I love the Gospel of Mark! As I’m learning Mark’s practice of the ancient Hebrew biblical authors’ ways of creative word and theme linking to stack layers of fresh meaning into well-worn texts, I’m discovering how no passage in Mark is impersonal. King Herod held a feast for his nobles on his birthday. No relevance to my faith journey, right? Wrong. What appears to be a simply a historical factoid is filled with eternal life anchored to Jesus Christ. Now, these events really did happen as Mark describes. But by crafting them the way he did as to superimpose Old Testament scenes he has colored them with iridescent rainbow hues lighting the way for me into a deeper experiential knowledge of God. It lifts me from viewing Bible verses as simply a black and white history lesson about other people into a present face to face encounter with God and His kingdom being offered to me if I trust Him to do it for me.
Today I won’t be diving into how King Herod’s birthday has spiritual relevance to us all, but rather the iconic of the call of Peter and Andrew to follow Jesus. It’s amazing to see how much Mark, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, packs so much good news insight into an economy of words.
“Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen” (Mark 1:16 ESV).
I’ve heard others use this as an example that Jesus does not call lazy people into the ministry. You always see them at work, whether Peter at his fishing nets, Matthew at his tax booth, or Elisha plowing with his oxen. Although there may be some truth to that, the virtue of industriousness is not what Mark has in mind here. “Casting a net” is a one of a kind word in the New Testament: amphiballontas (am-fuh-bal’-lon-tos, ἀμφιβάλλοντας). The base word amphiballō (am-fuh-bal’-loh) also only once appears in the Septuagint. It’s a hand-picked word that I call a gold anchor, an indicator of the highest possible intentionality on Mark’s part for this scene being anchored to an Old Testament text. As an aside, Strong’s incorrectly identified this word as ballō (to throw). Although ballō does comprise it, its “amphi” prefix adds vividness: to throw or cast round about. My go to tool, the Blue Letter Bible app, is hardcoded to Strong’s so it mirrors the same mistake. Fortunately, my Septuagint concordance showed a link to Habakkuk, famous for its saying, “the just shall live by faith.”
“Therefore will he cast [amphibalei (ἀμφιβαλεῖ)] his net, and will not spare to slay the nations continually” (Hab 1:17 Brenton English Septuagint [BES]).
This verse concludes a complaint the prophet Habakkuk had voiced to Yahweh about unjust nations ravaging peoples of the earth. Habakkuk 1:14-16 in the ESV says,
“You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.”
What’s cool about Mark’s linking here is that he wants us to gaze through Jesus’ eyes that see not as man sees. To the naked eye, Peter and his brother Andrew are casting their nets. And that is what they were doing right then and there. But God sees the inner recesses of the hearts of men; they are laid bare before him. God is zealous for our hearts. What Jesus sees in Peter’s and Andrew’s hearts is what appalled Habakkuk’s tender conscience. That which animates the injustice of nations on a grand scale is animating these Galilean fishermen in miniature. Mark carefully develops this theme as his gospel unwinds, especially featuring Peter as its poster child. This becomes more clear by examining the contrasting link in the verse immediately following:
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men’” (Mark 1:17).
The Greek language has another word for fishermen, amphiboleos, that derives from amphiballō, but Mark set that one aside for halieus (hal-ee-yoos’, ἁλιεύς), which has an amazingly insightful link to Jeremiah 16:16 (BES):
“Behold, I will send many fishers [halieus], saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send many hunters, and they shall hunt them upon every mountain, and upon every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”
Halieus only shows up four times in the Septuagint, and it’s obvious from our “fishers of men” context that Mark has this one in mind (although Ezekiel 47:10 overlaps with this redemptive theme).
Now, Mark did use halieus in the previous verse where amphiballō is referenced. Amphiballō supplies a context there in which halieus is negative—fishers of men that catch people to exploit them for living a luxurious lifestyle. Jesus flips halieus upside down when He says, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Following Jesus transfigures our fishers of men abusive relations with the world into those He’d originally intended. So in a way, we’re all fishers of men to varying degrees of influence. Just what kind of fishers are we?
Jeremiah’s context is the new exodus that God had promised:
“Therefore behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their own land which I gave to their fathers (Jer 16:14-15 LSB).
Yahweh’s new exodus doesn’t involve Moses’ staff, dry ground, and walls of water. This new exodus is performed by fishers of men who will use nets of good news proclamations to gather them for Yahweh. That’s the story of the Book of Acts. Habakkuk’s fishers of men used mankind to satisfy their own lusts. Somehow Jesus must transform Peter’s and Andrew’s hearts—and ours—from being corrupt fishers of men into redemptive fishers of men who practice justice and righteousness to His heart’s delight, a new wine as we’ll soon see.
Peter, in this first chapter of Mark, is portrayed as a hunter-beast. The full development of this could be its own blog, but in brief, here we go. Mark chapter 1 has two wilderness scenes at the front (1:4-11 & 1:12-13) and two wilderness scenes at the back (1:35-38 & 1:45). These wilderness vignettes are paired up as a chiasm so that 1:12-13 and 1:35-38 line up with each other. Verse 1:13 says, “And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.” Matching this up with its corresponding wilderness scene, we observe a new set of temptations and “wild animals”:
And Simon [Peter] and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out” (Mark 1:36-38).
Satan staged the first temptation; Peter and the others staged the second one. They tempted Jesus to deviate from His why for coming out. Mark could have used the common word for search, zēteō (dzay-teh’-oh), but instead he opted for a unique one, katadiōkō (kat-ad-ee-oh’-koh), only here in the New Testament. Kenneth Wuest explains, “The prefixed preposition kata has the local meaning of ‘down,’ and the perfective force of ‘down to the finish.’ ‘They hunted Him out,’ or ‘They tracked Him down.’” (Kenneth Wuest, Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament for the English Reader: Mark in the New Testament, Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1973, p. 39). Katadiōkō is more common in the Septuagint, often used in searching in the sense of hunting, like one army hunting down another. It contains the idea of capturing the one being sought. Peter is the wild beast! He, along with the other predators, were hunting Jesus as prey. They, like the fishers Habakkuk complained about, wanted to use Jesus as a means to an end.
Back to the Jeremiah passage, we see in contrast to the bestial wild fisher and hunter that Peter starts off as, the redemptive fishers and hunters that Jesus desires:
“Behold, I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send many hunters, and they shall hunt them upon every mountain, and upon every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.”
Now watch how this blessed transformation from beast to beauty will happen, all wrapped up in the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice. Here’s a passage we’re all probably very familiar with:
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:23-25).
Let’s dig into that word “fruit.” It’s not the typical word for fruit: karpos (kar-pos’). Rather, it’s the very rare word gennēma (ghen’-nay-mah, γέννημα), only here in Mark, which both Matthew and Luke also employ only once in this same saying. It links to its one and only usage in the Septuagint here:
“And Judas went to the Chananite who dwelt in Chebron; and Chebron came out against him; [and the name of Chebron before was Cariatharbocsepher:] and they smote Sessi, and Achiman, and Tholmi, children [gennēma] of Enac” (Judges 1:10 BES).
Here’s how it reads in modern English (ESV):
“And Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba), and they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.”
You’ll notice that “children of Enac [Anak]” is missing. That’s right. That little phrase “children of Anak” is not in the original Hebrew manuscript. The translator of the Septuagint borrowed that from Numbers 13:22 and Joshua 15:14, probably to help the reader. Using my sanctified imagination, I envision the Spirit animating the translator to put that in, loosing it from Numbers 13:22 like a tied-up donkey, for the Lord had need of it. What this did was set up a gold anchor for Mark’s “fruit of the vine.” Having followed Mark with these golden anchors now for a while, this is very intentional. It superimposes this Judges scene upon Jesus’ words to give further insight into God’s mind on what the cup means.
So the fruit of the vine is placed alongside the fruit (children) of Anak. Anak’s three sons were giants like Goliath, a primary fear factor that contributed to the Israelites being barred entry to the Promised Land for forty years. What are we to draw from this comparison? Well, these Canaanite giants were the same exploiters of their fellow man as the unjust nations in Habakkuk’s time and the fishers that Peter and Andrew were. Mark is pointing to a spiritual reality here in Judges that receives a fuller understanding connected to Jesus’ blood being poured out, His death. This Judges passage is also speaking of death, the death (defeat) of the sons of Anak. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has come to defeat, put to death, the fruit of Anak once and for all within the new covenant children of God.
Like Jesus’ food was about doing the Father’s will (Jn 4:34), so Jesus drinking from the fruit of the vine is more than sipping a beverage. The blood of the covenant slew the fruit of Anak in Peter, Andrew, and the rest of the disciples. And you. And me. Because of the blood, it cleanses the fruit of Anak, those rogue and rebelling Canaanites, in us. This is the fruit of the vine that Jesus longed to drink new in the kingdom of God. Now Peter could be the fisher of men that Jesus desired. This is the “new wine, which makes God and men glad” (Judges 9:13 LSB).
In my over thirty years of following my Shepherd Jesus, He has handed over a lot of enemies, metaphorically speaking. It has taken me 28 years of marriage to finally cry uncle and be thoroughly convinced that I don’t have what it takes to be a husband. Years of sowing passivity and conflict avoidance have reaped the whirlwind. I have adapted to living with rot and decay and death with my wife. But God in His mercy turned the lights on in the room and I see with unprecedented clarity now these giants of my passivity and conflict avoidance, my companions since my childhood days. It’s impossible for me to win against these deeply entrenched foes. But with God all things are possible! I am freshly aware of the blood that Jesus shed for me to bring the victory over these enemies within and gradually transform tomb-life in my marriage into Eden gardens that God desires for my wife and me. Definitely a work in progress, but in my Savior I have hope for permanent change.
This was such a wonderful find! Thank You, Holy Spirit! Here’s yet another aspect of Jesus’ blood I hadn’t considered with these nuances. I’ve sung many times, “There is power, power, wonder working power / In the blood of the Lamb.” But this angle has opened a faith corridor to expect the blood of this everlasting covenant to welcome that power to utterly defeat the fruit of Anak in me. My immersion in Mark has brought a fresh awareness of what fiery zeal God has for my heart to be pure and honest towards Him. He doesn’t want me clinging to any of the old ways of Anak, throwing my words around to net others for my own selfish advancements or lusts. It is a thrilling ride of faith. When I hear the blood mentioned now, it has sparked new adventuring in the Spirit searching me and lifting me up to be what a true fisher of men is all about—bringing others to experience God, starting with my closest neighbor, my wife, to the ends of the earth.
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 