Fishing Proverbs
Notes on Fishing for Men
An Introduction
I have a confession to make. I think about fishing a lot.
Not just when I’m standing in a stream or waiting for a bobber to disappear. I think about fishing when I’m in a conversation with a neighbor, when I’m watching people at a coffee shop, when I’m sitting in church. Something in my brain is always reading the water, looking for where to cast, wondering what’s below the surface.
Maybe it’s because Jesus ruined me. The moment He looked at those fishermen on the shore of Galilee and said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” — something clicked that never unclicked. He didn’t say hunters. He didn’t say farmers or builders or soldiers. He said fishermen. And if you’ve ever spent any serious time with a rod and reel, you know that means something.
A few years back I was part of a team launching a new church in Colorado. We were a scrappy, passionate group of people who believed that the best way to reach our community wasn’t a better program or a flashier Sunday service — it was relationships. Real ones. The kind where you actually know people, actually care about them, and actually show up in their lives over the long haul.
I kept finding myself thinking of fishing as the language to describe what we were trying to do. Every time we talked about how to reach people who didn’t know Jesus, a new fishing image would surface. Slowly, almost without meaning to, I started writing them down. I called them Fishing Proverbs.
They were never meant to be a systematic theology of evangelism. They’re not a program or a methodology. They’re more like notes from one fisherman to another — observations from the water, a few hard-won lessons, and the occasional reminder that the fish don’t come to you.
Some of these proverbs will make you think. A few might make you a little uncomfortable. All of them, I hope, will make you want to get your line in the water. Each one is short. None require a seminary degree. All of them assume that you, like me, believe that the people in your life who don’t yet know Jesus actually matter — to God and to us.
In the following articles of this series, a new Fishing Proverb awaits.
Welcome to the water.
Here’s the link to the entire series:
https://www.thisistheway.live/t/fishing-proverbs
One more thing. No self-respecting fisherman takes himself too seriously. In that spirit, I offer you a few words of ancient wisdom from the classical fishing tradition:
Caviar Emptor — Beware of the fish.
Carp Diem — Seize the fish.
Veni, Vidi, Fishy — I came, I saw, I fished.
Cod Erat Demonstrandum — Proving the fish.
Squid Pro Quo — Done a fishy deal.
Tempus Fish-it — Time flies when you’re fishing.
Prima Fishy — First fish.
Now let’s go fishing. - This is The Way