Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Fishermen to fish for men (Luke 5:1-11)


Luke provides a slightly different account on how Jesus called Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, John and James.  Matthew 4 and Mark 1 both record that Jesus saw them fishing, called to them, and they followed.  This in further contrast to how they initially meet Jesus through John the Baptist, as recorded in John 1.  It could very well be that they had resumed fishing after the initial call.  This would not be out of character for them since it seems that they resumed fishing after the arrest of John the Baptist.

Jesus is preaching to a large crowd by the shores of the sea of Galilee.  He gets into the boat owned by Simon (Peter) and teaches the crowd from the boat.  After he is done speaking, he tells Peter to go further out and cast a net.  Simon Peter does this, but after saying that they were out all night trying to catch fish, but caught nothing.

Simon casts his net and the net becomes full of fish.  His partners, James and John bring their boat to help Simon.  Their boats become so full of fish that they begin to sink.  

Simon is astonished and Jesus says to follow him and they will become fishers of men.  At that point, they leave everything to follow Jesus.  So, it seems that prior to that, they were still working  very hard in their trade while also following Jesus.  They seemed to be leading two lives.  It is not that fishing was wrong, but Jesus wanted them to fully devote their time to him.

This miracle also shows to them that they can still fish with Jesus around, but that Jesus would make fishing a lot easier for them.  Likewise, I suspect that all the fish they caught may have been used to feed the crowd, but it is unstated.  We know that Jesus would feed the crowds later on, but giving away their fish would enable Simon and the disciples to literally fish for men at that very moment.

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