How Evangelism Is Kind of Like Fishing

Simon, his brother, and their business partners were fisherman whom Jesus called to a very different kind of fishing. “Follow me,” he told them. “From now on you will be catching men.” They were caught by Jesus so they could catch others. And in much the same way, we have been caught by Jesus so we can catch others for Jesus. We ought to see this as a tremendous privilege. Not just that we have been caught—we know that’s a great blessing—but that we get to join Jesus in catching others. We follow him so we can join him in his work. The great work God is accomplishing in this world is catching people for himself. He’s saving them by his grace and for his glory. What’s amazing is that he uses people like you and me to help accomplish that. He saves people through the good news of the gospel and he tells you and me to speak out that news. He calls us to be fishers of men, to catch people alive.

How can we do that? That’s where we can learn from the fishing metaphor Jesus uses in Luke 5 verses 1-11. In fact, I think we’re supposed to learn from the fishing metaphor, to think diligently about what it means and about how evangelism is like fishing. Just think about this: Jesus gets on a fishing boat with a fisher man to do a fish miracle all leading toward a fishing metaphor. He clearly wanted Simon to think about this word picture, and to live it out. He wants us to think about it. So let’s draw a few comparisons that, I trust, are legitimate without being trite. In what ways is evangelism kind of like fishing? Read More