Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John (son of Zebedee), John (the author of this gospel) and one other disciple are hanging out together by the Sea of Galilee. If you remember, this means that they had traveled north of Jerusalem about eighty miles. Days or weeks might have passed since they saw Jesus on the first Easter.
In a sense, they have returned to the beginning. Peter had been fishing when he was first called to be a disciple. (Matthew 4: 18-20) Now he is standing on the shore staring at the sea. Perhaps it all felt like a dream. Three years of wandering with Jesus. Three years of amazement. Three years of walking with God. And now, Jesus was gone. Yes, he had been resurrected from the dead, but he was not to be found. What were they to do? Not knowing what else to do they climbed in a boat and went fishing.
Application: What were you doing when Jesus first found you? Have you gone back to doing what you were, or are you living for Christ?
Food for Thought: What else could they have done at the time they went fishing? Is there something else they should have been doing?
Please click ‘’Continue Reading” for comments.
Based on what Jesus tells Peter later in the chapter – that He was to feed the sheep, perhaps they could have been telling people about Jesus. Their mission had not changed to be fishers of men. I do not want to be in a position of criticizing the disciples. Yet I do want to learn from there example.
I wonder if they had to go over through this experincs again to demonstrate that they are still called even though Jesus will no longer be in their physical presence.
I also want to be careful in my criticism of the disciples. There is no mention of this action being wrong…in fact, Jesus provided them with basically the same number of fish in their net as there are nations today. Fishing was not a sport for them…it had been their livelihood. Paul was a tentmaker and said that, if a man will not work, neither should he eat. There are many pastors today that must supplement their income. While we don’t know for certain, it is likely that many of the early pastors had other jobs, as well. However, all saints can, and should be, missionaries wherever we are planted.
👍🏻
Thank you all for the comments on this post! Perhaps fishing is the very thing they should have been doing? As I look at how we might apply this passage to our own lives, it occurs to me that we can be in the scriptures, in prayer, or involved in the work of everyday living among other things. They were definitely at loose ends. Maybe the lesson is in what they didn’t do? They didn’t let themselves get bitter, angry or depressed because Jesus was not there to tell them what to do.