Fishing For People

Fishing For People February 4, 2025

 

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Part 1 of Speaking Truth to Power

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Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:1-11)

I took me a long time to be able to read this passage without automatically rejecting how the passage would have been heard within its own time and context and defaulting to the way contemporary Christianity has interpreted it, in terms of missions, evangelism, and ultimately colonialism.

Every time I share what I’m about to this week, I always get pushback from those for whom the original context is new. Yet the most popular interpretation of our passage this week is actually the newest way to read it. If we go back to the way the original audience would have heard this passage, the implications are quite different.

Even though I was used to interpreting fishing as a metaphor for evangelism, I’ve never felt comfortable with it. Fishing never works out well for the fish! And fishing for people instead doesn’t fix that. Even today, when someone is trying to obtain your personal data, we refer to the attempt as phishing. It’s a bad connotation.

So how would the original audience have heard this metaphor? That’s what we’ll explore in Part 2.

 

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About Herb Montgomery
Herb Montgomery, director of Renewed Heart Ministries, is an author and adult religious re-educator helping Christians explore the intersection of their faith with love, compassion, action, and societal justice. You can read more about the author here.

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