Introduction
“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”
It’s a weird thought. The Disciples catching people. It brings up this cartoon image that they are carrying around nets and laying them on the streets of Capernaum or Jerusalem for when people walk over them only to snatch them up like Elmer Fudd trying to catch Bugs Bunny.
But Luke’s Gospel is a little different than the Gospel’s of Matthew and Mark where we get a more familiar line and it does kind of reflect this cartoony thought (although that’s not the purpose).
In Matthew and Mark, we get the often-quoted line, “I will make you fishers of people” or in the older version “I will make you fishers of men.”
In Matthew and Mark, it’s a one-to-one comparison. Simon Peter, James, and John are fishermen and so, they will become “fishers of men.” They will still know their trade and in fact it is what will make them effective disciples/evangelists (in Mark and Matthew’s eyes). They can use it to bring in large hauls of people. Netting them from the chaotic sea that is existence and life and bringing them to shore to be fellow followers of Christ. The disciples don’t cease being fishermen in Matthew and Mark.
Lukan Narrative and Wording
But Luke does not hold on to the metaphor of fishing in the end. In the Gospel of Luke, there is so much more at stake in this short story about the calling of the first disciples.
Simon Peter, James, and John were fishermen. It was their livelihood. In some respects, you could call them small business owners at this time. The catch that they brought in would be their income for the day or week or month. Their nets and their boats had to be taken care of and mended. If their net broke or tore a hole, it could mean losing much of their catch for the day. And so, to have a bad day and not catch anything, would been very demoralizing, and may lead to challenges depending on how frequently the bad days were coming.
Thus, we have this incredible story in front of us.
In Matthew and Mark, Jesus calls Simon and his companions while they are still in their boats, and they follow him immediately. But in Luke, the moment unfolds differently. Simon has already encountered Jesus, witnessing his power in healing his mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39). Now, after a long, unproductive night of fishing, Jesus instructs him to cast the nets again. They explain that they have been dropping their nets all night but have not caught anything. And now during the daytime, the wrong time to fish, Jesus tells them to drop their nets to the other side of the boat.
They are tired. They are frustrated. They maybe demoralized. And now they are being told to keep trying what they’ve been trying for the entire night? Really?
But Simon’s initial response is weary but obedient: “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
The result is staggering. Nets so full they begin to break. This wouldn’t have been just a good day fishing. This would have been one of the best days of their lives. An unfathomably large haul.
Overwhelmed, Simon falls to his knees and confesses his unworthiness: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” But Jesus does not leave. Instead, he calls Simon, James, and John into a new kind of fishing—one that will “catch” people, not to trap them, but to bring them into abundant life. And as Simon Peter witnesses this amazing act, HE is caught. His spirit is captured by this teacher, this healer, this miracle worker, who has walked into his life.
You can only imagine what these fishermen must have felt from exhaustion and frustration to amazement to… fear.
But Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
And they drop everything. They drop their nets. They leave the entire catch of fish. They leave their boats. Their livelihoods, their trade, their next paycheck (that giant catch of a paycheck). They leave it for the other fishermen, for the community they work in. They leave it all. And follow Jesus.
Catching People (Alive)
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus does not say, “You will be fishers of men.” Instead, he says, “you will be catching people.”
In the Greek, the word for catching (ζωγρῶν) means to “catch alive” or capture alive.
It is not necessarily catching people in nets. It’s not like catching fish for food. It can refer to capturing people like prisoners of war. But there’s not necessarily an action associated with it like a net, hook, or trap. But the essential portion is that what you are capturing is alive.
And so, to these fishermen, Jesus says something entirely different than what Matthew or Mark are trying to say. In Luke, the disciples are now no longer fishermen. That occupation is now gone and past. And Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people alive.” They bring their boats ashore, and they leave everything, because they have been captured alive in faith.
Being “captured alive” in faith is not about falling into a trap or being captured in a net. This is not about coercion or control. It is about drawing people into a way of life shaped by Jesus. Where scarcity is replaced by abundance, fear by calling, and despair by grace.
It is seeing God’s miraculous work with our very own eyes. It is seeing the extravagant abundance that God gives to us in grace and love. Peter, James, and John leave everything behind and they follow Jesus. Captured alive in faith, they know that the best is yet to come.
Preaching Possibilities
Captured Alive in a Chaotic World
What has captured you alive and called you to this faith journey? What has inspired you, transformed you, or held you, so that you feel empowered and compelled to share how God has been active in your life?
Simon Peter, James, and John were exhausted. They had fished all night and caught nothing. They were professionals, skilled in their trade, and still, their efforts came up empty. Their frustration is familiar. How many of us have poured everything into something—a relationship, a job, a hope—only to come up empty? How many of us have been running on empty, caught in the exhaustion of just trying to get by?
And yet, Jesus meets them right there, in their weariness, their scarcity, their sense of failure. He tells them to try again—to cast their nets into the deep. And suddenly, where there was nothing, there is abundance. Where there was exhaustion, there is new life.
This is the promise of being captured alive in faith. Not that the chaos of the world disappears, but that we see it differently. We see what is possible in God’s abundance rather than being trapped by the world’s scarcity. We see hope when everything tells us to despair. We see life where we only expected emptiness.
Often, God reveals God’s self to us in this catching moment right where we are. Out on the water with fishermen. On the road to elsewhere. On the bus or subway. At work with coworkers or clients. Out in the middle of nature. In the hospital while detoxing. In the face of a stranger or in the face of a loved one.
And in today’s world—where the weight of war, political turmoil, economic instability, and personal exhaustion presses in on us—we need to be caught alive in hope. Not trapped in fear, not baited into despair, but captured in the truth of God’s unrelenting grace.
Sharing Abundant Life
When we see God at work in this world and are captured alive in faith, our lives change. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we leave our jobs and vocation like Peter, James, and John did. But it means we begin to see our work, our families, our communities, and our world differently. And we are compelled to follow Christ, to seek the new life that we have found.
And when we go about “catching people” in faith, we don’t have to trap them or trick them—we don’t have to dangle heaven or hell in front of them to lure them into the net of belief. We just have to live into the truth of God’s radical, extravagant, and abundant love. That’s enough.
We have been captured in God’s grace and love. We have been caught in the net of abundance, where there is always enough. Enough love, enough grace, enough life to share. And that is what we are called to do. To step into a world that tells us there is never enough and proclaim, God has more than enough. To meet people in their exhaustion and remind them, God is still working. To catch others, not to trap them, but to bring them alive in faith.
Because when we show that life to others, when we live in the fullness of this new life, others too will be captured by God’s amazing grace and radical love. And that kind of catching changes everything.
Micah Krey 
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