Sayings of Jesus: The Parable of the Net
The parable of the what? This parable, in Matthew 13:47–50, is by no means one of Jesus’ best-known. But it’s one of a series of parables, each of which he introduces with the phrase “The kingdom of heaven is like …” NB Matthew uses ‘kingdom of heaven’ rather than ‘kingdom of God’ (as the other Gospel writers) in deference to his Jewish audience who, out of reverence, would not speak God’s name.
The sense of these parables is to be saying ‘The kingdom of heaven is a bit like …’ In other words, it’s offering us one window, on one characteristic of the kingdom, using the picture-language of a parable as its vehicle. And, like any metaphor, we mustn’t press it too far, because when we do, it soon loses correspondence. Metaphorical language is only saying that something is ‘like something else’ in a certain way; a limited way; not every way.
Let’s start with what a parable is, and how one is supposed to ‘read’ it. Parables were a literary genre in widespread use as a teaching vehicle in Jesus’ day. Not only did they ‘paint a picture’, but (perhaps for that reason) they were memorable. They invited the listener (most people did not read or write) to wrestle with the underlying meaning of the parable—which was ‘hidden’ below the surface—and debate that with others.
This is important: the ‘teaching’ point in a parable was never anything to do with the surface ingredients. Those were merely a vehicle. Just like when a preacher today uses, say, a ‘Lord of the Rings’ analogy, or a ‘Superman movie’ analogy. The teller of the parable (Jesus in these instances) was not affirming truths about the surface ingredients, which borrowed settings and features from everyday life that were familiar to his audience. So, for example, in the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus was not teaching that it was good farming practice to leave ninety-nine sheep all alone on a dangerous hillside. Equally, in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, Jesus was not teaching about the nature of Hades (popularly conceived at the time as ‘the place of the dead’)—and still less, truths about ‘hell’ as a Christian doctrine based on Hades. He was simply locating a parable within a familiar notion that people at the time took for granted (that a place called Hades is where dead people go). The teaching point was that how we treat people in this life has eternal consequences; that justice in the next life will be dispensed accordingly, so beware of abusing people in the meantime.
Knowing the genre—and the ‘reading rules’ that go with that genre—of whatever we read in the Bible is important for understanding what it is and isn’t saying. For more on genre, see Part II of my book, Reading The Bible With Its Writers. Awareness of genre enables us to read ‘with the grain’ of the writers’ intentions, and to understand it accordingly. And especially, to avoid glaring errors!
On that foundation, let’s read the parable, which is fairly short:
Jesus said, “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
A fishing analogy—a fishing ‘setting’ for a parable—would have made lots of sense. The first disciples that Jesus called in Matthew 4 were fishermen (and Jesus framed their calling as being, metaphorically, to “fish for people”). The region of Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, was a fishing economy. Several Gospel stories are situated in the context of the lake called the Sea of Galilee (also known as the Sea of Tiberias) and feature fish in some way.
The first danger in misreading the parable is to do what evangelicals are inclined to do with the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man—selectively taking some surface features literally (the perceived-to-be-teaching-about ‘hell’ and ‘final judgment’ parts) despite what we know about the genre. In the case of this parable, that inclination manifests in the ‘fish’ and the ‘nets’ being interpreted figuratively, while people being thrown into a ‘blazing furnace’ is interpreted literally—’reading-in’ the preferred evangelical doctrine of ‘hell’ as eternal conscious torment. I don’t want to get sidetracked, but on that last point, the customary role of fire is destruction (for example, of corpses—or dead fish that are rotting—to avoid the spread of disease and contamination); it isn't to torture people endlessly.
But let’s focus on what is clear in the parable, rather than what some may inappropriately read into it.
It’s clearly a kingdom analogy about what will happen at the end of the age. But it’s also telling us some things about the kingdom before the end of the age—about the nature of the kingdom now.
Our kingdom theology tells us that ‘the kingdom’ is not synonymous with ‘the church’, but the church is (or should be) an expression of the kingdom, that reflects the kingdom. So how might we interpret what the Parable of the Net is saying to us as the church?
The ‘net’ is ‘the kingdom’. In the period up until the end of the age, the kingdom ‘net’ will include ‘all kinds of fish’—and that will continue to be the case throughout that time. The ‘fishermen’ (cf. Matthew 4:18–19) do nothing to separate ‘bad’ fish from the ‘good’ fish until then. They will do that only ‘when the net is full’ (cf. Romans 11:25), which God alone will determine.
The clear implication is that in the same way as the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, in Matthew 13:24–30; 36–43, the good fish and bad fish (in that instance it was the wheat and the weeds) are to be allowed to co-exist in the net of God’s kingdom (aka the field). We, in God’s name, on God’s behalf, should not try to take out the bad fish (aka, the weeds)—we should leave that to the angels on the last day. The parallels in these two parables are striking: even sharing the same metaphorical imagery of a blazing furnace and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
This idea will likely go against the grain for Christians concerned to preserve a ‘holy’ church. Are we not supposed to ‘call out’ (and indeed, separate out) sin and sinners? Is it not the role of church leaders to tell individuals how to behave, on God’s behalf, using the Bible as our book of instructions? But perhaps that’s just us—perhaps God thinks about these things differently. Perhaps he doesn’t ask us to be the ‘moral policemen’ of his kingdom after all—perhaps that is the Holy Spirit’s role, and we should have more confidence in him to do that, in his own way and time.
Perhaps the reason that the church in general has a reputation for being both judgmental and highly ‘selective’ in the areas of ‘morality’ that it chooses to ‘police’ (versus ignore) is because it’s not actually our job to police it for him in the first place. After all, Romans 2:4 says that it’s the kindness of God that leads to repentance—not the moralising of other Christians on his behalf.
Now, I do appreciate that there are Scriptures that can be read to say otherwise. For example, the case of incest in the church at Corinth, which Paul was unequivocal about dealing firmly with in 1 Corinthians 5. There’s also the prophetic chastisement of some of the early churches’ failings, on the ascended Jesus’ behalf, in Revelation chapters 2 and 3.
Ultimately, though, we see in both these parables that it’s God who determines ‘the wheat’ from ‘the weeds’—what’s ‘righteous’ versus what’s ‘wicked’—and he will do that on the final day. In the meantime, we should invite the Holy Spirit to convict us of our own failings, rather than focus on exposing and chastising what we perceive to be others’ failings. We may be in for some surprises when we see God’s scorecard for some people’s lives, compared to the ones that we had for them (cf. Matthew 7:21–23). There may well be some names written in the ‘book of life’ (see Revelation) that we had assumed would be crossed out.
There’s one important exception here, of course, which is that we should always take whatever safeguarding action is appropriate to prevent anyone in God’s kingdom from potentially being harmed by others. There should be no tolerance for allowing safeguarding risk. That kind of ‘bad’ fish is not to be tolerated. Hopefully, most readers will recognise the difference.