Come and See

I have talked about God preparing a table before you. I have talked about how we should tell people to taste and see that God is good. Now isn’t it interesting that Jesus used this in calling his disciples?
In John chapter 1 we find that when Jesus was gaining disciples he used the method of not convincing them or not using long logical arguments on why he should be followed. Jesus merely gave his apostles the opportunity to make the decision to follow him. Let’s take a deeper look at this.
- Jesus said come and see because his followers already had a background in the faith. Two followers of John the Baptist had seen John the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God. These followers already knew about the Messiah and when they were pointed to Him by John the Baptist, they were ready to follow.
- They did not keep it for themselves! When Jesus told them to come and see, Andrew went for his brother. Peter met Jesus from his connection to his brother. If we are telling our community to come and see then we should definitely be telling those closest to us.
- Jesus’ disciple followed His example when Philip goes to his friend he tells him to come and See about Jesus.
- Lastly Jesus did change his method! Jesus did say come and see to some of his first disciples but when it came to Nathanael Jesus used a different method. Jesus could tell that Nathanael was the one with the least amount of faith in this first small group of disciples. Usually we think of Thomas being a doubter but really Nathanael is a strong skeptic. Nathanael was the one who said “Can anything good come from Nazareth!” In this case Jesus did not say come and see. Jesus actually spoke to Nathanael first and affirmed him on his character and then went into more detail of what his ministry is about. “You will see heaven open” !
I think from this we can see that Jesus had a strong method to gaining followers but it was not cookie cutter. Jesus was able to be flexible according to the person he was dealing with. We should be the same way. Many are out there seeing the blessings that God is giving us and are beginning to gain a hunger or curiosity on what we stand for. We should be willing to tell these people to Come and see