COMMENTS
I’ve been
thinking about Jesus’ apostle Andrew a lot lately. As the title above implies, my “Andrew”
thoughts have been—shall we say—unusual.
If you’ve read many of my posts, you know that sometimes I think weird
thoughts. Some of that can be attributed
to the fact that I’m a bit weird, but God likes “weird” and can actually use it
to His glory. Isn’t that cool?
NOTES
Background: When I was growing up, I often felt left
out. I’m sure some of those feeling-left-out
times were brought on by my own insecurities and were not the intention of the
people I thought were “slighting” me. Understanding
that about me will, I hope, help you follow my thought processes as I
considered Andrew. Here goes….
I’m not really
sure exactly why Andrew came to my mind a few weeks ago. To my memory, no one had mentioned him to me;
but for whatever reason I just got to thinking about Andrew. I thought about how he and his brother Simon
Peter were fishermen with James and John.
I thought about how, according to John 1, Andrew was the first of those
four to meet Jesus and how he actually introduced Simon Peter to Jesus. Those four—Andrew, Peter, James, and John—are
mentioned together frequently in the gospels.
That’s where
my thoughts went wild. As I thought
about how often those four names were linked, I remembered the times that Jesus
took just Peter, James, and John with him.
It was Peter, James, and John who were with Jesus on the Mount of
Transfiguration. It was Peter, James,
and John who went with Jesus when He healed Jairus’ daughter. And although all the disciples were with Him
in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was only Peter, James, and John whom He took
with Him to pray that His Father would “take this cup” from Him and as He
surrendered to God’s will.
Who was
obviously left out? Andrew. Like me in my youth, he could have felt
slighted or mistreated or ignored. He
could have thought, “How dare He?! I was
the one who told them about Jesus to be begin with!” But there’s no indication of that in
Scripture. It appears that Andrew
recognized his role and fully accepted it.
I don’t believe he was jealous of Peter, James, or John or that he
resented Jesus for taking only them on those special occasions. I believe He was thankful to be one of Jesus’
followers and to have a role—any role—in His ministry.
Why do I
think that? Read John 12:20-22:
“Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to
worship at the festival. They came to
Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we would like to see
Jesus.’ Philip went to tell Andrew;
Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.”
To whom did
Philip take their request to see Jesus?
Andrew. Andrew was obviously
respected and had some degree of authority among the disciples. If Andrew had chosen to pout and complain
about not being included with his brother and their close friends, he would
have become ineffective and, to be honest, an annoyance to everyone. Instead, we see a man the other disciples
turn to for wisdom and help. And in
every listing of the twelve apostles, Andrew is in the top four. I’d take that.
Do you ever
feel slighted, left out, or ignored? Which
approach will you choose? Will you take
offense because you aren’t in the “inner circle”? Or will you be grateful that Jesus has chosen
you and that He has something for you to do?
Your choice will determine how useful you are in His Kingdom.
