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MARK 1:17 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Mark 1:16Mark 1:18
“And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”
Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people — the call is simultaneously an invitation (come, follow me) and a commissioning promise (I will make you). The fishing metaphor connects their existing vocation to their coming one, communicating continuity rather than rupture. The same skills of attention, patience, and judgment that make good fishermen will be reoriented toward gathering people for the kingdom. The promise I will make you places the transformation as Jesus' work, not their own — he will make them what they cannot make themselves. The call requires no prior qualification, no previous religious achievement: it is an unconditional summons that creates what it calls.

Church Fathers on Mark 1:17

As the Evangelist John relates, Peter and Andrew were disciples of the Forerunner, but seeing that John had borne witness to Jesus, they joined themselves to him; afterwards, grieving that John had been cast into prison, they returned to their trade.

Theophylact · 11th century

Now fishers and unlettered men are sent to preach, that the faith of believers might be thought to lie in the power of God, not in eloquence or in learning. It goes on to say, 'and immediately they left their nets, and followed Him.'

Bede · 8th century · in Marc., 1, 6

Further, we are mystically carried away to heaven, like Elias, by this chariot, drawn by these fishers, as by four horses. On these four corner-stones the first Church is built; in these, as in the four Hebrew letters, we acknowledge the tetragrammation, the name of the Lord, we who are commanded, after their example, to 'hear' the voice of the Lord, and 'to forget' the 'people' of wickedness, and 'the house of our fathers' ' [Ps 45:10] conversation, which is folly before…

Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century
Read all 6 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Mark 1:17 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy