Skepticism towards what the Bible says about creation week, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the global flood can be the result of a cultural position that views considering God unnecessary, or even disturbing, when discussing the origin of our universe or life in it. But what if your friends or children came to question the historical reliability of Scripture after a genuine struggle for understanding, examining evidence for naturalistic models that seemed convincing?
How would Jesus approach such perplexed hearts?
This article suggests a possible answer, based on a true encounter between Jesus and Peter narrated in Luke 5:1-11. Here, Jesus illustrates a winsome approach for strengthening belief, and in the process exemplifies the same principles and qualities that He displayed during creation week.
A great reversal
Peter, the protagonist of the story, is initially found at the end of an unfruitful quest. His fishing expedition is over: he is not even in the boat anymore. We find him by the shore, washing the empty nets that were earlier used to no avail, engaged in the final action at the closing of an unsuccessful journey. Jesus, on the other hand, is arriving at the very same shore from the opposite direction. While Peter is preparing to step away from the lake back to dry land, after toiling all night in his boat over the deep, Jesus is being pushed towards the edge of the lake by a pressing crowd eager to listen to the word of God. It is in this narrow transitional space that the two meet.
Then, Jesus enacts a great reversal with the disillusioned Peter, rewinding, step by step, the trajectory of his previous experience. First, He gets Peter back into the empty boat, then they put off a little from the shore, then they move back farther offshore, and finally, the nets that had been pulled up empty, are cast again into the waters. The catch, or the lack thereof, is at the extremes of these symmetric and contrasting movements. On one side, we had the darkness of a long night of labor that led to nothing, and on the other the experience of sudden abundance in the fullness of light. How was Jesus able to accomplish this great reversal?
A personal God
The most important factor that caused such dramatic change in Peter’s experience is Jesus’ initiative to personally engage with him. Jesus sees Peter’s empty boat and makes the decision to enter into it (Luke 5:2-3). It is hard to believe, but the Maker of the universe notices my struggles and takes the initiative to connect with me on an individual basis. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20).1 We recognize Jesus as the Creator of Genesis 1-2 and at the same time the powerful Elohim and the relational Yahweh.2
A purposeful progression
Jesus does not ask Peter right away to launch off into the deep and cast his net. He follows a deliberate sequence of incremental steps and gives Peter time to be exposed to His teaching. By sitting in Peter’s boat, Jesus builds intimacy and allows Peter to reflect and become familiar with His message. As a farmer prepares the soil before planting the seed, so Jesus uses Peter’s boat as a space to impart spiritual knowledge, before making it the vessel that will overflow with physical nourishment. This intentional strategy echoes the sequential design of the days of creation, where forming precedes filling, and the establishment of receptive environments is antecedent to the introduction of a multiplicity of created life forms.3
“At Your word”
Eventually, Jesus presents Peter with a direct request, challenging him to try again something against all possible odds. Peter begins his respectful response with an evidentiary assessment that is in part protestation and in part statement of the obvious: “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing” (Luke 5:5). There is much dignity in this statement. It affirms that Peter’s hesitation is not rooted in shallow efforts or lack of application but comes after intense and protracted labor. Yet, the next word in the verse captures Peter’s inner struggle and points towards its resolution: “Nevertheless.”
There is a real conflict between the words of Jesus and Peter’s understanding. On the one hand, what Peter knows from his previous experience is that Jesus’ command does not seem to make sense. But on the other hand, he also knows that there is something special about Jesus, something that introduces possibilities where none were seen before. A choice must be made between competing sources of authority, and Peter chooses to submit his strong will to the instruction of Jesus: “at Your word I will let down the net.” It is remarkable that the word of Jesus was able to persuade Peter. He must have sensed the power behind that word, the same power of the same word that brought all things into existence.
Stupefied by the extraordinary
What happens next is utterly unexpected. The text describes Peter and his partners as being astonished at the catch of fish (Luke 5:9). It becomes instantly clear to them that they are witnessing a supernatural phenomenon. This multiplication of fish, swarming from the deep waters of a lake, is the same kind of creative act that caused the waters to produce fish on the fifth day of creation. Fish are commanded that day to multiply and fill the waters, and here they are caught in such abundance that they are rupturing the nets, filling all the available space in two boats, and causing them to sink. The catch is beyond containment. Jesus is bursting open the boundaries of Peter’s categorization of possible and impossible.
This is not the only time when Peter will risk sinking while in the same boat as Jesus. During a storm on the same lake, he will again be terrified (Mark 4:40), but perhaps for an opposite reason. Fear during the storm came from experiencing the apparent absence of Jesus, but fear during the miraculous catch came from experiencing the fullness of the presence of Jesus. In both cases, Jesus asserted His creative dominion and left His disciples to marvel, wondering about this Man that even the fish, the wind, and the waves obey.
The missing factor
Why was the outcome of this fishing expedition so different from the night before? After all, the setting, people, and tools involved were the same: same boat, same nets, same Peter, same partners, and same lake. One thing, though, had indeed changed: the introduction of Jesus.
Naturalism is an attempt to understand reality independently of God. Jesus, on the other hand, affirms His agency in the creation and authority over nature. If we want to properly understand origins and earth history, He cannot be left out of the picture.
Seeing and believing
Peter acted by faith in the word of Jesus, yet his faith was certainly cemented by directly witnessing the manifestation of the power of Jesus. Those who are struggling with internal tension long for this type of resolution, when all is undeniably clear. However, the Bible is full of characters who act and make decisions without necessarily seeing what they were hoping for (see Hebrews 11). Should I demand of God the experience of a miraculous catch to trust His word, or is He asking me to exert a blind faith?
To answer this important question, we should first ask what kind of faith led a pragmatic and experienced fisherman to perform an apparently nonsensical and potentially embarrassing action. It was not a blind faith. It is true that Peter cast the net before seeing any fish in it. However, he had been in the same boat with Jesus and had heard His words enough to be convinced that there was value in listening to that voice. We could say that rather than being blind, Peter’s faith was visionary because it was able to visualize things that had not yet materialized. Indeed, there is an unrealized component to our faith, but it is rooted in experience. It is the God of history that warrants the pattern for our future.
We should also ask what Peter learned from what he saw that day. Jesus did not perform this act to assure Peter that he would be miraculously provided with food for the rest of his life. Rather, Jesus did it to establish that He could be trusted, that He was indeed the Creator God, and that His ways were greater than ours. Jesus is not offering a technical explanation but the creation of a new mindset and way of thinking. I am sure Peter went out fishing in that lake many other times, with mixed results. His fishing method and routine continued unchanged, but something was never the same: the notion that there was a foundational “Jesus-only” style of fishing, of which Peter was duly reminded after Jesus’ resurrection (John 21).
A renewed perspective
As it was for Peter, Jesus is the key to a transformative experience that broadens and grounds our understanding. Even when pondering the big questions of the origin of physical realities, Jesus expands our vision of what God can or cannot do in the past, present, and future.
Christ portrays to Peter the God of creation week, personal, intentional, omnipotent, truth-speaking. Jesus’s way of approaching someone whose quest feels unsuccessful is also an example of how we should encourage others who have questions about the biblical model of creation: meet them where they are in their struggle, engage on an individual level motivated by care, create a safe space for discussion and teaching, approach issues incrementally, and model a life of trust in God’s Word even in the presence of partial understanding. Ultimately, it is not up to us to provide a miraculous catch, only to be a witness to the creative and transforming power of Christ in our lives.
- Scripture in this article is from the New King James Version.
- For more on the significance of the different names used for God in Genesis 1 and 2, see William H. Shea, “The Unity of the Creation Account,” Origins 5, no. 1 (1978): 9–38, https://www.grisda.org/origins-05009; Jiri Moskala, “A Fresh Look at Two Genesis Creation Accounts: Contradictions?,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 49, no. 1 (2011): 45–65, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.
- For more on the “forming and filling” structure in the days of Creation, see Richard M. Davidson, “The Genesis Account of Origins,” in The Genesis Creation Account and Its Reverberations in the Old Testament, ed. Gerald A. Klingbeil (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2015): 59–129, https://www.grisda.org/the-genesis-account-of-origins.
