Daily Bible Reading 16th May 2026 // Luke 5:1-11
1 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signalled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
Some think, as indicated in the last Note but one, that the call mentioned here was what finally severed the disciples from their nets and their secular employment. This may well be. If so, the incident has a profound point to make. It may be that they had not fully appreciated the implications of His call as being the complete forsaking of their nets, or that while realising this well enough, they had felt the pull of their old ways too strong for them and had gone back to them. If so, then the command to launch out into the deep, and the huge catch of fish that followed, was meant to teach them that work done at His command and in obedience to Him was work that was supremely worthwhile; and that when He called them to follow Him as disciples, nothing half-hearted would do. It required absolute and unquestioning obedience to Him, and a total commitment of themselves. It meant, in fact, to launch out into the deep in a spiritual sense also. Perhaps this is the point of Peter's confession in 8. Did he realise that his commitment to Christ had been all too partial and superficial, that he had only been playing at discipleship up to that point? It is not arbitrary to 'spiritualise' in this way, for Jesus Himself did so, in this incident, passing from fishing in the sea to 'fishing for men'; nor must we hesitate to make the transition. There are deeps - and there are shallows - in the spiritual life, and it makes all the difference in the world to the work of the kingdom whether we launch out into the one or remain content to be in the other. More of this in tomorrow's Note.