The Call from Jesus
Repent and Believe in the Gospel
Jesus’ Call for Repentance
After Jesus’ temptation in the desert, he returns with the “power of the Spirit”(Luke 4:14) to begin his public ministry. His ministry starts after John the Baptist was arrested, and so we see the completion of his role and the entry of the Messiah. Jesus has now come and has taken on his new ministry. He proclaims that, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”1
The Disciples and the Synagogues
The first thing that strikes me is the immediate response of the first disciples.2 The finality of what they do (dropping their nets to follow him) is so dramatic and it makes me wonder what they saw in Jesus that made them do this. What compelled their hearts to obey the call without even knowing who this man was?
He also went into the synagogues and taught and was even glorified by the people in the synagogues around Galilee.3 (This of course takes a pretty dramatic turn in the following verses, when he arrives in his hometown, Nazareth. You can read about it in Luke 4:16-30.) But everywhere else that Jesus goes, he draws people to the good news.
Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God is the call to repentance. The two go hand in hand, because we cannot hear the gospel and believe without repentance.
Preparing Our Hearts
This is what it means to discover the pearl of great price—once you have found the true treasure, there is no other adequate response but to repent and believe, to drop everything and follow him.