Matthew 4:12-23 (NRSV)
12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee
of the Gentiles—
16 the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of
death
light has dawned.”
17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
18 As he walked 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 they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and
curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
Matthew 4:12-23 recount the start
of the public ministry of Jesus. Matthew has recounted the private experience
of the temptation in 4:1-11 and will soon record the public discourse we know
as the Sermon on the Mount in 5-7. The start of the ministry of Jesus contains
the seeds that characterize his ministry for the rest of his life.
Matthew 4:12-16 has the theme of
Jesus moving to Galilee, with verse 12 from Mark and Matthew adding verses
13-16 as a way of setting the event within a scriptural context. In verse 12,
we learn that Jesus heard that Herod arrested John the Baptist, so he withdrew
to Galilee. We learn in Chapter 14 why Herod arrested John. Leaving his
hometown of Nazareth, he made his home in Capernaum. Capernaum (from an original
Semitic name, Kefar Nahum, "Village of Nahum," v. 13) was an ancient
and important farming, fishing and trading center on the northwest shore of the
Sea of Galilee, about five kilometers from the sea's entrance into the Jordan
River. Inhabited already in the third millennium B.C., by the time of Jesus,
Capernaum covered an area of approximately 15 acres, a significant village in
the region. What does the phrase “made his home” mean? Jesus made statements
concerning his own rootless lifestyle (e.g., "Foxes have holes, and birds
of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,"
Matthew 8:20, paralleled in Luke 9:58), as well as his frequent warnings
against the captivity of possessions (e.g., Matthew 19:21; Luke 12:15, 33; 14:33).
In light of this, it is by no means entirely clear what is meant by the report
that Jesus "made his home" in Capernaum. We have no other reports in the gospels of
Jesus as a householder, and the expression used here occurs only one other time
in the New Testament, in Matthew 2:23, where the evangelist reports that Joseph
"made his home" in Nazareth to fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah
would be a "Nazorean." It is likely that Matthew, by echoing his
words about Joseph, is drawing a parallel between Jesus and his father as
descendants of David and members of the royal line of the house of Israel.
Matthew will also identify it as by the Sea of Galilee, in the territory of
Zebulun and Naphtali, and Galilee of the Gentiles. The choice is deliberate,
for Matthew. For Matthew, we will not properly grasp the significance of Jesus
without seeing his actions in light of the fulfillment of scripture. We will
find such expressions of fulfillment throughout Matthew. For Jesus to continue
the emphasis of John the Baptist, he had to go to Galilee to fulfill scripture.
The scripture is in the context of a time when Galilee was under Assyrian rule.
As such, it opens the possibility that he viewed that fact as foreshadowing the
reach of the gospel to Gentiles. We learn from Isaiah 9:1-2 that in this land,
the people who sat darkness, people who sat in the region and shadow of death,
have seen a great light. In fact, the light is dawning. As Matthew views the
passage, then, Jesus is the great light the dawning light for those in darkness
and death. Pannenberg[1]
refers to this verse in saying that the death is not itself external to our
existence. The end that has yet to come casts a shadow in advance and defines
the whole path of life as a being for death in the sense that our end is not
integrated into our existence. Rather, it threatens each moment of our living
self-affirmation with nothingness. We thus lead our temporal lives under the
shadow of death.
Matthew 4:17-11:30 is the second
major division of Matthew, dealing with his message, ministry, and disciples.
In fact, Matthew is being quite clear about the mission and message of the
church, as the content of the good news is in Chapters 5-7 and the healing and
exorcism as signs of the Messiah are in Chapters 8-9. Chapter 10 shows the
community has received the authority of the community, and Chapter 11 is from
the source common to Matthew and Luke.
Matthew 4:17-22 is a story about
Jesus involving the calling of four disciples. The basis of the story is from
Mark.
Verse 17 contains one of two
temporal references in Matthew, “from that time.” Here, it signals the actual
beginning of Jesus' public ministry. The other, at 16:21, signals the end of
that ministry, as he prepares for his suffering and death. Verse 17 is a summary
of the proclamation of Jesus, which turns out to have the same theme as that of
John the Baptist. First, he proclaims that the people of God are to repent. To
repent in this context consists in following Jesus. The Greek verb metanoeo
meant to turn oneself from one direction to another, not only one's values and
religious sensibilities, but one's entire sense of identity. To repent meant to
acquire a new identity, with both new relationships and the restoration of
existing relationships to their rightful condition. One of the clearest and
best known examples of such a turning preached by Jesus is the example of the
prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the key to which is the phrase "But when he
came to himself" (v. 17, using a more general verb than repent). To repent,
in Jesus' understanding of the term, meant not only to turn to God, but to turn
(or, better, return) to one's essential and natural nature, which is the image
of God (Genesis 1:26). Pannenberg[2]
will discuss this verse as a summary by Matthew of the message of Jesus. With
his call for conversion, Jesus continued the message of John, a message in line
with Hosea in 12:6 and 14:1-2. The prophet called the people of God to turn
again to its God. II Chronicles 24:19 understands prophecy in Israel as motivated
by calling people to conversion. Yet, all of us who have asserted our autonomy
against God and turned aside are in need of conversion to God if we are to
experience redemption from our falling into bondage to the power of death.
Therefore, Christian mission has taken to all nations this summons to turn or
convert to God. The reason they are to repent is that the kingdom of heaven is
near, which is precisely the summary Matthew gives of the preaching of John the
Baptist. It is possible that the school of St. Matthew had a strong influence
of believers of Jewish background wished to avoid an expression that involved
the divine name or even its direct pronoun, "God"; thus, the
circumlocution "heaven," unique to Matthew. Jesus' proclamation of
the nearness of the kingdom of heaven ("has come near" or "is at
hand," v. 17b) dominates much of his teaching, preaching and miraculous
ministry in the gospel of Matthew. (See, for example, chapters 5-7, 13, 18-20.)
Does this phrase refer to God's direct intervention in the future? Alternatively, did Jesus employ the phrase to
indicate something already present and of more elusive nature? The Jesus
Seminar concluded that Jesus conceived of God's rule as all around him but
difficult to discern. God was so real
for him that he did not distinguish God's present activity from any future
activity. He had a poetic sense of time
in which the future and the present merged. Their conclusion is that the
disciples already distorted the teaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom. Of
course, many Christians justly question the proposition the New Testament got
Jesus so fundamentally wrong.
Karl Barth[3]
refers to this passage in the context of his discussion that each person has
his or her time, but Jesus is the Lord of Time. The reign of God is at hand or
has drawn near. He had the same message as
that of the message of John the Baptist, and the same as the message of the
disciples in Luke 10:9, 11. It implies the irruption of the reign of God into
history is imminent. Yet, if we accept the translation “has come,” it is in
accord with the esoteric character of the pre-Easter history of the man Jesus,
being in line with the command to the disciples to tell no one that he is the
Messiah. His being Messiah is a secret Jesus until God has disclosed it. The
reign of God “has come” only when God has revealed it. Until then, people can
only pray for its coming, as Jesus taught them to do in the Lord’s Prayer. One
will still pray for it after the reign of God has been revealed. Yet, there is
a subtle notion of the presence of the reign of God. We see this in Matthew
12:28, where Jesus says that if he by the Spirit of God casts out devils, the
reign of God has come upon you. The question of John the Baptist as to whether
Jesus is the one for whom they have been looking receives the answer of the
healings and exorcisms, suggesting the reign of God is already present. The
salvation promised for the end is a present reality. Luke 17:21 puts all of
this beyond doubt: the reign of God is in your midst. In Matthew 13:16-17, this
generation is “blessed” because it has seen and heard Jesus, and Jesus says in
Matthew 11:12 that he beheld Satan falling.
Matthew 4:18-22 is a story about
Jesus involving the call of the disciples. The source is Mark. Thus, as Jesus
walks by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (Peter) and Andrew,
casting their nets into the sea. They were anglers. Jesus then gave them the
invitation to follow, and he would make them fish for people. We might note
that the image of fishing for people occurring in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 16:14-16
14 Therefore, the days
are surely coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, "As the
LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,"
15 but "As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the
land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them." For
I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their ancestors. 16 I
am now sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they shall catch them;
and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every
mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
The image refers specifically to
God's restoring the scattered Israelites to their land (albeit with punishing
recompense for their misdeeds). The image is far less benign than the more
common image of shepherding (even though the outcome for both types of animals,
hunted or husbanded, is ominous for the animal), and the imagery should not be
pressed too hard. Jesus intended the focus of his statement to be on the
dramatic difference between his disciples' old life as those consumed with
worldly pursuits, and their new life as his followers engaged in the supremely
important business of salvation. In other words, the important word in the
verse is the noun "people," not the verb "fish." They
immediately left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two
more brothers, James and John, sons of Zebedee, in the boat of their father.
They were mending their nets. Jesus called them, though we are not told what he
said to them. Since they were mending nets, could Jesus have called James and
John to mend people's lives?
Immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him. In a
Patriarchal society, it is unusual for a son to a leave the father like this.
The point for Matthew is not to trace the historical beginning of the Christian
community back to Jesus. Rather, the point is to show the impact Jesus had upon
the first followers. The exalted Lord is present in the actions of the earthly
Jesus, as Matthew portrays him. Many scholars consider this story “ideal,” in
that it shows true discipleship as hearing the invitation of Jesus and leaving
behind a former way of life in order to follow Jesus. The call to discipleship
is the initiative of Jesus. Simon and
Andrew renounce their belongings and follow Jesus with little psychological
preparation. This heightens the focus on
Jesus. The image of fishing for people
is one that “fits” only some of the disciples, for the disciples came from a
variety of professions. In what way does the episode have typical
significance? I Kings 19:19-21 is the
basis of the whole account.
I Kings 19:19-21
19 So he set out from
there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke
of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and
threw his mantle over him. 20 He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,
"Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you."
Then Elijah said to him, "Go back again; for what have I done to
you?" 21 He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and
slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and
gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and
became his servant.
One should note that following on the part of the disciples
does not distinguish them from the people who are sympathetic to Jesus, but the
people, by following, belong together with the disciples. These features try to
bring out the authority of the command and the completeness of obedience. The
story is "ideal" in that it embodies a truth in a metaphorical
situation. It condenses history into one
symbolic moment.
Karl Barth[4]
speculates that other callings must have occurred, given the number of
disciples, although only that of Levi is recounted. He stresses that the
calling of disciples stands in direct connection with the beginning of the
public proclamation by Jesus of the fulfilled time and the imminent rule of
God, and of his call to repent and believe. Yet, this calling always had the
purpose that Jesus needed witnesses who see and hear. They are to go along with
Christ on his way through Galilee and later to Jerusalem. They are to accompany
Christ, whether they understand or not. It suggests a commission to their
future speech and action. They attach themselves to him and tread on his heels.
Jesus noticed them, selecting them from among many, and thus deciding their
faith. Why should they follow? They will have to give up any further exercise
of their previous calling, with no respect to what they were doing. Christ is
the savior of people, and it is to people that they are called. Their calling
is to win people for Christ.
Matthew
4:23-25 contains a summary of the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus. The
source is Mark. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues
(indicating the community of Matthew is outside the synagogues in which Jesus
preached), proclaiming the good news of the kingdom (identified in Matthew 5-7),
and curing every disease sickness among the people (Matthew 8-9), a statement
we also find in 9:35, serving as a way of bracketing the material in between.
It is decisive for Matthew that all church proclamation is oriented on the
earthly Jesus and has no other content than his words and deeds. All this means that proclamation of the
kingdom and teaching about conduct that is desired by God cannot be separated
from the totality of the Gospel. The
Sermon on the Mount thus does not presuppose the gospel of the kingdom but is
this gospel. As Matthew continues, his
fame spread throughout Syria, the mention of which may mean that the community
of Matthew has its residence in Syria. They brought him the sick, those afflicted
with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics. He
cured them. Great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem,
Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
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