IN VERNACULAR ENGLISH, there are lots of sayings involving fish. Some people, for example, drink like a fish, while others fish for compliments. When facing some new challenge, a person might flounder like a fish out of water; when that happens, should they fish or cut bait? Others may find a challenge too easy, saying it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. They might quickly decide they have bigger fish to fry.

Some of these sayings make intuitive sense, while others might be head-scratchers if we stopped to think about them. Do fish actually drink? Who shoots fish in a barrel? But we pick up the meaning of such expressions by hearing the way they’re used. We don’t have to understand the origin of a saying. It doesn’t matter if we have nothing whatsoever to do with fish. And we don’t have to be in the fishing business to use the expressions ourselves.

But then there’s the invitation Jesus gave to Peter and others: “From now on, you will fish for people” (Luke 5:10, NIV). Was that meant to be a new saying, a metaphor for what we would come to call evangelism?

Sort of.

And sort of not.

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says this only to Peter, albeit in the hearing of James and John, Peter’s business partners. In both Matthew and Mark, the invitation to fish for people was given to both Peter and his brother Andrew (Matt 4:18-20; Mark 1:16-18). He may have given the exact same invitation to the sons of Zebedee, but neither Matthew nor Mark tell us this.

Jesus, in other words, says this to specific people in a specific context: fishermen who are fishing. Imagine him seeing Matthew sitting in his tax-collector’s booth and inviting him to become a disciple. According to Matthew himself, all Jesus said was, “Follow me” (Matt 9:9). He may have said more that Matthew doesn’t record. But I’m willing to bet that what he didn’t say was, “Hey, Matthew—wanna come fish for people?”

Who knows? Maybe he invited Matthew to follow him and do something more…taxing.

All of this may sound obvious, but there’s a point to it. We’d quickly go astray if we tried to push the fishing metaphor too far. Are we supposed to bait people with the gospel? Is the goal of evangelism to reel in as many as possible? Do we expect them to swallow everything we say, hook, line, and sinker?

And of course, when we catch fish, it’s to gut, cook, and eat them. Whatever Jesus is calling Peter to do, it’s about life, not death.

The significance of Jesus’ words, I think, has less to do with the metaphor of fishing and more to do with the specific social context. In Luke, he’s just given professional fishermen a taste of the miraculous that they could understand. It took all their skill to bring in the massive haul of fish without tearing their nets. But they knew that the catch itself had nothing to do with their skill; it was all about Jesus.

And in that context, Jesus was calling them to a new and transformed vocation: Don’t just fish for fish; come with me, and fish for people.

. . .

ONE OF THE THINGS I teach my students is the difference between our primary vocation and our numerous secondary vocations, because even the most earnest and well-meaning of Christians can confuse the two. Sometimes, we struggle to find the right career path, thinking that only one can be God’s plan and purpose for our lives. That path is supposed to be our “calling,” what God has called us to do. But to think that there’s only one such calling or vocation, only one choice that constitutes God’s will, is often a recipe for anxiety, uncertainty, and unrealistic expectations.

We need a bit of nuance. As theologian Os Guinness once wrote, there are two senses of the word “calling” in play here. One is some-thing we are called to do; the other is being called by some-One into a relationship. The latter is our primary vocation, our first and most important calling. Jesus calls Peter and the others to follow him: to be disciples, to watch and learn, to do life together wherever their path might lead. Everything else we might consider to be a calling or vocation is secondary to that primary call to discipleship. Even vocational ministry should be considered secondary to the call to follow Jesus in discipleship.

With our primary vocation in place, we have the freedom to pursue a variety of secondary vocations. We might be fishermen or farmers, carpenters or construction workers. Even being a mother or father, ideally, could be considered a vocation.

That’s not to say we can do anything we please and assume it has God’s blessing. To be a tax-gatherer in Jesus’ day, for example, usually meant participating in systemic injustice, a fact that John the Baptist recognized in his demand for repentance (Luke 3:12-13). One could, in theory, be an ethical tax-gatherer, even if first-century Jews would have considered that an oxymoron. But that would mean a significant sacrifice of income and the constant temptation to compromise one’s values. Anyone who is truly committed to the primary vocation of discipleship knows that some secondary vocations are best avoided.

Still, there should be freedom in the distinction between primary and secondary vocations. And please note: just because Peter and the others signed on to begin fishing for people doesn’t mean that they never again fished for fish, and with miraculous results (see John 21:1-6). The question for the disciples—for any disciples in any century— isn’t just about what they do to earn a living. It’s about whether they’ll follow Jesus in and through those secondary vocations.

So what are your secondary vocations? And in what ways do you think Jesus would call you to follow him in the midst of those vocations?