2. After the definite summons he followed to serve. (Tertius.)
Christian service
I. Andrew FINDING Peter.
1. Andrew sought his brother at once.
(1) John and Andrew set out to find their brothers. Andrew was the first to find his.
(2) Andrew found his brother first and others subsequently.
2. Andrew was not specially gifted; but what gift he had he used for Christ.
3. Andrew was not specially commissioned to go and convert others. The authorization was given later on.
II. Andrew SPEAKING TO Simon.
1. Andrew did not preach or argue; he simply talked to him.
2. He talked earnestly. You have no fine language, or polished phrases, or balanced periods, but a few brief words coming hot from the heart. Intense earnestness has no leisure to indulge in the luxury of elocutionary flourishes.
3. His conversation was inspired by brotherly love. His own brother, indicative of close, warm friendship.
4. His announcement was marked by incompleteness. Had he been asked to explain he would have been embarrassed. But imperfect teaching is often blessed. If you cannot speak the whole truth, speak half of it. Potato planters are never afraid of splitting the seed if they can only secure an eye in each half. See that your fragment of truth has an eye in it.
5. His talk was characterized by much assurance. We have found, not, I think, or I hope. Religious dogmatism is much deprecated in certain quarters. You may dogmatize as much as you like against theology, but you are warned under heavy penalties not to dogmatize in its favour. But the dogmatists are the successful evangelists after all.
III. Andrew BRINGING Simon to Christ.
1. Our chief aim should be to lead men to Christ, not to any particular sect. Proselytization is not conversion.
2. Creeds and theologies should be subordinated to Christ. Men should be brought to Christ, not to our own system of divinity. If creeds stand in the way of Christ, then away with creeds. They are for edification, not conversion.
3. Christ should be placed above the Bible itself. It is possible for men to read it diligently and yet stop with it, instead of making their way to the interior court to contemplate the inner radiance. There is not a town or house in Great Britain but there is a way from it to London; so there is not a subject named in the Bible but it is directly or indirectly connected with Jesus.
IV. Christ RECEIVING Simon.
1. Jesus beheld him, took stock of him, formed a correct estimate of him; looked, as the word implies, with the eyes of the mind as much as with the eyes of the body.
2. Christ saw that possibilities of good lay in Simon; doubtless the possibilities of evil also. But the Saviour estimates character not by the evil but by the good. God singles out every grain of virtue that may be hid in our deepest nature. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)
The first home mission
We cannot tell certainly who was the first foreign missionary. But we know who was the first home missionary--Andrew.
I. THE SPRING of all true home mission work. Andrew had himself made acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ. We must come into personal contact with Christ, be in the house with Him, learn to know Him as the Lamb of God. In the degree in which men have been in the house with Christ, and have learned to know Him, will they be ready to go out with the message to others.
II. THE OBJECT of the first home mission. It was not enough for Andrew to speak to his brother about Christ, his aim is to bring him as close to Christ as he himself had been. We should be satisfied with nothing less. Here is a lesson for parents with their children, for a teacher with his scholars, for a minister with his hearers. We must neither begin nor end with ourselves. In this object of Andrew, notice
1. He was perfectly sure that Christ was willing to receive his brother. It does not appear that Christ had said anything about this. And Andrew does not seem to have thought it needful to ask Christ. He knew it from the way in which He had welcomed him.
2. Andrew is sure that he himself can have his own share in no way diminished. There would not be less of truth and love falling to his lot when Peter came to have his part. If a man covets land or wealth or power, the more he gives away the less he possesses. But let a man bring others to the treasures of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his own share will be increased.
III. THE PLACE of this mission.
1. There are some who say we should have no foreign missions till our own country is redeemed. But these people forget that when Christ said, Preach the Gospel among all nations, etc. He did not say stopping at Jerusalem. They forget that if the apostles had acted on this principle we should have been heathen still. They forget, moreover, that it was only when the Church of Christ began to think seriously of the foreign heathen that she had her thoughts turned to the home heathen. We generally find that those who are always talking of confining our attention to the home heathen are those who do least for them.
2. But this surely we may say, that in our zeal for the foreign heathen we are not to forget our own kinsfolk; and here are some reasons
(1) They have not the only claim upon us, but they have the first claim. Go home to thy friends, etc.
(2) And even for our own sakes we must think of home. We cannot let masses of ignorance and sin and wretchedness fester and grow, without bringing a blight on our own Christianity. It is like having an unwholesome marsh beside our house; it spreads malaria and fever and ague. Think of your children living in this atmosphere, and of the danger to them in the sights and sounds and associations around them.
(3) In the home mission field there is opportunity for every one of us to do something personally, Few of us can go to the foreign field. But there is always a sphere not far from our own door.
(4) It seems to be part of the Divine plan that this opportunity should be given to Christians for the benefit it brings to themselves. It is thus we are to be like our Master, going about doing good, and to grow always more like Him in the work of doing it. As the Church labours for the world around her, she would feel the duty of arising and shaking herself from the dust and putting on her beautiful garments.
IV. THE TIME. Andrew did not wait till he had been made an apostle, or even a regular disciple. He began at once. If we never think about doing good to the souls of men till we are licensed, we should think seriously if we ought to be licensed at all; and if, when we are licensed or ordained, we look upon our work as a task, and measure carefully what we have to do and what we have not to do, we should ask ourselves, Is this not the place of a hireling. And the same lesson comes home to all. A man may never think of being a minister or missionary; but he is not thereby freed from the duty of beginning at once to speak a word to his brother about the Gospel of Christ. And it is not necessary to wait for a great deal of knowledge; let us use the knowledge we have, not pretending to more. All cannot speak in public, teach in the Sabbath-school, go from house to house and influence strangers, but what one is there who has not some neighbour, by whom his word will be regarded? Like that of Andrew, it may be simply We have found the Christ. But it will serve the purpose if it leads the man to where he will learn more. This is, indeed, all that any of us, if we are true speakers, need to say, We have found the Christ; He has met our need, answered our desire. He will meet yours; will you not come and see?
V. THE SPIRIT of the first home mission. Andrew went to his brother from his interest in him. Ha did this naturally, not from calculation, but because he had it in his heart. It is in this spirit we must go to our fellow-men, whether they be closely related or not. They are our brethren, with the same nature, needs, sins, sorrows, destinies. It is love to Christ and love to men that are the secret of power in Christian persuasion. We shall never have great success otherwise. Andrew did not say to his brother, Go; he took him by the hand and led him.
VI. ITS SUCCESS. Andrew gained his brother--a great encouragement. Perhaps we may see much fruit, even here. In any case, if our work be sincere and loving and prayerful, if we go out from Christ to men that we may bring men to Christ, the work will not be in vain. We may touch one who will touch many more. A humble soldier may draw in some young recruit who may become a leader among thousands and subdue kingdoms. Conclusion: If the work is to be well and perseveringly done, there should be common counsel and co-operation. Many are afraid to commit themselves. Andrew, indeed, went alone--he could do nothing else; but our Lord sent them out two and two, and brought them together again to speak and hear about their work. (J. Ker, D. D.)
Christian missions
We have here the first step in the history of the Gospel, and an indication that it was to survive the ministry of its founder.
I. THE PREPARATION OF THE MEN.
1. In the wilderness was the first missionary college.
2. John was the teacher.
3. His lesson was the atonement of Christ.
II. THEIR CALL BY CHRIST.
1. The seed sown in the wilderness bore fruit, when Christ by His invitation quickened it into life.
2. They obeyed the call and followed Jesus.
3. They attached themselves to the higher Master and became pupils in the higher school.
III. THEIR USEFULNESS IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST.
1. The fruit now become seed to develop in other hearts and lives.
2. Andrew brought his brother to Christ: only one man, but had the Church gone on at that rate the world would long since have been converted.
3. We have no right to expect that Christ should spread His Church. That is our work in co-operation with Himself.
Conclusion: Pleas on behalf of the missionary effort here exemplified.
1. Christs commission: Go ye into all the world, etc.
2. Christs example. Christ never asked us to do what He has not done.
3. The purpose of the Christian Church as set forth in the parables and prophecies. It is a living growing body to spread by its inherent Divine vitality.
4. The nature of our call to the work.
(1) The call of Christ, Come follow me, Go ye into all the world. This call reaches modern counting-houses and workshops as well as ancient custom houses and fishing stations, to spread the gospel at home, in the town, in the country, in the world.
(2) The call from within--the call of conscience impelling us to rescue others from the danger from which we have been saved--the call of Divinely-kindled love.
(3) The call of the heathen unconscious of their darkness and sin.
5. The extent of the investments already made. An investment makes a man a partner in the concern, and the greater the investment the more difficult or dishonourable is it to try to get out of it. During the past 1,800 years the Church has been investing her men, her energy, her money. We must not, we dare not draw back. By the blood that has been shed and successes attained we are pledged to go on with this work. (R. Maguire, D. D.)
Gospel propagation
I. THE KIND OF WORK TO BE DONE.
1. Not to swell denominational ranks, although that may be a consequence.
2. But to
(1) Find,
(2) Tell,
(3) Bring.
II. THIS WORK CAN ONLY BE DONE BY THOSE WHO HAVE FOUND CHRIST THEMSELVES.
1. Not unbelievers
2. Not worldly professors.
3. But those who love and are in union with Christ.
III. THE SPECIAL DIRECTION OF EFFORT. Our brother:
1. Literally.
2. Socially.
3. Nationally.
4. Universally, for God hath made of one blood all the nations of men.
IV. THE ULTIMATE AIM. To bring our brother to Jesus.
V. THE SPECIFIC MEANS--individual personal effort.
1. Subscription to a missionary society does not relieve us from this. If you were to see a man drowning it would be a poor excuse for not helping that you gave a sum to the Royal Humane Society.
2. Andrew himself brought his brother to Christ.
3. Andrew brought his brother to Christ before he was commissioned to do so. The grand weakness of our Church membership is the failure to realize that every man who is made a Christian is made a missionary. (J. Culross, D. D.)
The aim and methods of Christian work
The ambition of every Christian is to leave the world better than he found it. The instincts of Christian life, the example of the Master, the needs of the world, and the blessedness of doing good strengthen its ambition. Various methods are open to us--education, philanthropy, hospitals, civil and religious liberty, civilization: all of which are sanctioned by Christ, but were subordinate with Him to the great work of preaching the gospel. And what He did Himself is set forth in the earliest labours of His disciples.
I. THE AIM OF ALL CHRISTIAN WORK IS TO BRING MEN TO CHRIST. Other methods of usefulness are to be honoured, but they fail to reach mans deeper needs, and at best only secure present happiness, and leave moral character unrenewed and eternity unprovided for. But even here the highest happiness is not to be secured by temporal means. This is only to be had by union with Christ. Therefore, God Himself sets us the example of evangelism (Tit_3:4), and now sends the Holy Spirit to reveal the things of Christ.
II. THE METHODS BY WHICH THIS END IS TO BE EARNED.
1. We must try it with the members of our own families. The charity of the gospel begins, but does not end, at home. The healed man was commissioned to tell his friends what great things had been done for him. The apostles were commissioned to begin at Jerusalem.
(1) What more fitting than this.
(2) What more profitable.
(3) Yet what more neglected.
2. We must make the office and work and teaching of Christ our chief theme. Messias
(1) Prophet;
(2) Priest;
(3) King.
3. The quiet talk of private men may effect our purpose as well as the preaching of public teachers. Andrew was not in office.
(1) We must not undervalue the ministry, only it is not substitutionary but supplemental. It does not set aside individual effort: it trains, guides, and completes it.
(2) Public preaching has disadvantages of its own: it is necessarily general and indiscriminate; its hearers pass on the message to the next pew. Preaching scatters the seed, but talk afterwards presses it into the soil; and in this talk the private Christian has the advantage over the public minister.
4. It will be more easily done by simple announcement than by discussion. There are exceptions, but as a rule arguments only raise objections to shield the conscience and to gain time. What we want is fewer appeals to the reason and more to the heart.
5. We must rest largely on our own experience. We have found this does not require genius or learning. If we have been to Christ ourselves we can tell others the way.
6. We must make it our chief business to bring men to Christ
(1) Directly. Not to this teacher or that Church;
(2) Promptly. There is no time to lose. (J. Angus, D. D.)
Finding the Messiah
I. HOW GREAT MAY BE THE EFFECTS WHICH FOLLOW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD FROM WHAT WOULD APPEAR TO BE A VERY TRIVIAL CAUSE. It was a passing remark of the Baptist, to all appearance, which was the means of Andrews conversion.
1. But we must remember that that remark fell on prepared minds. The severe life of the Baptist, and his lofty teaching--recalling the great Elijah--must have made a profound impression on them. They were presentwhen John denied before the agents of the Sanhedrim that he was the Messiah, and declared that he was only the forerunner of One who was of a higher order of Being than himself. On the following day Jesus presents Himself; and then John solemnly refers to Him, and explains that this was the Person of whom he had spoken on the day before--the Son of God. Then, on the third day, John said much less, but his short sentence crowned the preparatory work.
2. All this seems to show that outward circumstances, persons, language are only a part of a complex providential agency. The deepest causes are unseen, and wait like the tinder for the spark, the passing word or influence which shall set them in motion.
II. THE COMPARATIVELY SMALL STOCK OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE UPON THE STRENGTH OF WHICH ANDREW SETS TO WORK TO BRING ANOTHER INTO THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST.
1. He had heard of the Messiah all his life; but there was, and there continued, up to the hour of the Ascension an earthly and mistaken element in his idea of Him. A meaning had been read into Jewish prophecy for generations which did not belong to it. The Messiah was to be a rival to
Caesar on a more splendid scale. He also failed to grasp the vast consequences to the world of Christs coming.
2. But the one simple truth that he did grasp sufficed to kind!e every affection and power of his Spirit; to concentrate in its analysis every ray of his understanding. He had seen enough of Jesus in a few hours to know that John was right; that Christ was one whom he could perfectly love and trust; and that the best thing he could do for his brother was to bring him to Jesus.
3. Here St. Andrew reads an important lesson. There is no doubt a great deal of forward ignorance in religious questions which is willing to set the Church and the world to rights on subjects the first elements of which have not been mastered. But there is also a great deal of false modesty which declines plain and practical duties on the ground of insuifficient knowledge. But the great truths which moved Andrew and move us are the simple truths about which, amongst Christians, there is no controversy, and which are learned by experience. No Christian need delay to testify to Christ because he is not a theologian. He may at least do as well as Andrew.
III. RELIGIOUS TRUTH CANNOT BE HOARDED LIKE MONEY, like a discovery for which a man wishes to take out a patent. It belongs to the race, and in the first instance to those who stand by the appointment of providence nearest to its possessors. Andrew found his own brother. Go thou and do likewise. Conclusion:
1. Consider the untold capacities which lie buried in men who as yet know nothing of grace and truth. Peter takes precedence of Andrew.
2. The reflex blessing of every sincere effort for Christ and His kingdom. Every teacher knows more of his subject after he has taught it. He that watereth is watered himself. (Canon Liddon.)
Christian fraternity
Andrew was before all else a good brother. In the great church at Rome, which is dedicated to him, no other inscription could be found suitable, except Andrew, the brother of Peter. Before casting his nets on Jew or Gentile, he first bethought him of the one fellow-creature who was near to him by the ties of home and family. Blood is thicker than water in sacred as well as in social life. If a man loves not his brother, etc. This is a principle which needs to be asserted as a corrective of the excesses of the missionary or proselytis-ing spirit; but it also contains within itself some of the best methods of the true conversion of the world.
I. It exemplifies the undoubted truth that THE BEST MODE OF DIFFUSING CHRISTIANITY IN THE WORLD is by converting our own brethren who have settled abroad. The chiefest missionary, who was especially the Apostle of the Gentiles, in every case made his own Jewish countrymen the nucleus round which the heathen converts were to be gathered. This is a practical lesson for all of us in respect of foreign missions. Every English settler in a distant land is already, by his good or evil conduct, a missionary for God or for the devil; nay, every country in Europe, according as it holds up Christianity in a repulsive or an attractive form, repels or attracts the outside world from the light of the Gospel. It is said that some of the Japanese envoys who lately visited the nations of Europe and America had come with the predisposition to establish Christianity on their return, but that after witnessing its actual fruits they in disappointment relinquished the project. Let us first find and convert our own brethren, and we shall then go with clean hands to convert the Jew, the Turk, the heretic, and the infidel. This is a missionary enterprise in which every man, woman, and child can bear a part. In this way the Home Mission becomes the mother of all missions.
II. But the same principle also points out to us THE BEST ACCESS TO THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE UNKNOWN STRANGERS OF HEATHEN LANDS. In every heathen country there are those whom we may call our own brothers, for the nobler qualities which raise them above their fellows, and bring them nearer to the civilized and the Christian type. Often, indeed, this fraternal sympathy has been rendered impossible on the one hand by the impurities, the cruelties, the follies of heathen nations, on the other hand by the pitying scorn, or the iniquitous dealing, with which the European has looked down on what are called the inferior races of mankind. But happy are those Englishmen and missionaries who have made it a point first to find their own brothers in those strange faces. Livingstone was never tired of repeating that he found amongst the native races of Africa the same feelings of right and wrong that he found in his own conscience, and that needed only to be enlightened and developed to make the perfect Christian. Bishop Patteson won the hearts of his simple converts by treating them as his brothers, detecting the Christian beneath the heathen.
III. There is one further application of the principle, viz., THE DUTY, obvious, though often neglected, OF SEEKING FOR OUR CO-OPERATORS IN THIS, as in all good works, NOT THOSE WHO ARE FAR AWAY, BUT THOSE WHO ARE CLOSE AT HAND. Let us cultivate by all means a friendly intercourse with all Christian people throughout the world. But an intimate, organic union can only be with those who are near at hand, or of the same race and nation and culture as ourselves. It is because the work of evangelizing the heathen has a direct tendency to bring all English Chris tians together that this (St. Andrews) day is doubly blessed; blessed alike in what it gives and in what it receives. Let us first find those of our own communion. But next to our own Church, and before any combinations with foreign Christians, however estimable, let us find out our own brethren in the British Islands, who, however parted from us, are yet heirs of the same national traditions and of the same inspiring future. Such are our brethren amongst the Nonconforming communions of England, whose praise for their missionary zeal is in all the Churches. (Dean Stanley.)
Our brother
You are wealthy, and that poor man who lives near you is your brother. Or you are poor, and your brother is that wealthy neighbour of whom you think with envy and anger. Our brethren are not confined to those who can enter into our thoughts and sympathies; they are also those whose narrowness and ignorance make mutual sympathy and intelligence impossible. They are not only those who are honest and respectable, but they are those who are under the ban of society, outside the frontiers of decent and civilized life. Our brethren, they are not only our near relatives by blood; nor our fellow-townsmen or countrymen; they are not confined to the races which are now in the van of civilization, or have played a great part in the worlds affairs. They are also the races on whose rights civilization is apt to trample with heartless selfishness. They are the natives of Australia and America; they are the Maories of New Zealand; they are the islanders of the Pacific. Our brethren are everywhere. (Canon Liddon.)
The difficulty of bringing a brother to Christ
It would seem the most natural thing in the world to urge ones own brother to share in ones faith before looking elsewhere for a new believer. Yet, as a matter of fact, one is more likely to shrink from speaking on the subject of personal religion to a brother who is out of Christ than to one who is a comparative stranger. A reason for this is that ones own shortcomings and failures are so well known to a brother, that one often hesitates to urge the importance of a truth he is supposed to illustrate, but which he feels he represents unworthily. Andrew seems to have avoided this difficulty by saying nothing about himself to Peter. If Jesus were more prominent in the thoughts and words of believers, there would be less thought of self, and less embarrassment on that score, in pleading His cause with those who are yet aloof from Him. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)
Christ the inspiration of Christian effort
The Egyptian Memnon is represented as keeping silence all the dark hours of the night, but bursting forth into mystic strains of weird like music every morning just as the first rays of the sun kiss his lips. Like that idol, John and Andrew and Philip lived mute and inactive; but when the first beams of the Sun of Righteousness began to play around their hearts they began immediately to speak. The flowers require not to be sternly told to grow and blossom and make themselves beautiful; let the sun but shine and they will do it out of the gladness of their own hearts. Birds need not an almanack to apprize them that the month of May, the season for open-air concerts, has arrived. And once men have been in the presence of Christ they require he elaborate certificate to empower them to go and tell others of His beauties--the fire burns, and speak they must. Commission or no commission, be not ashamed to tell others that you have found the Saviour. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
Personal testimony
I was reading the other day about a minister who preached an elaborate course of lectures in refutation of infidelity for the special benefit of a man who attended his church. Soon after the man came and declared himself a Christian. The minister said to him, Which of my discourses was it that removed your doubts? The reply was, Oh, it was not any of your sermons that influenced me. The thing that set me thinking was that a poor woman came out of the chapel beside me and stumbled on the steps, and I stretched out my hand to help her, and she said, Thank you. Then she looked at me and said, Do you love Jesus Christ, my blessed Saviour? And I did not; and I went home arid thought about it; and now I can say I love Jesus. The poor womans word, and her frank confession of her experience, was all the transforming power. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The value of private Christian effort
The Niagara excites our wonder, fills us with amazement, perhaps with awe; but one Niagara is enough for a continent. That continent, however, requires tens of thousands of silver fountains and lucid brooks; and let me tell you--those clear springs and busy streams, whose names have never been registered in any geography, prove an inestimably greater blessing to America than the mighty Falls, whose fame fills the world. And God, now and again, once or twice in a century, raises a man great and gifted, a Niagara of a man, in whose presence the world trembles and admires. Yet the Church depends more for its prosperity upon the ten thousand happy souls who quietly and unobtrusively scatter blessings broadcast in every neighbourhood and throughout the length and breadth of our beloved country. Though you be but slender rills, yet let not the slender rills think they may as well cease flowing. God fructifies the world by small rivers; He saves the world by private Christians. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
What is a missionary
The term comes from the associations of olden times, when tyrants ruled and made sport of human life. In those days when the world was not gladdened by the glad tidings of great joy, and upon the occasion of the gladiatorial combats, when one of the antagonists had smitten his opponent to the dust, he then had the right of life or death over that man. But the conquered man had one source of appeal, and by the lifting up of his finger he could appeal to the prince, and that prince had the power, if he chose, to send a courtier from his side down to the dust of the arena to separate the combatants and deliver from death the man who was appointed to death. The sending of that message was called in the Latin a mission, and the person sent a missionary. So down in the dust of the arena of this world are Satan and man. It is a deadly conflict. Man is smitten and undermost. He appeals to the King of all; yea, before he appeal the King of all anticipates. His only Son comes on a mission, and rescues mans prostrate soul from Satans power. (R. Maguire, D. D.)
The joy of finding the Messiah
There was joy in the breast of the geometrician of Syracuse when he uttered his glad Eureka in the hearing of people who deemed him mad; there was joy in the soul of Newton when the first thought of gravitation burst upon his wondering view; there was joy in the spirit of Columbus in that moment of serene triumph over doubt and mutiny, when the tiny land birds settled upon the shrouds of his vessel, bearing upon their timid wings the welcomes of a new world; there is joy for the gold-finder when the rich ore glistens in his cradle; joy for the emigrant when after years of absence and hardship he first glimpses his boyhoods home again; joy for the child when he is let into another and yet another of the marvels of the world, and claps his hands for very joy and wonder; joy for the poet when he sends a glad thought careering through the world and stirring the pulses of mankind; but oh I of all the joys that human hearts can be thrilled by, commend me to that when the glad disciple clasps a brothers hand and says, We have found the Messiah. Then all doubt ceases, and fear is banished from the mind, and condemnation lifts its shadow from the spirit, and sweet peace nestles in the breast, and holy love throws itself upon the believing heart, and a newfound sense of reconciliation pulsing through the veins makes all creation more beautiful and brings a rarer melody than the music of the spheres, and throws a brighter azure upon the opening heavens. Is this joy yours? (W. M.Punshon, LL. D.)
What would happen if the example of Andrew were followed
If every disciple to-day were to call only one other person to Christ in each year, and that one were to call one other, how swiftly the world would be wholly converted! There are to-day millions of true believers in the world. But if there were only one hundred, see how quickly the work would grow. In less than twenty-five years the world would be converted, for this would double the number of disciples each year. First year, 100; second year, 200; third year, 400; fourth year, 800; fifth year, 1,600; sixth year, 3,200; seventh year, 6,400; eighth year, 12,800; ninth year, 25,600; tenth year, 51,200 (Well, says some one, just here, that is rather slow progress, only 51,200 in ten whole years. Go on, however, ten years more, and see how your numbers will look then); eleventh year, 102,400; twelfth year, 204,800; thirteenth year, 409,600; fourteenth year, 817,200; fifteenth year, 1,634,400; sixteenth year, 3,268,800; seventeenth year, 6,537,600 (its growing now); eighteenth year, 13,075,200; nineteenth year, 26,150,400; twentieth year, 52,300,800; twenty-first year, 104,601,600; twenty-second year, over 209,000,000; twenty-third year, over 418,000,000; twenty-fourth year, over 836,000,000; and in the twenty-fifth year, over 1,600,000,000, or more than the population of the whole earth. This shows the power of ones multiplied. (A. F. Schauffler.)
One convert wins another
Some time ago one of our people, who had herself been a drunkard, was standing at one of the open-air services on the waste, when she observed a woman who had formerly been one of her bad companions suddenly leave the crowd and walk quickly away. Hurrying after her, she found this poor drunkard in great distress about her soul. Oh! she said, I listened to the speakers; but when I saw you standing there so wonderfully changed from what you used to be, I could stand it no longer. She was induced, however, to return to the meeting, and then to attend the service in the hall, where she found salvation. She is now another living witness of the power of Christ to save the drunkard. May God preserve her faithful unto death! (General Booth.)
Dealing with individuals
Richard Baxter adopted the method of individual dealing with the parishioners of Kidderminster, bringing them to his house, and taking them apart one by one. He tells us that, because of it, he had reason to believe that more than a third of the grown-up inhabitants of the place were converted to God. The late Mr. Grant of Arndilly was so intent upon this habit of individual intercourse that in three months he had dealt with fifteen hundred souls, while the refrain of all his letters was Speak a word for Jesus.
Those who have found Christ must speak of Him to others
I was visiting at my brothers one time, says a lady, when Richard, his little boy, stopped suddenly in his play, and looked steadily at me for a minute. What are you thinking about? I asked. Are you a Christian, auntie? I hope so, dear. But you never speak of Jesus; if you loved Him very much, would you not talk about Him sometimes? We may love a person without speaking of him, I replied. May we! I did not know that. You love to talk of your brothers and sisters, and your papa and mamma, dont you, auntie? Yes. And then you speak of other people and things you like; but you speak no word for Jesus. Dont you love Him, auntie? Yes. Then I should think you could not help speaking of Him sometimes. (Sunday School Union.)
Mission work must begin at home
You will never make a missionary of the person who does no good at home. If you do not seek souls in your own street, you will not do so in Hindostan. If you are of no use in Whitechapel, you will be of no use on the Congo. He that will not serve the Lord in the Sunday-school at home, will not win children to Christ in China. Distance lends no real enchantment to Christian service. You who do nothing now are not fit for the war, for you are in sad health. The Lord give you spiritual health and vigour, and then you will want no pressing, but you will cry at once, Here am I; send me! Oh, my friends, go at once to your families, to your workshops, and declare the name of Jesus I Oh, for more spiritual life! This is the root of the matter. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
A word in season
On Thursday last I picked up some bread which I had scattered on the waters more than ten years ago. I was preaching in Essex, and at the close of the service a gentleman came up and said, Do you remember preaching a sermon on the 14th February, 1869, on the text, Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed? Oh, yes, I said, I do remember the subject and the occasion. That was the sermon that changed this heart, Mine has been another life from that night. Ten and a half years that bread was floating on the waters! Thou shalt find it after many days. (J. Thain Davidson, D. D.)
Speak earnestly
There was a dying man upon his death-bed, and he was visited by his Christian brother. The dying man said, I am dying. I know that I am lost, but I cannot help putting some of my ruin at your door. I believe you to be a Christian, I know you to be a Christian, but I do not recollect that you ever solemnly addressed me about my soul. You believed I was perishing, and yet you did not speak to me; therefore, as I cannot conceive you to be inhuman--for you were always a kind brother--I suspect you do not believe, as you say you do. His brother said--Iwas afraid of offending you. I did speak to you once or twice. The brother replied, You ought to have taken me by the shoulders. You ought not to have let me be lost. I cannot acquit you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv40, 42 40, 41. One of the two … was Andrew.…
40, 41. One of the two … was Andrew. Afterwards an apostle. He has the honor of being one of the first two disciples of Jesus.
Findeth his own brother Simon. Simon Peter. In true missionary spirit Andrew at once and first sought his own brother. We have found the Messias. The Christ promised by the prophets. Messiah is the Hebrew word meaning the same as Christ.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v40 Joh 1:40 f11 - Joh 1:42.
John
THE FIRST DISCIPLES: II. SIMON PETER
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Joh 1:40 f11 - Joh 1:42.
There are many ways by which souls are brought to their Saviour. Sometimes, like the merchantman seeking goodly pearls, men seek Him earnestly and find Him. Sometimes, by the intervention of another, the knowledge of Him is kindled in dark hearts. Sometimes He Himself takes the initiative, and finds those that seek Him not. We have illustrations of all these various ways in these simple records of the gathering in of the first disciples. Andrew and his friend, with whom we were occupied in our last sermon, looked for Christ and found Him. Peter, with whom we have to do now, was brought to Christ by his brother; and the third of the group, consisting of Philip, was sought by Christ while he was not thinking of Him, and found an unsought treasure; and then Philip again, like Andrew, finds a friend, and brings him to Christ.
Each of the incidents has its own lesson, and each of them adds something to the elucidation of John’s two great subjects: the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God, and the development of that faith in Him which gives us life. It may be profitable to consider each group in succession, and mark the various aspects of these two subjects presented by each.
In this incident, then, we have two things mainly to consider: first, the witness of the disciple; second, the self-revelation of the Master.
I. The witness of the disciple.
We have seen that the unknown companion of Andrew was probably the Evangelist himself, who, in accordance with his uniform habit, suppresses his own name, and that that omission points to John’s authorship of this Gospel. Another morsel of evidence as to the date and purpose of the Gospel lies in the mention here of Andrew as ‘Simon Peter’s brother.’ We have not yet heard anything about Simon Peter. The Evangelist has never mentioned his name, and yet he takes it for granted that his hearers knew all about Peter, and knew him better than they did Andrew. That presupposes a considerable familiarity with the incidents of the Gospel story, and is in harmony with the theory that this fourth Gospel is the latest of the four, and was written for the purpose of supplementing, not of repeating, their narrative. Hence a number of the phenomena of the Gospel, which have troubled critics, are simply and sufficiently explained.
But that by the way. Passing that, notice first the illustration that we get here of how instinctive and natural the impulse is, when a man has found Jesus Christ, to tell some one else about Him. Nobody said to Andrew, ‘Go and look for your brother,’ and yet, as soon as he had fairly realised the fact that this Man standing before him was the Messiah, though the evening seems to have come, he hurries away to find his brother, and share with him the glad conviction.
Now, that is always the case. If a man has any real depth of conviction, he cannot rest till he tries to share it with somebody else. Why, even a dog that has had its leg mended, will bring other limping dogs to the man that was kind to it. Whoever really believes anything becomes a propagandist.
Look round about us to-day! and hearken to the Babel, the wholesale Babel of noises, where every sort of opinion is trying to make itself heard. It sounds like a country fair where every huckster is shouting his loudest. That shows that the men believe the things that they profess. Thank God that there is so much earnestness in the world! And now are Christians to be dumb whilst all this vociferous crowd is calling its wares, and quacks are standing on their platforms shouting out their specifics, which are mostly delusions? Have you not a medicine that will cure everything, a real heal-all, a veritable pain-killer? If you believe that you have, certainly you will never rest till you share your boon with your brethren.
If the natural effect of all earnest conviction, viz. a yearning and an absolute necessity to speak it out, is no part of your Christian experience, very grave inferences ought to be drawn from that. This man, before he was four-and-twenty hours a disciple, had made another. Some of you have been disciples for as many years, and have never even tried to make one. Whence comes that silence which is, alas, so common among us?
It is very plain that, making all allowance for changed manners, for social difficulties, for timidity, for the embarrassment that besets people when they talk to other people about religion, which is ‘such an awkward subject to introduce into mixed company,’ and the like,-making all allowance for these, there is a deplorable number of Christian people who ought to be, in their own circles, evangelists and missionaries, who are, if I may venture to quote very rude words which the Bible uses, ‘Dumb dogs lying down, and loving to slumber.’ ‘He first findeth his own brother, Simon!’
Now, take another lesson out of this witness of the disciple, as to the channel in which such effort naturally runs. ‘He first findeth his own brother’; does not that imply a second finding by the other of the two? The language of the text suggests that the Evangelist’s tendency to the suppression of himself, of which I have spoken, hides away, if I may so say, in this singular expression, the fact that he too went to look for a brother, but that Andrew found his brother before John found his. If so, each of the original pair of disciples went to look for one who was knit to him by close ties of kindred and affection, and found him and brought him to Christ; and before the day was over the Christian Church was doubled, because each member of it, by God’s grace, had added another. Home, then, and those who are nearest to us, present the natural channels for Christian work. Many a very earnest and busy preacher, or Sunday-school teacher, or missionary, has brothers and sisters, husband or wife, children or parents at home to whom he has never said a word about Christ. There is an old proverb, ‘The shoemaker’s wife is always the worst shod.’ The families of many very busy Christian teachers suffer wofully for want of remembering ‘he first findeth his own brother.’ It is a poor affair if all your philanthropy and Christian energy go off noisily in Sunday-schools and mission-stations, and if your own vineyard is neglected, and the people at your own fireside never hear anything from you about the Master whom you say you love. Some of you want that hint; will you take it?
But then, the principle is one that might be fairly expanded beyond the home circle. The natural relationships into which we are brought by neighbourhood and by ordinary associations prescribe the direction of our efforts. What, for instance, are we set down in this swarming population of Lancashire for? For business and personal ends? Yes, partly. But is that all? Surely, if we believe that ‘there is a divinity that shapes our ends’ and determines the bounds of our habitation, we must believe that other purposes affecting other people are also meant by God to be accomplished through us, and that where a man who knows and loves Christ Jesus is brought into neighbourly contact with thousands who do not, he is thereby constituted his brethren’s keeper, and is as plainly called to tell them of Christ as if a voice from Heaven had bid him do it. What is to be said of the depth and vital energy of the Christianity that neither hears the call nor feels the impulse to share its blessing with the famishing Lazarus at its gate? What will be the fate of such a church? Why, if you live in luxury in your own well drained and ventilated house, and take no heed to the typhoid fever or cholera in the slums at its back, the chances are that seeds of the disease will find their way to you, and kill your wife, or child, or yourself. And if you Christian people, living in the midst of godless people, do not try to heal them, they will infect you. If you do not seek to impress your conviction that Christ is the Messiah upon an unbelieving generation, the unbelieving generation will impress upon you its doubts whether He is; and your lips will falter, and a pallor will come over the complexion of your love, and your faith will become congealed and turn into ice.
Notice again the simple word which is the most powerful means of influencing most men.
Andrew did not begin to argue with his brother. Some of us can do that and some of us cannot. Some of us are influenced by argument and some of us are not. You may pound a man’s mistaken creed to atoms with sledge-hammers of reasoning, and he is not much the nearer being a Christian than he was before; just as you may pound ice to pieces and it is pounded ice after all. The mightiest argument that we can use, and the argument that we can all use, if we have got any religion in us at all, is that of Andrew, ‘We have found the Messias.’
I recently read a story in some newspaper or other about a minister who preached a very elaborate course of lectures in refutation of some form of infidelity, for the special benefit of a man that attended his place of worship. Soon after, the man came and declared himself a Christian. The minister said to him, ‘Which of my discourses was it that removed your doubts?’ The reply was, ‘Oh! it was not any of your sermons that influenced me. The thing that set me thinking was that a poor woman came out of the chapel beside me, and stumbled on the steps, and I stretched out my hand to help her, and she said “Thank you!” Then she looked at me and said, “Do you love Jesus Christ, my blessed Saviour?” And I did not, and I went home and thought about it; and now I can say I love Jesus.’ The poor woman’s word, and her frank confession of her experience, were all the transforming power.
If you have found Christ, you can say that you have. Never mind about the how! Any how! Only say it! A boy that is sent on an errand by his father has only one duty to perform, and that is to repeat what he was told. Whether we have any eloquence or not, whether we have any logic or not, whether we can speak persuasively and gracefully or not, if we have laid hold of Christ at all we can say that we have; and it is at our peril that we do not. We can say it to somebody. There is surely some one who will listen to you more readily than to any one else. Surely you have not lived all your life and bound nobody to you by kindness and love, so that they will gladly attend to what you say. Well, then, use the power that is given to you.
Remember the beginnings of the Christian Church-two men, each of whom found his brother. Two and two make four; and if every one of us would go, according to the old law of warfare, and each of us slay our man, or rather each of us give life by God’s grace to some one, or try to do it, our congregations and our churches would grow as fast as, according to the old problem, the money grew that was paid down for the nails in the horse’s shoes. Two snowflakes on the top of a mountain gather an avalanche by the time they reach the valley. ‘He first findeth his brother, Simon.’
II. And now I turn to the second part of this text, the self-revelation of the Master.
The bond which knit these men to Christ at first was by no means the perfect Christian faith which they afterwards attained. They recognised Him as the Messiah, they were personally attached to Him, they were ready to accept His teaching and to obey His commandments. That was about as far as they had gone. But they were scholars. They had entered the school. The rest would come. It would be absurd to expect that Christ would begin by preaching to them faith in His divinity and atoning work. He binds them to Himself. That is lesson enough for a beginner for one day.
It was the impression which Christ Himself made on Simon which completed the work begun by his brother. What, then, was the impression? He comes all full of wonder and awe, and he is met by a look and a sentence. The look, which is described by an unusual word, was a penetrating gaze which regarded Peter with fixed attention. It must have been remarkable, to have lived in John’s memory for all these years. Evidently, as I think, a more than natural insight is implied. So, also, the saying with which our Lord received Peter seems to me to be meant to show more than natural knowledge: ‘Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas.’ Christ may, no doubt, have learned the Apostle’s name and lineage from his brother, or in some other ordinary way. But if you observe the similar incident which follows in the conversation with Nicodemus, and the emphatic declaration of the next chapter that Jesus knew both ‘all men,’ and ‘what was in man’-both human nature as a whole, and each individual-it is more natural to see here superhuman knowledge.
So then, the first point in our Lord’s self-revelation here is that He shows Himself possessed of supernatural and thorough knowledge. One remembers the many instances where our Lord read men’s hearts, and the prayer addressed to Him probably, by Peter, ‘Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men,’ and the vision which John saw of ‘eyes like a flame of fire,’ and the sevenfold ‘I know thy works.’
It may be a very awful thought, ‘Thou, God, seest me.’ It is a very unwelcome thought to a great many men, and it will be so to us unless we can give it the modification which it receives from the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and feel sure that the eyes which are blazing with divine omniscience are dewy with divine and human love.
Do you believe it? Do you feel that Christ is looking at you, and searching you altogether? Do you rejoice in it? Do you carry it about with you as a consolation and a strength in moments of weakness and in times of temptation? Is it as blessed to you to feel ‘Thou Christ beholdest me now,’ as it is for a child to feel that, when it is playing in the garden, its mother is sitting up at the window watching it, and that no harm can come? There have been men driven mad in prisons because they knew that somewhere in the wall there was a little pinhole, through which a gaoler’s eye was always, or might be always, glaring down at them. And the thought of an absolute Omniscience up there, searching me to the depths of my nature, may become one from which I recoil shudderingly, and will not be altogether a blessed one unless it comes to me in this shape:-’My Christ knows me altogether and loves me better than He knows. And so I will spread myself out before Him, and though I feel that there is much in me which I dare not tell to men, I will rejoice that there is nothing which I need to tell to Him. He knows me through and through. He knew me when He died for me. He knew me when He forgave me. He knew me when He undertook to cleanse me. Like this very Peter I will say, “Lord, Thou knowest all things,” and, like him, I will cling the closer to His feet, because I know, and He knows, my weakness and my sin.’
Another revelation of our Lord’s relation to His disciples is given in the fact that He changes Simon’s name. Jehovah, in the Old Testament, changes the names of Abraham and of Jacob. Babylonian kings in the Old Testament change the names of their vassal princes. Masters impose names on their slaves; and I suppose that even the marriage custom of the wife’s assuming the name of the husband rests originally upon the same idea of absolute authority. That idea is conveyed in the fact that our Lord changes Peter’s name, and so takes absolute possession of him, and asserts His mastery over him. We belong to Him altogether, because He has given Himself altogether for us. His absolute authority is the correlative of His utter self-surrender. He who can come to me and say, ‘I have spared not my life for thee,’ and He only, has the right to come to me and say, ‘yield yourself wholly to Me.’ So, Christian friends, your Master wants all your service; do you give yourselves up to Him out and out, not by half and half.
Lastly, that change of name implies Christ’s power and promise to bestow a new character and new functions and honours. Peter was by no means a ‘Peter’ then. The name no doubt mainly implies official function, but that official function was prepared for by personal character; and in so far as the name refers to character, it means firmness. At that epoch Peter was rash, impulsive, headstrong, self-confident, vain, and therefore, necessarily changeable. Like the granite, all fluid and hot, and fluid because it was hot, he needed to cool in order to solidify into rock. And not until his self-confidence had been knocked out of him, and he had learned humility by falling; not until he had been beaten from all his presumption, and tamed down, and sobered and steadied by years of difficulty and responsibilities, did he become the rock that Christ meant him to be. All that lay concealed in the future, but in the change of his name, while he stood on the very threshold of his Christian career, there was preached to him, and there is preached to us, this great truth, that if you will go to Jesus Christ He will make a new man of you. No man’s character is so obstinately rooted in evil but that Christ can change its set and direction. No man’s natural dispositions are so faulty and low but that Christ can develop counterbalancing virtues, and out of the evil and weakness make strength. He will not make a Peter into a John, or a John into a Paul, but He will deliver Peter from the ‘defects of his qualities,’ and lead them up into a higher and a nobler region. There are no outcasts in the view of the transforming Christ. He dismisses no people out of His hospital as incurable, because anybody, everybody, the blackest, the most rooted in evil, those who have longest indulged in any given form of transgression, may all come to Him; with the certainty that if they will cleave to Him, He will read all their character and all its weaknesses, and then with a glad smile of welcome and assured confidence on His face, will ensure to them a new nature and new dignities. ‘Thou art Simon-thou shalt be Peter.’
The process will be long. It will be painful. There will be a great deal pared off. The sculptor makes the marble image by chipping away the superfluous marble. Ah! and when you have to chip away superfluous flesh and blood it is bitter work, and the chisel is often deeply dyed in gore, and the mallet seems to be very cruel. Simon did not know all that had to be done to make a Peter of him. We have to thank God’s providence that we do not know all the sorrows and trials of the process of making us what He wills us to be. But we may be sure of this, that if only we keep near our Master, and let Him have His way with us, and work His will upon us, and if only we will not wince from the blows of the Great Artist’s chisel, then out of the roughest block He will carve the fairest statue; and He will fulfil for us at last His great promise: ‘I will give unto him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v40 Missionary efforts:
Missionary efforts:
v. 40. One of the two which heard John speak and followed Him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
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v. 41. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.
v. 42. And he brought him to’ Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him. He said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jona; thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, A stone.
The name of one of the former disciples is given. It was Andrew of Bethsaida, the brother of Peter. The name of the other man is not given, but anyone that reads the gospel of John carefully may read between the lines that John himself was the other disciple who here found Jesus. Now the hearts of both men were full of the happiness of their salvation. They felt constrained to let others know of the faith that was in them and of Him that inspired it. Before doing anything else, Andrew therefore set out to find his brother Simon. His heart was full, and out of that fullness his mouth spoke. He tells him that they had found the promised Messiah, the Christ of the prophecies. They, Andrew and John, were convinced that Jesus was the Christ. That conviction was the result of their conversation with Jesus. If many persons that now stand aloof from the Gospel and its teaching would only hear and read the Bible with an open mind, letting the Lord Himself talk to them, the chances are that they would be brought to the same glorious certainty. And Andrew was not satisfied with the mere telling of the news. He must needs bring his brother Simon to Jesus. The same missionary zeal should fill the hearts of the Christians today. There is altogether too much aloofness from the actual work of the Gospel among the members of the Christian congregations. Belief in Christ as the Redeemer, missionary talk, and missionary deed must go hand in hand. Jesus looked up as Simon approached. He uttered a word by the working of His divine omniscience. He gave Simon his correct name; He told him the name of his father, Jona, of Bethsaida; he read his character and his future, and gave him an additional name to fit the future, the Aramaic name Cephas, which is the same as the Greek name Peter. He would have need of the nature and firmness of a rock, and had better lay the foundation of his faith in the great Rock Jesus, before the dangers and trials of the coming enmity of the world would overwhelm him.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v40 General Information:
General Information:
These verses give us information about Andrew and how he brought his brother Peter to Jesus. This happened before they went and saw where Jesus was staying in John 1:39.
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son of John
This is not John the Baptist. "John" was a very common name.
translationWords
Andrew
Peter
Christ
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v40 1:40-42 Simon is well known in the Gospels, not…
1:40-42 Simon is well known in the Gospels, not for his courage and faith, but for his failings (see 18:15-18, 25-27). Jesus named him Cephas (“the rock”), referring to the great church leader he would later become (see Acts 1:1–5:42; 8:1–12:25; 15:1-41).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.