The Kingdom Advances (Matthew 4:12-20)

Each of the three years of Jesus’ public ministry has been given a name. Year 1 is called The Year of Obscurity; year 2 is called The Year of Popularity; and Year 3 is called The Year of Increasing Opposition. Matthew passes over The Year of Obscurity, the details of which are recorded by John in the first four chapters of his Gospel. Matthew begins here with The Year of Popularity (as we can see with his description of great crowds following Jesus).

What happened in The Year of Obscurity? We read those details in John. He mentions how he, Andrew and Peter had met Jesus for the first time in Judaea. He also describes their return to Galilee and the way Jesus found Philip and Nathaniel. At that time, the miracle of turning water into wine occurred, and we can see from that incident that at that time Jesus did not want publicity. John then mentions a trip back to Judaea for a Passover, where he cleared the temple, met with Nicodemus and then spoke to the woman from Sychar on the way back to Galilee, which is where Matthew is in his Gospel here. So a year has passed between the forty days of temptation and the events described in this passage.      

Prophecy fulfilled

What is Matthew doing in this passage? First, he is explaining how a specific prophecy concerning Galilee and the Messiah was fulfilled. Matthew points out that two factors in providence caused it: one was the arrest of John the Baptist in Judea and the other was the decision by Jesus to move from Nazareth to Capernaum.

Second, he mentions the spiritual state of the inhabitants in Galilee. We can see that some changes had occurred in the makeup of the population in that there were now many Gentiles living in the area. Gentiles were excluded from the people of God unless they became proselytes in the Jewish faith. Moreover, the area was marked by darkness and death – the prophecy is not referring to literal darkness or death, but to spiritual blindness and separation from God.

To such people Jesus revealed himself as the light. We might have imagined that he would have made the headquarters for his campaign to be in Jerusalem. Instead, he chose Capernaum to have this privilege, which is one reason why a particular woe is later pronounced by him on this favoured city. In his ministry in Galilee, Jesus would reveal that he had come to deal with spiritual problems in the lives of sinners estranged from God.

We might imagine initially that having headquarters in Galilee was surprising. Yet Galilee was a prosperous and densely populated area of the country. Apparently, within Galilee, there were 204 towns with a population of more that 15,000 each. That is about four times the number that Scotland had in 2012. So we should not be surprised that large crowds listening to Jesus were common.

There is another detail regarding those places that we may not appreciate as we read it and that concerns the historical behaviour of the people in the areas mentioned. Because of their location, they were the tribes that succumbed to the pagan influences of their neighbours. Moreover, they were also the first of the Israelites to experience divine judgement through invading armies. So here was a prophecy that announced that God would yet show mercy to those who were unfaithful and who had experienced divine judgement.

Message of the King

How would we summarise the message that Jesus preached? Obviously, since he had not yet died on the cross and risen again from the dead, there would be some differences between what was preached by him and then later by the apostles. We can summarise the difference by saying that Jesus preached the kingdom had not yet begun whereas the apostles declared that the kingdom had arrived because Jesus had ascended to the throne of God in heaven.

Why does Matthew call it the kingdom of heaven whereas other gospels use the phrase kingdom of God? One answer that is made, and I am not aware of any other suggestion, is that Matthew, since he wrote initially for Jews, followed the Jewish custom of substituting the word ‘heaven’ for ‘God’. So we have here an example of taking on board cultural sensitivities in order to make it easier for others to grasp the gospel.

What is the kingdom of heaven in this context? It is the kingdom that was predicted in the Old Testament which would be set up when the Messiah came. The details of the kingdom were that it would be universal, that it would be undefeatable, that it would be unending, and composed of sinners devoted to God. Those details were described by using illustrations taken from the time in which the prophets lived, but their fulfilment would be far greater. For example, the place where the Messiah would reign from was said to be Jerusalem whereas we know from the New Testament that the actual place of his throne is the heavenly Jerusalem. The New Testament expands the picture given in the Old Testament.

The way of entering the kingdom is said to be repentance.

Chosen Agents

Matthew then records the occasion when four of Jesus’s disciples were called by him to give up their everyday work and follow him more fully. He had a particular role for them to fulfil and the path of preparation involved accompanying him as he travelled round the country preaching about the kingdom.

Jesus does something very unusual here. At that time, rabbis did not command people to follow them. Instead, it was the custom for individuals to decide to identify themselves with a particular teacher. The fact that he called the four disciples here shows that Jesus was conscious that he possessed authority. Their response also reveals that they recognised that Jesus was more than a rabbi.

It is likely that the four men were waiting for Jesus to call them. As mentioned earlier, they had been with Jesus during the Year of Obscurity and had learned a great deal during those months. Maybe Jesus had given them time to reflect on what they had seen and heard. It would have been impossible for them not to have done so. And since they respond immediately to this particular call we can deduce that they were eager to go.

The calling here stresses two details about this call. First, allegiance to Jesus comes before family ties. We this especially in the case of James and John because they had to leave their father. Second, allegiance to Jesus comes before their particular role in life (in their case, they were fishermen). Giving Jesus priority in those areas does not indicate that they should be indifferent to family or even to their tasks (we know that Peter fished on a couple of occasions later on).

The role that Jesus planned for them was to catch men in the gospel net. They would be equipped for this role by imitating Jesus – this was why they were to follow him. We should observe that Jesus guarantees that they will be able to do so. And we have examples of Peter doing this in the Book of Acts.