Fishermen and Hunters

One summer when I was in high school, we went out with my grandpa on his fishing boat to fish for Marlin off the California coast near Ventura. It was two days of the loud engines rumbling at little more than an idle as we trolled for the big fish. As most teenage girls would, I spend most the time working on my tan and enjoying conversations with my grandma, siblings, parents, etc. But I remember my grandpa and dad spent most their time on the upper deck watching the water. They knew there were Marlin in the area (the area being several hundred square miles) and they were watching for ripples in the waves that were different from the normal crests and valleys of the ocean flow. It was an art for them as the set up a path to troll along and watched for pulls on the five fishing lines that were trailing hundreds of feet behind the moving boat.

We didn’t end up catching any Marlin on that trip, but whenever I hear of fishing or fishermen in the Bible, that is what I think of. Long days of watching the water and waiting. The concept of fishermen is brought up in Jeremiah 16:10-18, but not in the way that you would expect.

¹⁰ “When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the Lord decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹ then say to them, ‘It is because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. ¹² But you have behaved more wickedly than your ancestors. See how all of you are following the stubbornness of your evil hearts instead of obeying me. ¹³ So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

“However, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ ¹⁵ but it will be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors.”

 “But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. ¹⁷My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸I will repay them double for their wickedness and sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filed my inheritance with their detestable idols.”

This is not exactly a feel-good passage. The people are told that they are experiencing disaster because of their disobedience. There will be a day when they are restored from their exile, but today is not that day. No, today, God is sending out his hunters and fishermen to round up the ranks of His people to take them away. God is telling them that there is nowhere they can hide, where He will not see them, catch them, and send them away.

My best experience of hunting comes from visiting my college roommate’s uncle’s deer farm in Alabama (where we didn’t hunt anything, but we did shoot lots of big guns). He raised semi-wild deer on his land and hunters paid to come hunt from his herd because they knew they would get healthy deer. My roommate told me once that she was still waiting to get her doe that her uncle had promised her. One hunting season, she had spotted the deer she wanted, but didn’t have a clear shot. She waited all day in several different deer blinds. She had been wanting this particular doe for a while, and was waiting for her chance to get her. I would have thought that one deer was as good as another, but she insisted on the one she wanted. She told me that hunting can take days of patience and cunning to follow the animal and get them when they are relaxed. A deer on the run is hopped up on adrenalin and that makes the meat taste bad.

When fishermen and hunters go about their pursuit, they know exactly what they are after. A Marlin fisherman isn’t satisfied by catching a Tuna even if it tastes good. A deer hunter won’t shoot a rabbit. They aren’t just out for anything, they are out for their particular prey. They take their time and are patient with the process that requires long periods of focused effort on their behalf.

God is hunting his people down—His sinful people who have rejected His way and His law—and no one will escape. He is using the Babylonians to capture them[1] and bring disaster on them so they will know that He is God, and His land is holy.

It’s easy to forget about God’s holiness. We get caught up in His love and grace that we don’t talk about His holiness. But it is God’s holiness that motivated Him to redeem us. We could not have a relationship with God if not for Christ, because He is completely holy, and we are utterly not. There would be no way for us to stand before Him and not be consumed in His holy fire. It is because God is holy and loving and good that He gives us redemption and salvation.

Now fast forward about 550 years to the NT[2]. Simon who was later given the name Peter by Jesus, and his brother, Andrew, were fishing. They were casting their nets near the shore of the Sea of Galilee when they spotted a figure in the early dawning light on the shore. He called out to them and said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Simon Peter and Andrew immediately left their boat and nets to follow Jesus. Similarly with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they left their father in the boats and ran after Jesus (Matthew 4:18-22[3]). Mark 1:16-20 has a very similar story, and the rendition in Luke 5:1-11 ends with Jesus telling Simon Peter, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will fish for people.”

Do you see what Jesus did there? He turned it around. The image of hunters and fishermen coming after the people to take them away from God is now being used to describe how the news of the gospel is going to spread, and how God’s people will ultimately be brought back to Him. This is the final return from exile. We all stand condemned in our sin, but God has made a way for us to be redeemed, and is now sending out skilled workers to find those who belong to Him, and bring them to Him.

Isaiah 66:19-21 says:

¹⁹ “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. ²⁰ And they will bring all your people, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the Lord—on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels,” says the Lord. “They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the Lord in ceremonially clean vessels. ²¹ And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,” says the Lord.

You see, it’s not just the Jews that God is chasing down. It’s the Gentiles too. God is bringing to Himself all those who belong to Him. I’ve often heard that God woos us to Him. He speaks lovingly to us to get us to come to Him and fall in love with Him. But, He also uses all His infinite knowledge and skill to hunt us down and to get us into the right position so we can be caught by his love and holiness.

This is what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus to Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John. It meant learning Jesus’ ways and methods for hunting down those who needed to be redeemed, and bringing them back into their Redeemer’s presence. In Jeremiah’s time, the news of hunters and fishermen brought terror to the people, but today, a new Covenant has been initiated and all are welcomed into the presence of God. He needed very special messengers to track down all those who needed to hear this good news.

As a Christian, I don’t think of myself as a fisherman, or hunter, but when I surrendered my life to Jesus, that is what I became. When Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” He was commanding us to be perpetual fishermen and hunters. To teach the craft of discipleship making to successive generations so there would never be a shortage of fishermen and hunters to do the Lord’s work in finding those who still need Christ’s redemption. This is a huge calling and responsibility. It’s not just enough to go to Church and listen to Christian music. We have to know our Lord who sends us out with His authority, and we must know our craft. I am guilty of shying away from this as much as any other. We need each other to spur one another on to these good and holy works so we can prove ourselves to be faithful and obedient servants of the King.

How do you need to be spurred on to discipleship making today?

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[1] Leslie C. Allen, Jeremiah, The Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 192-193.

[2] The Southern Kingdom of Judah finally fell in 586BC. The first return from the exile (under Cyrus’s reign) occurred around 530BC. Jesus’ ministry began around 25-30AD. So between 530BC and 25 AD, we’ll call it about 550 years.

[3] Matthew 4:18-22: As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹ “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” ²⁰ At once they left their nets and followed him. ²¹ Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, ²² and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.