John 1 has two stories of
Jesus gaining the disciples that were to become his apostles, but three stories
about member missionary work and I don’t know that we usually look at them this
way.
35 ¶Again
the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;
36 And
looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
37 And
the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
38 Then
Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They
said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where
dwellest thou?
39 He
saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with
him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.
40 One of
the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s
brother.
41 He
first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the
Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.
42 And he
brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the
son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
43 ¶The
day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith
unto him, Follow me.
44 Now
Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
45 Philip
findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the
law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
46 And
Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip
saith unto him, Come and see.
47 Jesus
saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in
whom is no guile!
48 Nathanael
saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him,
Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
49 Nathanael
answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King
of Israel.
50 Jesus
answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig
tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.
51 And he
saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven
open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. (John
1:35-51)
I like these verses because
they show how witness and invitation really work upon those prepared to accept
Jesus as Savior.
In the first one, John’s
disciples hear his witness that Jesus was the Lamb of God, and they immediately
began following Jesus. This shows
how the witness of a prophet is effective on those who are honest of heart and
believing.
One of those two converted
in the first story (Andrew) went and found his brother Simon Peter and told
him, “We have found the Messiah!” and brought him to Jesus. This shows how the excitement of
finding brings converts to share with their family the significance of what
they have found. And Andrew brings
Simon to meet Jesus, just as we are asked to take our friends and family by the
hand and lead them to Jesus.
In the third story, Jesus
found Philip and invited him to follow and Philip believed. Then Philip went to Nathanael and told
him, “We’ve found the one Moses and the prophets wrote of!” That shows us that they must have
had a fair amount of discussion about the scriptures and prophecy of the
Messiah and thought about how to recognize Him. It also shows us it is possible to identify Jesus as Christ
through the scriptures as He fulfilled what was predicted. Nathanael was a little skeptical about
Jesus’ origins from Nazareth, but he was still willing to come and see for
himself what Jesus was like, and he believed pretty quickly.
We can see that pattern of
people sharing their excitement of their new discovery, but what about those of
us who have been members of the church for a long time?
I think what both John and
Jesus do is a good pattern for long-time members. First, when John saw Jesus walking by, he pointed him out to
his disciples and testified of him.
That is something we long-time members can do. For instance, if we were driving with coworkers to lunch and
passed one of our church buildings, we could point out the building, identify
it as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, say we belong to it, and
share that it is the true church of Christ. As another example, we do this when we identify for children
when they are feeling the Spirit or when mentioning the need to pray in
the middle of trouble. This
pattern is about taking advantage of circumstances to testify of related truths
in a short, simple way.
Second, what Jesus does is
another part of this pattern that we long-time members can do. Jesus asked, “What seek ye?” and also
invited a man asking about him to “Come and see.” We can ask people what they are looking for spiritually and
we can invite them to come to church to see what happens there, to see if it is
what they are looking for.
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