The Queen Mary, lying in repose in the harbor at Long Beach, California, is a fascinating museum of the past. Used both as a luxury liner in peacetime and a troop transport during the Second World War, its present status as a museum the length of three football fields affords a stunning contrast between the lifestyles appropriate in peace and war. On one side of a partition you see the dining room reconstructed to depict the peacetime table setting that was appropriate to the wealthy patrons of high culture for whom a dazzling array of knives and forks and spoons held no mysteries. On the other side of the partition the evidences of wartime austerities are in sharp contrast. One metal tray with indentations replaces fifteen plates and saucers. Bunks, not just double but eight tiers high, explain why the peacetime complement of 3000 gave way to 15,000 people on board in wartime. How repugnant to the peacetime masters this transformation must have been! To do it took a national emergency, of course. The survival of a nation depended upon it. The essence of the Great Commission today is that the survival of many millions of people depends on its fulfillment.
Ralph Winter

6 CATCHING MEN

6 CATCHING MEN F O O T ================================

  • H O L D

READING

6 CATCHING MEN!

PRAY Help me to hear your call to me, loving Father.

READ Mark 1:14-28.

THINK Is there a warning, a command or an example to note in this reading? —————————————————————— FOCUS The great moment had come – the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, was beginning his work in public. Where? In Galilee, an almost unknown backwater of the Roman Empire. When? Just after John the Baptist had been imprisoned by Herod for boldly declaring God’s truth. What was Jesus’ message (15)? Is it a message you need to hear or to share? THE FIRST FOLLOWERS (16-20). Jesus went for a walk on the beach and invited some fishermen to help him. They would have been brave and sturdy men, but Jesus was not needing brute force; and rough fishermen from Galilee would cut no ice in Jerusalem, let alone in Rome. ‘What did he say to them?’ ‘You will fish for men’! In other words, Jesus took them as they were with the skill they already had and promised to use them. ‘What is he teaching us?’ Anyone may serve him – we simply have to put what skills and abilities we have at his disposal, and be prepared for anything he wants for us and from us! THE FIRST CHALLENGE (21-28). Although he had faced Satan in the wilderness and overcome him, Jesus was not to be allowed to go on unchallenged. He preached in the Jewish meeting-house, and made a great impression. (Try to place yourself in this event – the crowd astonished at this unknown preacher with such a powerful message … the looks, the whispering, the discussion!) Satanic power was present, controlling this unfortunate man; but Jesus showed his authority. —————————————————————— PRAY Lord Jesus, may my belief in you be matched by my obedience to you. ==========