"Fishers of Men" May Be Scarier than It Sounds

Except for the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God

Jesus’s first four disciples were fishermen. 

In Matthew and Mark, Jesus walks up to them while they’re in boats, doing what fishermen do, and says, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17). 

And off they go. 

In Luke’s gospel, there’s a little more to the story. Jesus hops in an empty boat and asks Peter to paddle it out a little ways so he can teach the crowds that are lining the banks. After a while, he asks Peter to drop nets in deep water and see what happens. Peter is reluctant. “Master,” says Peter, “we worked hard all night and caught nothing.” But he does it anyway. And boy do they catch some fish. 

Not one but two literal boatloads of fish (Luke 5:7).

They catch so many fish the nets break and the boat starts sinking. It’s all too much for Peter. Panicked, he says, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). 

Jesus replies, “Don’t worry. From now on you will be catching men.”

In all three accounts, Jesus uses this same curious metaphor. He tells these fishermen that their job is about to change from catching fish to catching people. After that, they all drop what they’re doing and join him. 

I wonder what they thought he meant by “fishers of men.” 

A Dad Joke or Something Deeper?

One way to read Jesus’s quip is as a sort of pun. You guys catch fish now. Soon you’ll catch people. I hope Jesus isn’t making a pun. Number me among those who consider puns the lowest form of humor. 

But if Jesus were making a pun, I’d still have questions. The main one is this: what mental image popped into the minds of Andrew and Peter and James and John when Jesus said they’d be catching people, as if they were fish, from now on? Fishermen—then and now—catch fish to eat them or sell them to people who will eat them. Maybe someone alive somewhere today catches fish to love and snuggle them, but I can’t imagine anyone was doing that in first-century Palestine. Which is to say that I can’t imagine those fishermen thought catching people would be an act of kindness. 

Even so, it seems to me that a strong and compelling image of some sort popped to their minds because in all three accounts, when Jesus tells them he’s about to make them people catchers, they leave their boats and nets “at once” (Matthew 4:20, Mark 1:18). They leave their fathers and servants— “everything” (cf Luke 5:11).

Something about that phrase triggered something in their collective imagination that put them into action. Puns (in my experience) don’t wield that sort of power. No one I know was ever compelled to leave their loved ones and livelihood by a well-timed dad joke. Fishing for people and catching people must have signified something that made them say, It’s go time.

Fishers and Fowlers in the Old Testament

One source that surely shaped the disciples’ collective imagination was their sacred scriptures, the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament). The Hebrew Bible is full of language that describes people catching other people. Sometimes the metaphors have to do with fishing, other times hunting and snaring and trapping. Here’s a smattering of examples: 

Quite often in wisdom literature (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes) the “adulterous woman” is described as a fisher or fowler: 

“And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.” (Ecc 7:26).

Israel’s exile is depicted as a hunting party among the nations: 

‘Then nations set against him

On every side from their provinces,

And they spread their net over him;

He was captured in their pit.

‘They put him in a cage with hooks

And brought him to the king of Babylon;

They brought him in hunting nets

So that his voice would be heard no more

On the mountains of Israel. (Ezek 18:8-9)

When people are out to get the psalmist, he compares the experience to being hunted—or fished for: “The proud have hidden a trap for me, and cords; They have spread a net by the wayside; They have set snares for me.” (Ps 140:5) 

When God exacts judgment, the psalmist describes it as catching men, as in Psalm 9:16: 

The “Lord has made Himself known; He has executed judgment. In the work of his own hands the wicked is snared.”

And in Ezekiel:

‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords; Persia, Ethiopia and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet (Ezekiel 38:3-5).

And 

“I will spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. Then I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there regarding the unfaithful act which he has committed against Me” (Ezekiel 17:20). 

Israel’s descent into depravity is described as an ongoing hunting party: 

“The godly person has perished from the land,

And there is no upright person among men.

All of them lie in wait for bloodshed;

Each of them hunts the other with a net” (Micah 7:2).

Most of these examples are about hunting, not fishing. That may be because for most of Israel’s history, they didn’t live along the sea. Fishing was not a major part of their experience or economy. The imagery is about the same regardless. Nets, hooks, and snares are instruments of judgment. Catching people is an act of judgment, sometimes carried out by God and an act of violence, often carried out by other people. 

Jeremiah 16 brings these images together. After describing truly horrific conditions in Jerusalem—judgment for Israel’s sins of idolatry (16:11-12)—God warns 

“But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.” (vv 16-18)

“From now on you will catch people”

So what does this have to do with Jesus’s first disciples? I think it’s feasible that Jesus’s first disciples thought Jesus was inviting them to join him in bringing judgment against the nation’s evildoers. And, eventually, against the nation’s occupying imperial enemy: Rome. 

Perhaps what popped to the fishermen-disciples’ minds when Jesus said he was about to make them people catchers was something like the scene depicted in John 8:1-11, where a woman who had been caught in adultery is taken out into the streets to face judgment.

When they hear, It’s judgment time, they drop everything—at once!—and are ready to get to work. And they aren’t the only ones. 

John’s preaching at Jesus’ own baptism service casts the upcoming ministry of Jesus in the light of judgment. “The ax is already at the root of the trees,” John says, “and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10). Jesus, says John, will “clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (3:12). This is the language of judgment. 

And so it is all the more remarkable that in both Mark and Luke one of the first things Jesus does after he calls these fishermen to “catch people” is take them to dinner at the home of a tax collector named Levi. Instead of dragging Levi into the street for judgment, Jesus reclines with him at the table in fellowship. 

There’s no way they saw that coming. 

Jesus did indeed bring judgment. But the objects of his judgment were not who the disciples expected. The reasons for his judgment were frequently hard for them to understand. And in this way, we face a different challenge than Jesus’ earliest followers. We are inclined to be put off by the judgment of God. For them, judgment made sense. It was the “appalling strangeness of the mercy of God” (to quote Graham Greene) that they struggled to get their minds around.