Mending Nets, Rebuilding Walls

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a net used to catch fish. A large net has to be kept in good repair; so, mending the holes that inevitably appear is a primary responsibility of fisherman. Some of Jesus’ main disciples were fishermen by trade before leaving everything to follow him.

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹  And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” ²⁰  Immediately they left their nets and followed him. ²¹  And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. ²²  Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Matthew 4:18-22 (ESV)

The English word “mending” is a translation of the Greek word katartidzos , which can mean to mend, restore, equip, or to prepare. These fishermen were mending and preparing their nets to bring in a huge catch.

Paul the apostle used this same word in his letter to the church at Ephesus.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹²  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³  until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, Ephesians 4:11-13 (ESV)

In this passage the Greek word is translated “equip.” It is the same idea as preparing, with the understood implication that people need to be mended and equipped in order to properly function as the church and be a giant net with which the Holy Spirit can bring a great multitude of people into God’s eternal family. Jesus told those fishermen who became his first disciples that he would make them into “fishers of men,” if they would follow him. The Lord will do that for anyone who makes him and his kingdom his or her first priority.

Switching metaphors, in the Old Testament, when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to rebuild that city, which the Babylonians had demolished and whose walls were still in ruins, he organized the people to contribute to the rebuilding effort by committing to labor on a particular portion of the wall, sometimes right next to their own house. (Nehemiah 3:28)

Rebuilding walls is not as far away from mending nets as one might think. The wall offered the residents of a city a measure of security from hostile forces. Our neighborhoods can be viewed as a type of city. Our spiritual enemy, the devil, wants to run roughshod over people. Many in our neighborhoods are experiencing oppression under his thumb because they have no advocate or Savior – no one to love them and show them the way. Just as Nehemiah took personal responsibility for restoring Jerusalem, I believe Jesus asks each of his disciples to look upon his or her own neighborhood with a heart of compassion, realizing that if we do not rise to the occasion, many in our own community will remain under the devil’s thumb and perhaps spend eternity away from God’s presence. He wants us to build the kingdom of God right next to our own home.

Jesus told his followers to pray to the Lord of harvest to send forth laborers into the masses of harassed and helpless people. (Matthew 9:35-38) In the context, Jesus spoke about people needing shepherds, which can be understood as those who care about other people enough to watch out for them, provide for them, and protect them. Any follower of Christ who cares about people can be used by God in his or her neighborhood to be a fisher of men and a restorer of the wall.

Our neighborhoods should be better places to live because of us. This will only happen when we take responsibility and start doing whatever it takes to bring God’s kingdom to bear on our neighbors’ lives. How will this happen? We can pray in secret for our neighbors, pray for them personally and publicly when they share some need with us, visit them, have them over, and do loving acts of service for them. Being a good neighbor should become a lifestyle, not something to check off on our “to do” list. We generally earn the right and privilege to share about Jesus with people by first loving them and building a real relationship with them. Our ultimate goal, of course, is to introduce people to a relationship with the Lord Jesus. That is the most loving thing imaginable!

The world is tired of Christians who only preach about Jesus, but otherwise seem to have no real interest in people. Jesus was able quickly to convey an enormous amount of love to people. It generally takes us a while to break through into people’s lives. The old saying that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care is true. Let’s make it our goal to destroy the commonly held assumption that Christians are judgmental know-it-alls, who don’t really love people. Instead, let’s be menders of nets, rebuilders of walls, lovers of people, and proper representatives of the kingdom of God.

Mending Nets, Rebuilding Walls

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