Why is the order of Jesus' calling His disciples different in some of the gospels?

This is not Matthew's point. There it is the rejected Messiah, now that His forerunner is cast into prison, who will Himself soon find that there is worse than a prison in store for him. But for all that, the Lord will accomplish the prophecies. He is, in the most despised place, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah that predicted the law bound up among His disciples at the very time that the Lord was hiding His face from Israel. Now He wants to have persons who are suited to be the representatives of this godly remnant in Israel. Therefore He calls first two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother. It would be a mistake to suppose that this was our Lord's first acquaintance with them. They knew the Lord long before. How do we know this? John tells us. If you examine the point, you will find that all the incidents in the first four chapters of John's Gospel occurred before this scene. The circumstances recorded of our Lord in Jerusalem, in Galilee, and with the woman of Samaria even, all took place before Simon and Andrew were called away from their work. In order to call for a special line of service, there is a second work of Christ necessary.

The Holy Spirit transposes the call of Peter and his companions to a later place than the historical order adhered to by Matthew and Mark, which fell in with His design in their Gospels. But it suited His work by Luke to give previously the Lord's preaching in the synagogues of Galilee, His striking procedure in Nazareth on the sabbath day, His deliverance of the demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum, His healing of Peter's mother-in-law with many more, and His preaching in Galilee. He Who arranged the task for each evangelist knew all the truth, which judges every man, and can be judged by none save at his peril.

And further — I must observe that this Gospel, in full consistency with its general character, gives us, in these verses, what I may term the personal call of Andrew and Peter — while Matthew, not noticing this, gives us their official call. But this is in beautiful order with the mind of the Spirit in the two evangelists; with such thankfulness and delight should we mark the perfection of the divine testimonies. Matt. 4:18-20.

There is no discrepancy between what John relates, John 1:35-42, respecting Andrew and Simon following Jesus at Jordan, and the account given by the other evangelists of their being called at the sea of Galilee. John describes the first interview which those two disciples had with Jesus, but says nothing regarding their subsequent call at the sea of Galilee. That Andrew and Simon, after this interview with Jesus, returned to their occupation as fishermen, is very evident from Luke's narrative, Luke 5:1-11.

The omission or insertion of particular points in one or more Gospels, not in the rest, is due to the same cause. For example, the first dawning of the true light on the hearts of Andrew, John, Peter, etc., is given nowhere but in John 1. "He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out" (John 10:3). On the other hand, not John, but the other Evangelists, show us their official summons to follow Christ and become fishers of men; but of these Luke only (Luke 5) furnishes, and this out of its actual date, the details of the miraculous draught of fishes which the Lord caused to act with such searching power on the soul of Peter, as well as on his partners. Otherwise the succession of events in Luke coalesces with that of Mark, save that the former alone opens with the scene in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 9:16-27), which so livingly portrayed the intervention of Divine goodness, Jesus anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power; and, on His rejection by His own people, the overflowing of grace to the Gentiles. Matthew here (Matt. 4:23-25) has no details, but dwells on His preaching and miracles throughout all Galilee, and its widespread fame and effects; after which broad outline follows the Sermon on the Mount, transplanted from its place as to date, so as to give at the outset a fuller exposition of the principles of the kingdom. Mark has not the sermon; his task was not to unfold the character of the kingdom of heaven in contradistinction to the law (as the prophet like unto and greater than Moses does in Matthew), but to recount the works and Gospel ministry of the Lord. Its place, if it had been inserted there, would have been, I believe, in the middle of chapter 3. Thus, the comparison of the chronological line of things in Mark, as being, so to speak, a fixed scale, greatly facilitates our perception of the displacements in Matthew or Luke and our consideration of the Divine wisdom which, in either case, so ordered their accounts.

It will be remarked that the account of the call of Simon and of the rest of his companions, at the Lake of Gennesaret, is given not only more fully in Luke than in any other Evangelist, but in a totally different connection. In Matthew and Mark we find it mentioned immediately after our Lord began to preach, when John was reported to be put into prison. The first thing named then is when Jesus was "walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, cast a net into the sea, for they were fishers; and He said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." Both in Matthew 4 and in Mark 1 the account is given in general terms. We have far more detail in Luke. Is this an accident? Contrariwise, it is the fruit of a gracious design of God. Luke had the task confided to him more than any other of bringing out God's grace toward man and in man. Along with this he had also to lay bare the working of man's conscience and heart, especially under the operation of the Spirit of God.

The Lord now begins to gather round Himself (chap 5). In Matthew, this gathering round Himself is brought in immediately He appears as the Light in Galilee, according to promise, preaching the kingdom; and then He goes round everywhere; and, when crowds follow Him, explains the character suited to the kingdom. Here, His mission and power as Son of man on the earth being shewn, He, though retiring from view, begins then to gather to Himself. It will be remarked, that we have a much fuller development of the way in which the disciples are called to follow Him in Luke. Simon hears the word in his ship. Christ works a miracle which reveals His person; the effect is just and deep conviction of sin in connection with that person. Then they leave all and follow Him. It is, I apprehend, Luke who changes the place of this. In that which immediately follows, he takes the same order as Mark. In Matthew we have the whole of this arranged according to subjects.

Compare Luke 5 and Mark 1. It is to be remarked that Jesus, having left Nazareth, came to dwell at Capernaum, and the four disciples already knew Him from John's baptism and heeded His word. The Lord's walking by the sea was no unusual thing. It is also to be remarked that in Mark the call is before His going into the synagogue, and healing Simon's wife's mother - in Luke, the miraculous draught is after, though, in general, they have the same order of events. The circumstances are quite different. In Luke, the Lord was sitting in the ship after teaching the multitude out of it. Matthew's and Mark's object, and the Holy Ghost's there, was only to give the broad fact itself, that the four disciples left their business of fishing at that time, and followed Jesus in His labour and ministry, which He began at that time formally in Capernaum. I suppose then that Jesus, dwelling at that time at Capernaum, walked by the seaside when they were actually fishing, two of them, the others mending their nets, and that He called them, and they left their nets and followed Him. After this, He went into the synagogue and taught, cast out the demon, went into Simon's house and healed his mother. After this, very likely when He had been preaching some time about Galilee, the multitude were pressing on Him to hear the Word, and He entered into Simon's ship, and told him to thrust out from the shore, and then happened what is related in Luke, and they finally and wholly left all, and wholly attached themselves to Him in His ministry, and did nothing else. In Luke, the account is after preaching in other towns around.

As already said, the Evangelists are not giving us so much a consecutive, chronological narrative, as selecting certain features in our Lord's life which illustrate the special themes of their Gospels. Luke, probably more than the others, gives what we may call the moral, rather than the chronological order. Events are grouped together by him, not in the sequence in which they occur — sometimes indeed being separated by quite a length of time — but according to their bearing upon some feature of our Lord's character to which the Spirit of God would call our attention. Instances of this will be given as we take up each Evangelist. We refer only to the general subject here.

Bearing this characteristic in mind it will be admitted to be impossible, under such stringent restriction, that the whole of the minor details necessary to a complete picture of a given incident should be recorded. A selection must be made, subject, of course, to the purpose of the narrative; and the briefer the allotted space the more extensive the exclusion must become. Thus each Evangelist in his selection (under the superintend ence of the Holy Spirit) was governed by the special object before him, and not by the details recorded by his fellow-evangelists, with whose compilation he may or may not have been familiar. In other words, each writer was, in this sense, independent.