A Great Catch
3/6/25 Bible Thought (Luke 5)
I’ve had plenty of bad days of fishing in my life. Truth be told, I have bad days more often than good days. Even when I try to cast my line on the other side, I often come up empty-handed. To this, my one uncle has always reminded me, “That’s why they call it fishing, not catching.” However, I’m far from a professional, and generally the pros know how, where, and when to catch fish.
This is the nature of Peter, the soon-to-be disciple of Jesus. He fished along the Sea of Galilee for a living. He knew what he was doing, and yet after a whole night of toil his efforts are utterly fish-less. Then, Rabbi Jesus comes to town and asks to use Peter’s boat as a platform from which to teach. So, they set out into the shallows.
After He finishes His teaching, Jesus tells Peter to go out into deeper water and to let down the nets. With this, we now have two problems. One, the professional has had no luck for an entire night of fishing and hard work (Lk. 5:5a). Two, Jesus is a rabbi, an itinerant teacher, He’s not a fisherman. He doesn’t know what He’s talking about.
Truly, this was a pointless endeavor. They were most likely using a trammel net, which would consist of three vertical walls of ropes with weights on the bottom and floats on the top. They also had holes of diminishing size between them that would trap the fish. The fishermen would then splash and make all manner of noise to cause the fish to panic, swim into the nets, and get stuck.[1] However, this type of fishing worked best, and perhaps only worked, at night.
James Edwards sums it up helpfully by stating,
“Peter knows from experience the futility of fishing after sun-up, when fish can see the nets, and he reminds Jesus, who is considerably less experienced in such matters, of this fact. His final word, however, is not based on his experience, reasonable as it may be, but on the authority of Jesus”[2]
Peter is probably inwardly thinking, “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Yet, outwardly he says, “But at your word I will let down the nets” (Lk. 5:5b). In Luke’s account, Jesus had already healed Peter’s mother-in-law (4:38-39) perhaps this is why Peter decides to give it a try. With a small element of faith, probably expecting to conclude, “I told you so” he drops the nets.
After an entire night without a single fish, suddenly there is a great panic as they have such a catch of fish that it threatens to sink both their and their neighbors fishing vessels. This is nothing short of a miracle. Peter, recognizing this, falls before the Lord Jesus crying out, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk. 5:8). Immediately, there is a sense that Jesus is no ordinary rabbi. Peter might not know God, but he knew fish. What happened was something that doesn’t happen. Suddenly, he realized his boat was holy ground.
Peter might not know God, but he knew fish.
But as he kneels in the presence of the Lord, he isn’t told to remove his sandals. Instead, he is raised up as Jesus graciously tells him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men” (Lk. 5:10). Peter, now knowing based on his own area of expertise that Jesus is much more than a teacher, leaves his former vocation behind. He and his coworkers, “left everything and followed him” (Lk. 5:11). Later, we’ll see Levi (Matthew) the tax-collector at his tax booth do just the same as the Lord Jesus calls him, presumably to “collect” people (Lk. 5:27-28).
The good news for Peter, the good news for Levi, the good news for us today is that the Lord Jesus didn’t come down for the righteous. When the religious folks grumbled about this new rabbi’s preference for the hopeless sinner, the Lord Jesus responds,
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5:31-32).
When Peter told Jesus to depart from him because he was a sinful man, Jesus probably thought, “You’re the exact kind of man I’m looking for.” What disqualified him in his eyes was actually a necessary humility to becoming a disciple of Jesus. Truly, the Lord Jesus is the friend of sinners. I’m thankful today that no one is too lost to be found by Him. No one is too sinful to be cleansed by Him, and no one is too hopeless to find hope in Him.
The question then is, will we leave every competing desire in pursuit of this Savior who is altogether worthy of undivided devotion?
[1] James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke, ed. D. A. Carson, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos, 2015), 153.
[2] Ibid., 155.