Andrew

Andrew was a native of Galilee, born in Bethsaida, which was twenty-five miles east of Nazareth, located on the northern shores of the sea. He was the first Apostle whom Y’Shua chose. He was the son of a woman named Joanna, and a fisherman name John, and had a brother called Simon who was later called Peter. Actually Andrew’s father’s name was not ‘John’ as we say the word today but ‘Jonah’, the same as the famous prophet. Jonah’s native village, Gath-Hepher, was near Nazareth. Jonah, the prophet, had been the most illustrious citizen ever to have lived near Nazareth. The name Jonah often applied in those days to those who followed the fishing trade. Another Jonah whom we call John the Apostle’ was also at first a fisherman.
Andrew thought more about matters of the soul than about fishing, for he left his fishing nets to follow John the Baptist. John was a man after his own heart; an outdoors man, rough, homely, who practiced the simple virtues and who lived the life of a man to whom the flesh mattered little and worldly acclaims even less. Andrew left John when he was imprisoned and attached himself to Y’Shua. At this stage Andrew was not yet a disciple of Y’Shua. He was merely a follower – that is, an interested onlooker who was willing to go along to observe. Finally he returned to Galilee and went back to his old task of fishing.
We have often heard Peter referred to as the big fisherman. That he was, but so was Andrew. We have often heard the words of Y’Shua to Peter quoted; “Follow Me and I will make you to become fishers of men.” But we must remember that these words were spoken to Andrew as well as to Peter, for they were invited to become fishers of men, a plural reference. Andrew merited this title even more than Peter. Peter became the fisherman of men en masse and Andrew was a fisher of individuals.
Now at last Andrew had been enrolled as a disciple of Y’Shua and for Andrew there followed approximately two and one half years of instruction. His name is listed as an Apostle in the book of the Acts. That is the last record we have of him in the N.T. Just when Andrew left Jerusalem is not known. Perhaps he went out as a missionary on his own accord, or perhaps he was driven out by the persecution which arose.
One recorded by Eusebius is that he went to Scythia, which is southern Russia, in the area around the Black Sea. Early Apocryphal works agree: “The acts of Andrew and Bartholomew gives an account of their mission among the Parthians.” According to the Martyrdom of Andrew he was stoned and crucified in Scythia. There according to tradition he was imprisoned, then crucified by order of the proconsul Aegeates, whose wife Maximilla had been separated from her husband by the preaching of Andrew. Supposedly Andrew was crucified on a cross which instead of being made like the one upon which Y’Shua died, was made in the form of an X. To this day that type of cross is known as Andrew’s Cross.
There is a third tradition about the ministry of Andrew which describes him as spending time in Ephesus, in Asia Minor, where John is supposed to have written his gospel in consequence of a revelation given to Andrew. These three traditions are mutually complementary that he went to Asia Minor to be with his old friend, John. Then he went beyond to Scythia. Returning to Asia Minor because it is the natural land-bridge between Russia and Greece. Andrew labored for a while in and around Ephesus and then finally went to Greece in his later years. There in the southern part of Greece, as tradition says, so angered the governor by winning his wife to faith in Y’Shua that the governor, in seeking revenge, caused this preacher of the Cross to die himself upon a cross in Patras. It was not at all unusual in the first century for noble people, especially the wives of nobles, to be converted to Belief. There is nothing in this tradition that is impossible or incredible.