Featured Post

Keith Green - Oh Lord, You're Beautiful

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Fishers of men......

I was reading in Luke ch 5 that Jesus was standing near the lake of Gennesaret,
which is also known as the sea of galilee.....

or lake Tiberias.....

in case you were wondering,...... I had,

I had not realised that all those names meant the same body of water, and apparently it is quite large and the deepest part is approx 141 feet so it is quite impressive, I think, and it is near the Golan Heights.


One of the oldest ways of using a net, is that in the use of the dragnet.
As Burge writes: “The dragnet was the most ancient form, dating from the third millennium B.C. in Egypt.”

The dragnet would start from the shore and be taken out by boat and than turned to go parallel with the shore for a bit and than back to the shore.

Nun describes the dragnet as being “made of netting shaped like a long wall, 250 to 300 meters long, 3 to 4 meters high at it’s “wings” and 8 meters high at the centre.

The foot-rope is weighted with sinkers, and the head-rope has cork floats.

The dragnet is spread a hundred meters or more from the shore and parallel to it, and hauled toward the shore with towing lines consisting of sections of ropes tied together.

These are attached to each end and hauled in by a team of 16 men for large nets, or a smaller team for smaller nets.”

This method of fishing required the use of a least one boat and many hands to help haul in the net.

These are the methods we find described in Biblical times Hab. 1:14-15, Eze. 26:5, 26:14, 47:10,etc

There were also the Cast nets; a larger mesh for larger fish. The Cast-Net for larger would have typically had larger weights in ensure that the fish would not be able to get out from underneath the net. Some Biblical occurrences of this method are found in: Eze. 32:3, and Mark 1:16-18.


Why may you ask this lesson in Biblical fishing and nets?

Back to the beginning.......

Jesus was standing near the lake of Gennesaret,
which is also known as the sea of galilee.....

And He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.

And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon Peter’s and asked him to put out a little way from the land.

And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat.



When He had finished speaking,

He said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

Simon answered and said, "Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets."


From my understanding Simon Peter was not yet a follower...

he had heard of Jesus and had seen what he could do, but......

Now Jesus tells Simon....a fisherman of many years, to do the unthinkable.....

I mean, hello......they had been working all night, "(Peter said.....)
and caught nothing they were washing their nets....done for the day!


Now, a total novice as far as fishing is concerned, goes and tells him to “put out your nets and into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

But,to humour him Peter says, “O.K. I will do as you say and let down the nets....”

When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break;

so they signalled to their fishing partners in the other boat, for them to come and help them.

And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink.

How many times have we done the same?

We get a nudge or a message from God’s Word, and grumblingly, just to humour Him, “we may do it”

What happened to...”Do everything rejoicing as to the Lord?


I will admit I don’t always do everything as rejoicing to the Lord.


But look at the results when Peter did what the Lord asked him, and look at the realization that Peter got ....

But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

Verse 11: When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

Blessings....

Yaddy