Go Deeper
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- Dr Eliezer Gonzalez
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Sep 30, 2014 7061
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” – Luke 5:4
Simon Peter had been working hard all night – the best time for fishing – but hadn’t caught anything. He knew the best times for fishing, and he knew the best spots. So that was that.
But when Jesus says to him in the middle of the day, “Go deeper, and let your nets down there,” Peter says, “OK, Jesus, I’ll do it; not because it makes sense to me, but just because you say so.”
And when he did what Jesus asked and went deeper, he caught so many fish that he couldn’t pull the nets in, and he had to call his friends from another boat to come and help him. The two boats were so heavy with fish that they began to sink!
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Father, if there is any other way, let be do that; let me go there!” But the Father said to Jesus, “My Son, go deeper.” And Christ went deep at the cross, and went deeper still into the place of death. And that Sunday morning brought the greatest harvest ever – life for all!
God never blesses us in shallow places. Often we think we’ve seen it all; we think we know it all. But Jesus says to us, “My child, go deeper.” He wants us to go to the place of blessing. Often it’s an unexpected place – a place that we’ve avoided. Often we need need to go deeper than we’ve ever been before.
We have to be ready to do just what he says. Because it is often just when we think that we are so deep that we are in over our heads, that God’s greatest blessings are to be found.
Eliezer Gonzalez
gary
Dec 29, 2017
I am currently reviewing NT scholar Raymond Brown's masterpiece, "The Death of the Messiah". Brown brings up many interesting points. Here is one of them: Why is Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke so different from the prayer described in Mark? Jesus was allegedly all alone, so why the two very different versions of the same event? I welcome any input from Christian apologists. https://goodnewsunlimited.com//lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/nt-scholar-raymond-brown-why-is-jesus-anguished-regarding-his-impending-death-in-mark-but-not-in-luke/
Eliezer Gonzalez
Dec 31, 2017
Hello Gary – That's an interesting one. I haven't read the book, however I don't see the accounts of Jesus' prayer in Luke and Mark as being at all different. It seems to me that the idea of them being "irreconcilable" is simply a sensationalist "beat-up." Both say very similar things. Despite this, it was a long night in Gethsemane. Jesus spent a long time in prayer. The Gospel writers choose what they want to emphasise for the purposes of their accounts, and in terms of the recollections of their sources. By way of general context, neither Mark not Luke were eye-witnesses. Only Peter, James and John were present. Mark is believed to have written his Gospel based on Peter's recollections. – Eliezer Gonzalez