Beyond Fishing

Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11)

Why did John specifically mention this detail that the net was not torn? And why was it important to include the exact number of fish that they caught?

Likely it will be impossible to know the full answer to these questions until we have opportunity to ask John or Peter personally. But since these details were included in the Word I strongly suspect God does have blessings and insights for anyone caring to go deeper. So I want to look deeper into it myself.

I began thinking about connections to other references in the Bible related to nets and the first one I thought of was near the beginning of Jesus' ministry when He called these very disciples to follow Him. When I went and checked out those stories I found some interesting clues.

Jesus was walking along the shore one day and came across two sets of brothers who were all fishermen. The first set was Peter and Andrew. These two were in the process of casting their nets into the water in the very act of fishing. After calling them to follow Him with the promise of teaching them to fish for men instead of fish, He went on down the beach and came across John and James.

Interestingly this second set of brothers were not actively fishing but rather were mending their nets in the boat with their father. Upon calling them to follow Him it says they immediately left the boat and their father to follow Him.

All sorts of possibilities exist just within this short account of the background of these men. Whether they are provable is not quite so important as to what the Spirit might share with those who have ears to listen. Other places mention that James and John were known as Sons of Thunder, a rather colorful nickname likely related to their quick tempers and violent reactions under provocation. In the fishing business there were probably plenty of opportunities to be triggered which might explain why their father had them so close to him, to keep an eye on them and try to keep them out of as much trouble as possible.

Was there competition between these two groups of fishermen? I can't imagine there wasn't. Commercial fishing can be a very rough and tumble business even today, especially when fish start to be sparse or the compensation is not good. Times were harsh for the working people of that day and the social dynamics were not exactly very fair. The religious/political elite generally owned most of the land and controlled most of the commerce of the country which made for plenty of potential for hard feelings. Exploitation was common among the rich and powerful as well as by the Roman occupying forces who would not hesitate to resort to violence to squelch any hint of insurrection.

I find it interesting that Peter and his brother were fishing in the daytime when Jesus encountered them. I also recall that this was not the first time these men are mentioned in the story of Jesus. Andrew and John seem to have been involved very early around the time of Jesus' baptism when others were being invited to join them including Peter. It seems that Andrew and John may have been disciples of John the Baptist which is how they came to follow Jesus when the Baptist pointed Him out as the Messiah.

But evidently they had not become full-time disciples yet; maybe they were more like groupies. They started hanging around Jesus in their spare time when they were not required to work in the family business. But when Jesus looked them up on their jobs and called them to follow Him full-time, for whatever reasons they seemed more than ready to dump their old occupation and join Him in this new adventure curiously called 'fishing for men.' I wonder how that went over with their families.

Other implications come to mind from these details. Was the equipment in the business of John and James so inferior to that of Peter and Andrew that they had to spend extra time mending their nets? That is impossible to know from the text, but it is something to consider. I also wonder why Peter and Andrew were fishing in broad daylight when later it seems they preferred to fish at night. Had hard times becoming so pressing that they were forced to work extra hours to squeak out an existence for themselves? And given the competitive atmosphere that surrounded this occupation, I wonder just how much latitude these two sets of brothers gave each other. Maybe they had a good relationship but they could have had their times of sharp exchanges.

I find it interesting that it was one out of each set of brothers that were originally disciples of John the Baptist and that their other brothers joined after them. Peter, originally Simon, was almost immediately invited to become a disciple of Jesus when his brother Andrew (the compulsive inviter) asked him to come join the growing team. As soon as Jesus met Simon the very first time He gave Him the nickname Peter, for evidently up to that time he had only been known by the name Simon. Peter means something like 'a rolling stone,' but given that Jesus had early insight into Simon's character He gave him this nickname by which most people know him today.

I have found it quite informative to pay attention to which of these names Jesus used on various occasions, for the name with which He addressed Simon Peter very often if not always had significance related to the circumstances as well as to the attitude of Peter at the time. Like many names throughout the Bible, particularly contrasting ones like Jacob and Israel, which both apply to the same person, the context in which the names are used and the meanings of the names carry important inferences and give insights to the surrounding text and the message being presented.

In Luke 5 I notice that the story begins by consistently calling him Simon only. But when he falls in amazement at the feet of Jesus after coming to see that this is no ordinary man, he is then referred to as Simon Peter. Similar clues can be found by looking at many other encounters between Jesus and Simon Peter where the name Jesus chooses to use for him is highly significant as to what is going on at the time.

There is another clue here that has interesting connections in this story that took place early on in the disciple's relationship with Jesus. This is found in another story recorded by Luke in chapter 5. In this instance Jesus was teaching crowds of people on the shore. Evidently space was getting so tight that Jesus was being backed into the water, so He climbed into a fishing boat that belonged to Simon and asked him to shove off a little from the beach to give Him a better vantage point so everyone could see and hear Him clearly. (Was this the first instance of a pulpit?) Evidently Simon, as he is called in this story, unwittingly becomes a captive audience for Jesus even though he had just been up all night working. Now he had to wait politely until Jesus was finished speaking to the crowds. Of course I'm sure that Jesus was quite interesting, and given Peter's enjoyment of attention he may have felt rather proud to have his boat be the one selected by this new popular teacher.

Again, in this story details are mentioned about nets and the best time to fish. It was now obviously daytime when Jesus was speaking to the crowds, and while I don't know if He had used up all the daylight in speaking and finally had to quit, or He simply decided to not share with the people too much and let them go when it started getting too hot, we cannot be sure. But when Jesus asked Simon to push into the deep and go fishing, Simon makes the protest that they had already been fishing all night and had caught nothing.

Again, there are a number of clues here that I find quite interesting. If Simon had already been working all night with no results, he may not have been in the best of moods to be staying awake even longer after listening to a sermon. Of course sermons as we hear them now are very likely nothing like the words Jesus spoke to people. (I wish that today we could return to the style of interaction that marked the lives of the early followers of Jesus, for everything connected with how we do church today is quite foreign to how the early disciples experienced the gospel. But that is another issue.)

When Simon Peter chose to humor this carpenter-turned-teacher obviously inexperienced in fishing who thought He knew more about it that Simon – the seasoned pro-fisherman, I doubt that he had any clue that anything would come of it. But being at least a little polite and maybe taking a liking to this new teacher, Simon probably felt that it would not hurt to stay up a little longer to show this carpenter how nets were cast, even if it would be a waste of time for himself and his now captive crew.

From this perspective it is no wonder that Luke reported the intense reactions of both Peter and his companions in the boat when instantly their nets were filled to overflowing the moment they hit the water. This was very clearly something they had never encountered in their whole life before and they realized that something supernatural was taking place. Luke reports that this was one of those times when Simon Peter was so overcome with emotion and amazement at the power and superiority of Jesus that all he could do was throw himself down at His feet and cry out at the contrast between his own character and what he was beginning to see in Jesus.

It seems that many of the most compelling events that took place between Jesus and Peter often involved experiences around fishing and the lake. This was the life that Peter knew well and was his love. Yet unknown to Peter, Jesus was beginning to take him through a long, intentional process to transform his focus from providing for himself and his family by fishing, toward living a life of selfless service for others as Jesus had come to live. In each of these encounters with Jesus, Peter had rather intense reactions and sometimes his reaction was to simply throw himself at Jesus' feet lost in wonder and amazement. Other times he chose to act quite out of the box – or at one time out of the boat as in the case of water-walking with Jesus during a violent storm.

Notice how this story is a very close parallel to the experience recorded in John 21, and that in the first instance when they caught an amazing amount of fish, it says that their nets began to break. (Now Peter would have the same problems as his competitors James and John had if he wanted to stay in the fishing business much longer.) But Jesus followed up this miracle by immediately assuring Peter that he should not be afraid, for from now on Peter would be catching men instead of fish. I find this response from Jesus pregnant with insights.

After the resurrection we find Peter, likely feeling too disgraced to consider himself a legitimate disciple any longer, deciding that the best thing for him to do is go back to what he knows best and get into the fishing business once again. But other disciples were keeping a close eye on Peter, possibly fearing he might do something impulsive – like committing suicide as Judas had done – so they insisted on going with him. Again they spent a whole night fishing, but all for nothing. Again someone asks them to do the absurd and fish the wrong way and again with similar stunning results. But interestingly this time it is particularly noted that though there were so many fish (these guys seemed to be experts on knowing how much nets could handle), it specifically says that the net was not torn.

I believe that this phrase had great significance, especially for Peter at this critical time in his life. The first time Peter had experienced this kind of miracle, Scripture says his nets had begun to tear apart and Jesus then asked him to start fishing for men instead of fish. Now three years later Peter has decided to turn away from the work Jesus had begun training him to do and go back to fishing for fish. But instead of censuring him for giving up on the original invitation, Jesus instead again repeats that first miracle, only this time the difference is that the nets can somehow handle the extreme load without tearing.

I believe this detail was very important to Peter and also John who recorded this for us. John was one of the guys who had spent many hours mending nets, so he would be expected to notice when fishing nets acted out of the ordinary. I also believe that Jesus intentionally caused this difference as a signal to all the disciples that God can be trusted to take care of everything, even to the smallest details. Now it was time to fully take seriously the original invitation of Jesus to walk away from fishing and instead to focus on saving people instead of going back to a life of commercial business for themselves.

How does this apply to me today? Is God going to make it plain when it is time to move away from dependence on my line of work to living in full-time faith on Him, to switch to helping Him reconstruct lives that are falling apart? I have wondered this for some time but don't have any clear answers yet. Maybe it is not time, or maybe I am not listening carefully enough, or maybe I am being resistant like Peter was because I feel so weak or ashamed or fearful or doubting.

I remember when I was invited recently to share with a group of people this good news I have been learning about God. In responding I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding and using me in ways I have seldom known before. A couple nights ago I had opportunity to share this truth with a deeply hurting family who were surprisingly open to hearing new revelations of how God feels towards them. I was quite encouraged as they had previously been rather resistant to hearing anything from me.

Through these experiences I feel that this is something I would really like to get more involved in. But at the same time I don't want to invent my own plans or try to run ahead of God. I have been learning that God wants me to trust Him daily to unfold His plans for me instead of creating great plans and trying to get Him to endorse and bless them. I think I prefer it this way for I am convinced that if I seek to cooperate with His plans instead of trying to get Him to cooperate with my plans that the likelihood of success will be exponentially greater.

Yet it is a delicate learning process to practice tuning in to the Spirit's guidance system each day instead of falling into old patterns of taking things into my own hands. I am beginning to learn the importance of intentional listening as well as seeking God in my morning times of meditation and study with Him.

There is one last link that I discovered that may have interesting potential in this story. I heard this from one of my favorite teachers recently and it really resonated as I saw fascinating connections to an Old Testament prophecy connected to fishing. I wonder if Peter and John knew about this passage.

Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them? The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, drag them away with their net, and gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net; because through these things their catch is large, and their food is plentiful. (Habakkuk 1:14-16)

I know that this prophecy sounds strange and maybe even opposite from the kind of fishing Jesus invited Peter to practice with Him. But on closer examination of the context there are fascinating implications that may bring insights to those with open minds. This prophecy speaks of fishing for men just as Jesus did. It involves worship connected with a very large catch which occurred at least two times with Peter. And there is much more that could be unpacked from this passage, but at this point I must leave that for another time.

Does Jesus use a person's familiar occupation to connect with them, to speak the language they relate to best? I believe so. If Jesus came to me and wanted to relate to what I understand well, He would not get very far by talking about fishing or asking me to go catch fish. I don't know anything about throwing nets and very little about even casting a line. For me Jesus would make far better connection using analogies with things I am involved with in my life. And I confess that many times He has done just that, bringing to mind analogies related to electricity or construction techniques or other areas of interest to me. Farming or sheep or fishing were all areas familiar to most people in Jesus' day and even some today. But for me it is easier when God relates to me in ways that make sense for me.

But whatever the background that each of us is coming from, I suspect that as we respond to the drawing of Jesus in our hearts that He will at some point ask us to trade in our previous occupations and interests for something far more fulfilling just as He did with Peter. There comes a time when it becomes clear that a decision has to be made as to who will be in charge of our life. We then have to decide if we will trust Jesus to provide for all our needs and our families without our stepping back in to try to take over when things appear to be spinning out of control.

Will we come to fully trust Him in any and every situation so that we too might be empowered to walk on water during a storm without sinking? Will we trust that God can do any number of miracles to provide for all of our needs? He is eager to empower us to do what He needs done, to gather as many as possible into a saving relationship with Himself if we will allow Him to be our Mentor.

God is faithful, and He can do what He says He can do in and for me if I will only give Him permission by trusting fully in His heart.