We tend to think of Jesus walking up to complete strangers and saying, “Follow me,” and the men becoming his twelve disciples. But when we look at the story from all the gospels we get a slightly different picture.
Mathew tells us the Jesus walked up to Peter and his brother Andrew and said, “Follow me.” “And they immediately left the nets and followed him” (Mt 4:18). John says two disciples were with John the Baptist when they saw Jesus walking. When John the Baptist points out who Jesus is, these two disciples follow Jesus. Jesus invites them to come see where he was staying and they stay with him that night. One of those disciples was Andrew, Peter’s brother. Why the difference in the stories?
Most likely the Disciples heard Jesus teaching more than once. When their hearts were ready, Jesus said “Follow me” and they immediately did just that.
Jesus often speaks to us over a period of time until we are ready to follow him completely. We need to be patient with others while they are still in the process of becoming ready to obey Jesus’ call.
