Sometimes you will get a no and get rejected. In the same way, sometimes you will share the gospel, pull in the net, and get bizarre responses. Sometimes along with fish, they caught rocks, kelp, mud, and random debris floating in the lake. Fish will never be caught unless a net is cast, and people will never get saved unless we speak out.īut how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? ( Romans 10:14).Īfter a catch, the fishers would empty the nets and sift through the fish, throwing out the garbage or dead rotten fish. Is the reward of winning a heart for Jesus worth the risk and effort of getting out there and sharing? Absolutely. I have had other times when I shared, and not a single person responded. I have had moments when I shared the gospel with a crowd, and 50 people came forward to give their lives to Jesus. Sometimes people will get saved, and other times they won’t. Like fishing, speaking out the gospel is a risk.
Do we sometimes share the gospel and see no response? Yes, it happens all the time. We take the story of Christ and the message of what he has done for us, and we speak it out into the world around us.Ĭan we always see under the surface and know if the message is working? No. In the same way, this is our model for evangelism. That happened multiple times in Scripture. Could they possibly go through a bunch of work and never get a single fish? Absolutely. Fishers must search for them and take a risk by throwing their nets into the water. In faith, the fishermen would throw their nets into the deep water, letting it sink into the lake out of sight, and hoping that the reward for their efforts would be a catch.įish will not jump into the boat. But what is he asking us to do in this analogy?įishing is unpredictable. They would have known better than anyone what Jesus was asking them to do. They were fishermen, doing their regular everyday jobs when Jesus came to them and called them to come to follow him with an analogy they would have understood. This tells me that no matter your career, education, or understanding, Jesus is calling you to go and follow him. They did not go to the temple often, so wouldn’t know expressions used by the religious leaders. They did not go to school so they wouldn’t necessarily understand educated speech. I love how Jesus always seems to meet people where they are and speaks to them in a way that they can understand. Jesus is walking up to two fishermen, who were in the act of throwing their fishing nets into the water. Taking a look at the few verses before this one, we can understand more. Whenever I am confused by a passage, I first look at the context surrounding it. Preachers love to call this phrase out from the pulpit, quoting Mark 1:17 where Jesus himself said, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” But we can’t literally fish for people, so what are we supposed to do with that? One such phrase is when Jesus calls us to be “Fishers of Men.” If you’re also like me, sometimes there are biblical phrases and “Christianese” expressions that can confuse you. If you’re anything like me, you want to follow the Bible, especially the words in red print where Jesus was talking.