In the net

It’s strange how we read the Bible: we filter everything through our own world view, our own culture, our own life-setting.

Matthew 4:18-22 (The Mesasage)

“Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work. Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass." They didn't ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.

A short distance down the beach they came upon another pair of brothers, James and John, Zebedee's sons. These two were sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their fishnets. Jesus made the same offer to them, and they were just as quick to follow, abandoning boat and father.”

The kind of fishing envisioned in this text is net-fishing. Notice “throwing their nets into the lake” (v. 18), “dropped their nets” (v. 20), “mending their fishnets” (v. 21). Now, to be sure, the ancient world knew of line-fishing as well (cf. Matt 17:24-27). But that is not what was envisioned in the imagery of “fishing for men.”

The standard Greek lexicon speaks of the net as circular, having heavy weights around its perimeter. Fishermen would either stand on the shore and repeatedly cast their nets into the water, or drop their nets from a boat. In Matthew 4, the nets used were those tossed from the shoreline. The occupation of fisherman was rather labour-intensive.

The imagery of a fisherman involved much strain, long hours, and often little results. Jesus’ point may have been one or more of the following:

• the strenuousness of evangelism (unlike line-fishing, which is often caricatured as a means to get a good nap, net-fishing is very labour-intensive)

• the work ethic that it required more than a focus on the skill involved

• persistence and dedication to the task (often in spite of minimal results)

• the infinite value of the new “catch” (viz., people)

• perhaps an eschatological theme of snatching people from judgement. (If this last motif is in view, then catching people is the opposite of catching fish: the fish would be caught, killed, cooked, and eaten; people would be caught so as to remove them from the eternal flames of hell and to give them new life. The correspondence, in this instance, involves an implied antonym.

Now all of this is not to say that the Bible denies some of the imagery that line-fishing conjures up. After all, we are told that our words need to be seasoned with salt, so as to attract unbelievers to the truth and power and grace of the gospel (cf. Colossians 4:6; similarly, Matthew 5:13-16). Thus, the concept of using bait—something to attract people to the gospel—is a biblical concept. The question is whether it is taught in Matthew 4:18-22 and with the imagery fishing for men.