And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Mark 1:17-18) Bible Gateway.
One of the features of Mark’s gospel is the phrase ‘And immediately.’ Despite Mark’s brevity, his gospel contains more than 70% of the uses of this Greek Word in the New Testament (Source: Logos). He uses the same word so often that some translations decide not to translated it to avoid the constant repetition. The ESV is not one of those translations, so if you read Mark’s gospel you will come across this phrase very often!
Of course it is very probable that part of Mark’s reason for choosing this word so much is his own personality or style of interacting with others. As I have argued before it seems likely Mark was what Social Styles would call a ‘driver’.
But the fast pace is surely also there to make the point, especially in the verse in front of us today: If God commands, you better act quickly and follow!
In a sense the question: ‘Are you ready to obey him immediately?’ is a very short summary of the article I wrote a few days ago which defined the conditions required to receive guidance from God. ‘Will you obey him?‘ is another way of asking ‘Do you trust him and not yourself?‘
Each day we face maybe a thousand small choices. Sometimes we hear a voice telling us the way to go, just sense what is the right thing to do, or KNOW what is the right thing to do because the other choice is a sin. The question is, each time we face a choice like that, will we obey Jesus immediately or not?
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