Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 4-5.

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Today’s passage begins with Jesus being led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, where the devil offered Him temptations.  I often explore how those temptations represent the temptations which everyone who wishes to make the world a better place face.  Those temptations are trying to provide for people’s physical needs (specifically feeding them), trying to use political power to fix what is wrong, and finally, focusing on being entertaining to get people to listen to what you have to say.  Today, I am not going to expand on that.

Instead, I want to look at Peter’s reaction to Jesus when He first called him.  The passage hints that this is not the first time that Peter interacted with Jesus, which would explain why Jesus felt comfortable getting into Peter’s boat and asking him to put out a little from land so that Jesus could teach the crowd.  When Jesus told Peter to put down the nets, I think that Peter’s response contained several subtexts.  First, Peter was saying, “I’m tired, we spent all night fishing and have nothing to show for it, but fine I’ll do it for you.  It’s not going to do any good, but I’ll do it.”  He was also saying, “I’m an experienced fisherman and there just aren’t any fish here right now, but if you want a little show of directing a fishing crew I’ll go along with the charade.”  And I think Peter was saying, “Are you sure you want me to do that? There aren’t any fish here right now and you are going to be embarrassed when we pull the nets back in empty, but that’s your call.”  Nevertheless, Peter did as Jesus asked, not expecting anything to come of it.  When Peter saw what happened as a result of doing as Jesus asked, he realized the same thing John the Baptist knew when Jesus came to him to be baptized.  Peter realized that he was not worthy to be in the presence of Jesus.  Jesus did not tell Peter he was wrong.  He just told him not to be afraid, that He had a new purpose for Peter.  In the same way, we should do as Jesus asks, even when we are sure it will be fruitless.  God has a plan for us and He will bring fulfillment to our lives if we listen to Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.