I didn’t really grow up in church. I think I had a spell in 7th or 8th grade where I went to youth group some—but that had more to do with pretty girls than Jesus. I do, however, remember bits and pieces of one sermon I heard. It involved what I assumed was an expert fisherman explaining to us what Jesus meant by “becoming fishers of men”. He talked about bait and lure and “reeling them in”.
I think that metaphor stuck with me a little because when I first started teaching the Bible I put together a sermon on Jesus’ call to be fishers of men. And guess what I did? I studied fishing methods and I applied them to evangelism. If you want to catch people with the gospel you need to attract them with a lure.
That was a silly Bible study that I put together. For one, the fishing methods in the first century do not exactly match the methods used in trying to catch a bass in Northeast Missouri. But secondly, it missed an Old Testament connection. Jesus’ turn of phrase actually comes from Jeremiah 16.
16 “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17 For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
Jeremiah 16 is in the context of judgment of the nations while the Lord restores Israel. These “fishers of men” will be overturning the works of idolatry as the fortunes of God’s people are restored.
A Negative Image or a Positive Image?
The metaphor in the OT of being “fishers of men” is predominately a negative one. Because the image in the OT is predominately negative this has led Robert Stein to say, “There does not appear to be any OT precedent for the expression ‘fishers of men’. Mark Strauss believes there is a connection, but believes “Jesus reverses this image to one of salvation. To fish for people is to rescue them from sin and death by calling them into God’s kingdom.”
But what if Jesus isn’t completely reversing the image? What if the “rescuing people from sin and death” is very much a part of what is happening even in Jeremiah 16? Perhaps we are given a picture of what this “becoming fishers of men” looks like even in the next passage. In Mark 1:21-28 we see Jesus teaching with authority and casting out a demon with authority. Mark’s major point in that text is about establishing Jesus’ authority. But that is also present in his calling of the disciples to “himself”. That’s a power move.
Mark loves to provide a section of teaching and then follow it up with an example. I haven’t seen others make this connection, but to me there is at least some connection between Jesus’ action with the demon possessed man and his call to be “fishers of men”. This is what it looks like to rescue people.
This, to me, is a helpful understanding of what it means to be fishers of men. I think for far too long this phrase has been of the stuff of fishing stories and piling bodies of fish up on the shore. But being fishers of men has much to do with human flourishing. I think what Andy Crouch says is fitting:
The best test of any institution, and especially of any institution’s roles and rules for using power, is whether everyone flourishes when everyone indwells their roles and plays by the rules, or whether only a few of the participants experience abundance and growth. (Crouch, 185)
Jesus uses his authority (his power) in order to “fish men” out of the clutches of demonic oppression. He sets the on the bank and into flourishing. That is what it means to “become fishers of men”. And the disciples must learn this lesson. It isn’t about catching enough fish to sink your boat and brag to your buddies about your haul, or to get filthy rich off your catch. You are “fishers of men” to rescue them from the wildness of the sea, to rescue from the clutches of idolatry, and to set free into flourishing under Jesus’ authority.
Any “fishing of men” that doesn’t lend itself to human flourishing isn’t the stuff of Jesus.
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