THE BIG CATCH

The Gospel of Luke records this story: “Now Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret (Sea of Galilee), and the crowd was pressing around to hear the word of God.” (Luke 5:1 NET)

The crowd must have been so big that it was difficult to speak and be heard. The next verses tell us that Jesus got into a fishing boat and pushed off from shore and sat down in the boat and “began teaching the multitude from the boat.”

This was Simon’s (Peter) boat. And when he had finished teaching, Jesus asked Simon to “put down his nets into the water for a catch.” He told Jesus they had worked all night and caught nothing but he obeyed anyway. They caught so many fish in the net that it began to break and they had to offload some of the catch to another boat. They “filled both boats until they began to sink.”

Simon Peter was amazed and so was his fishing business partners James and John, the Sons of Zebedee. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people!” So when they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” The fish paid for the use of the boat.

But Jesus also had a big catch: Peter, James and John, the three that were the closest to the Master from that day forward. Real men, real fishermen and real disciples. They all became faithful apostles to the Gospel of the Kingdom. Peter caught 3,000 people with his first fishing sermon. (Acts 2)

“Do not be afraid. From now on you will fish for men.” Jesus