Lean not on your own…etc.
The Gospel narrative is full of those moments where our human “expertise” meets divine authority, often resulting in a very gracious (or sometimes as subtle as a house brick to the face”) reordering of priorities. Among these, the account of the miraculous catch in Luke 5:4–6 stands as a stark challenge to our contemporary understanding of Christian mission, emphasising that efficacy belongs to Christ, not to human effort.
This passage requires careful consideration:
“When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.’ And Simon answered, ‘Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But at your word I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were breaking.” (Luke 5:4–6, ESV)
The vanity of unaccompanied effort
Simon Peter’s initial response, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing,” is more than a simple human, tired and maybe a little cranky protest; it is a declaration of empirical failure. As a seasoned professional fisherman, Peter knew the futility of the exercise. He and his partners had exerted maximum human effort at the optimal time, yet the outcome was nil, nada, zilch, diddly squat.
This detail is a mirror for the modern church, particularly in the realm of mission and evangelism. We often rely heavily on sophisticated strategies, rigorous metrics, and cultural relevance – we can see that particularly in American (and UK) megachurches, and writ most large in the institutional stratagems and efforts of many denominations, the ecclesiastical equivalent of Peter’s professional fishing knowledge. We expend considerable energy and resources, only to find the results frustratingly limited, we do as it were “lean on our own understanding”.
Sidenote: I am old enough to remember the great “church growth” movement of the early 2000s, indeed I still have some of the books from that time like Hybels “Courageous Leadership” or “Axioms”, the infamous Warren and his “Purpose Driven Church” and even some from Erwin R McManus like “The Barbarian Way” and “Uprising” and I must confess, they hold some interesting insights but ultimately, whilst the focus is on the means of growth through relevance and the ecclesial version of “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, ultimately point towards man and the efforts needed to make the Gospel “relevant”. Let’s be honest, what’s MORE relevant than being raised from the dead, though?
The inherent theological danger here of course is the temptation to slide toward works-righteousness in ministry, where the success of the mission is tied to the ingenuity or diligence of the missiologist rather than the grace of the Saviour and becomes a numbers game as a show of success, rather than the diligent and gentle conformation to the likeness of the Son, for the lost soul that is saved. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, planting and watering are necessary, but “God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:7). Our work and plans, however commendable, are ultimately vain if it they are not consecrated by, and dependent upon, divine warrant.
The gentle obedience of faith
The pivot in the passage I feel is Peter’s act of submission: “But at your word I will let down the nets.”, it is the supreme “But I trust in you”, the “Tu es Christus et omnia creasti, ideo in te confidam.” (You are the Christ and you created all things, therefore I will trust in you.)
This is not mere compliance with a suggestion, no sullen acquiescence to a command; it is a profound act of faith where vocational expertise is intentionally subordinated to the authority of Christ’s Word. Peter’s decision signals a recognition of Christ’s identity as the Lord of all creation, whose commands override the very laws of nature and the rules of a trade.
For the Christian sensibility, this moment underscores the paramount importance of Sola Scriptura in its operational sense: our mission must be driven by and anchored in Christ’s explicit commands. We are called to “launch out into the deep” (v. 4), which often means engaging in mission that appears foolish or inefficient by worldly standards. We are not commanded to blindly blunder about in a chaos of missional canon fire but, we ARE commanded to trust that our efforsts when directed by the Holy Spirit through teh Words of scripture will bear fruit to his glory, even if thatf ruit be one person, our labour has not been in vain.
We can create grand plans and schemes, and these may well be blessed by God, but equally blessed is the hour spent in conversation with a stranger in a coffee shop, with someone who is being prompted by the Spirit to seek, such rejoicing as that one sinner repents. The soul of the one, is the mission field of the many, the single grain of wheat is a worthy and blessed harvest if our scythe is but sharpened for that solitary stem. As frustrating as that may be for our human sensibilities, the acceptance and rejoicing in the toil for the Lord, where the harvest may NOT be plentiful in our particular mission field, is still to be sought and prayed for diligently. Imagine if on that glorious day a stranger whom we do not remember talking to, whom we may not remember walking alongside, comes to us and says “I am here because you were there when I needed to hear the Gospel.”. Such joy and privilege to be a part of this plan of salvation, simply as a servant leading a single person to the Lord’s table of grace.
The essence of this mission is captured by St. Augustine, who argued that when we labour faithfully under Christ’s command, the virtus (power or efficacy) is supplied not by the instrument (the net, the preacher, the program) but by the Divine command itself. It is the integrity of the Word, not the intensity of the effort, that guarantees fruitfulness.
The beautiful inevitability of grace-driven abundance
The result of Peter’s obedience is a very real manifestation of divine sovereignty and grace: “they caught a great number of fish, and their nets were breaking.”
The outcome is not a modest improvement, not a mere step on the way to something bigger but an overwhelming, nearly catastrophic abundance. This sheer excess serves for us a crucial theological function: it makes undeniable the fact that the catch was a miracle of grace. It was an act of God designed to illustrate that salvation (the “catch” of souls) is an impossible undertaking by human means alone.
This event offers us then a profound encouragement for mission today. When we feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task or discouraged by meagre results, the breaking nets reminds us that our true confidence rests solely in Christ’s power, in the working of the Holy Spirit, in the decree of God. Our goal is not to fill a quota, but to obey the Word; the abundance that may follow is a gracious gift that often exceeds the capacity of our frail, small human minds and structures to contain. The “threat” of broken nets should be seen not as a setback, but as a necessary reminder that God’s work will invariably burst the seams of our comfortable, man-made methodologies.
Ultimately, Luke 5:4-6 affirms that authentic Christian mission is an ongoing commitment to faithful, obedient labour, grounded in the unshakeable trust that Christ alone possesses the power to save and the authority to command the harvest.
Let us then go out, cast our nets and rejoice in whatever catch we are graced with, be it one, or one thousand.
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