Charles Spurgeon Commentary Mark 1:16-18

"And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left the nets, and followed him." — Mark 1:16-18 (ASV)

The gospel minister is like the fisherman with a net. I have sometimes heard the comparison drawn as though the gospel fisherman had a hook and a line, which he does not. His business is not to entice a fish to swallow his bait but to cast the net all around him, and lift him, by His grace, out of the element in which he lies in sin, into the boat where Christ still sits, as He sat, in the olden days, in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. To shut the sinner up to faith in Jesus Christ – that is the main work of the true gospel fisherman.