Jesus Calls His Disciples

Disciple whom Jesus loved finished his prologue and introduced the forerunner- John the Baptist to announce to people who Jesus is.

Okay- three. Remember ? Got it. John's counting.

You can tell John is writing to the whole church, not just Jews, even though he's a Jew himself.

Okay. Four. John is continuing counting, and I'll tell you now, he's counting to seven. Just wait for seven.

[[Explain significance of seven- weeks, completion. ]]

I want to move on real quick, but we'll come back to this.

The disciples knew who Jesus was. They just didn't understand his role as atonement lamb.

Explain amēn amēn lego humin.

Veil being torn. We don't need a place for heaven and earth to meet, because through Jesus, heaven can invade through us. You wonder why Matthew used the phrase "kingdom of God" over and over? Because we are at war! Not with flesh and blood, but with spiritual powers, and Jesus is now saying, at my death, I am purchasing creation from the one who made it fall. Reinforcements can come. The first assault can be made. And now, we live in between D-day and V-day. Jesus already stormed the beach.

Now, to come back to:

Jesus says, "come follow me." That's a big deal.

Bet Safar-

Age of 5 to 10

go to school to learn the Torah taught by a local torah teacher (rabbi).

Torah memorized by heart.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

Now, most kids weren't good enough to move on from Bet Safar, and so they would be dismissed to learning the family business or trade or learn how to manage a household.

But the best of best, continued.

Bet Talmud

Age 10-14

They would go on to memorize rest of Hebrew Scriptures. Genesis through Malachi!

At this point barely anyone gets through and makes it to the next level, but the best of best of best would continue at the age of 14 to Bet Midrash where they would continue to study and apply oral and written law from the Talmud, the Mishna, Sages, and years and years of commentary on the scriptures. And eventually, they would apply to become a Rabbi's disciple.

Now, each Rabbi would have their own interpretation of how to live out the Scriptures. For instance, Honor the Sabbath: One Rabbi might say that you can't go farther than the distance to the synagogue. While another might say you can't go twice the distance to the synagogue, because you have to return home. You see, you have the law itself and then the Rabbi's interpretation of the rules required to obey the law. The Rabbi's rules were called his yoke. When you studied under a Rabbi, you took his yoke upon you.

Rabbis differed in how they interpreted the Scriptures. Rabbi's yoke. Now the goal was to take the rabbi's yoke upon you to know what rabbi knows and do what rabbi does and be like rabbi.

So when a kid in Bet Midrash applied to a rabbi, the rabbi would quiz you about torah, prophets, poets, traditional teachings. And the Rabbi might say, "I know you love God, and your know your Scriptures, but you don't have what it takes to take my yoke upon you. Go and continue plying your family trade."

If this kid's got it, then the rabbi would say, "Come, follow me." And the kid would leave his family, his friends, his synagogue, and his village and devote life to being like rabbi. Learning to do what rabbi does. This is what it means to be disciple.

In the other gospels-Matthew, Mark, and Luke-, what are Peter and Andrew and James and John doing when Jesus calls them? Now when you think about it, it seems a little odd that people just followed Jesus on what looks like a whim, but when you keep in mind that Rabbis were the most honored, respected, revered people, and only the best of the best of the best get to be their disciples, of course you would drop your nets.

Unschooled, ordinary men... and Jesus tells them to "as they are going" make disciples. Jesus says, "I think you can do what I do." How? The Holy Spirit.

Remember, he says,

Now think about it, there's a powerful rabbi coming to town, and his disciples are doing everything they can to keep up with him, and they're following as closely as they can to him to hear every word that he speaks, and often they would follow him so closely, that they would get covered with the dust and the junk that was in the road that their rabbi stepped in and kicked up.

And so, there was a saying, "May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi." May you follow so closely to your rabbi that you get covered in the dirt that he kicks up. May we be filled with the Holy Spirit and be covered with the dust of our rabbi, Jesus.