Matthew 4:19 Meaning of What "Fishers of Men" Actually Asks of You

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." It's one of the most quoted lines in the Gospels and one that gets treated like it only applies inside a church building. It doesn't say that. It says fishers, not preachers. The call was made to men doing ordinary work, and it was an invitation to bring people along wherever that work already was.

Passed down through what the family already loved

Opening day of dove season isn't treated like an errand in Mickey and Blake's family, it's closer to a holiday. Three generations show up to the same field: Mickey ran the hunts the way his father taught him, then the way he wanted them run once he was old enough, and now owns the field himself. When Blake's son was four weeks old, his wife brought the baby out for pictures before the shooting started, the fourth generation, in a camo onesie, at the same field.

"I don't have the memories of playing with the bird dogs in my diapers, but my dad showed me pictures of me playing with the bird dogs in my diapers... Coulter will see him at a dove field at four weeks old. He won't remember it, but he'll be able to see it."

What got passed down wasn't simple

Mickey doesn't clean up the story of his own father. He describes him as a genuinely loving dad, until a string of family tragedy (his own father's death, a sister's suicide, sudden guardianship of two children not his own) changed him. ""That's whenever my dad became something that he wasn't before all that happened."" What survived, even through that, was the hunting, home movies from the 1960s, a decade when owning a camera at all was rare, of his kids in the field. Whatever else broke, that particular way of loving his children kept showing up. Faith doesn't always get handed down through a lesson. Sometimes it gets handed down through whatever a family already does together; hunting, fishing, a dinner table, a shared task; carried forward even when the person carrying it is still working through his own brokenness.

Fishers of men, not just fishers

"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." — Matthew 4:19

Blake ties the verse directly to what the whole episode is actually about: ""Whatever your passion is, whether it's hunting or fishing, if you're using that to spend those times... to have that moment of fellowship and that moment of prioritizing Father God and your walk with Jesus, then that's what it's all about."" The call in Matthew 4:19 isn't to leave your ordinary life behind, it's to bring people into it with you.

If this is you

If you're wondering how faith is supposed to fit into a life that's already full of work and family and things you love doing, it doesn't need its own separate hour. It fits into the things you're already doing together. Write down where you actually are, and see what The LifeLine Tool has for you. Watch Mickey and Blake talk through this in full on The LifeLine Radio Show → MATTHEW 4:19 MEANING | FELLOWSHIP & FATHERHOOD, SHOTGUNS & SCRIPTURES

Full conversation transcript

Mickey: Hello, guys. This is Mickey Mitchell. Welcome back to the Lifeline Tool Show. Blake: And I'm Blake Mitchell. Go to our website at thelifelinetool.com, download our free app, enter a prayer request on our message boards, and let us walk this journey with you. Mickey: Today, we're going to be talking about dove hunting. Blake: Hunting season just opened.That is effectively a religious holiday in our family. And I think it's also important to talk about the, you know, how important hunting is in the community and that fellowship aspect in our lives, you know, it's kind of like the opening day of dove season is, is, you know, almost like a religious holiday in our house, you know, it doesn't matter what's going on this year it was a Tuesday, and so we're not working. When noon hits and season opens, we're in a dove field somewhere. And what's so cool about that is you have my whole life set up these dove hunts and we've had all of our friends and people we care about around. We always, you know, get together, we pray together, and we go out and we have a safe hunt and everybody has fun. You know, talk, talk a little bit about that, you know, what'd you, what'd you think of opening day? Mickey: Season this year was as good as we've ever had it. I think the people that were there were the people that were supposed to be there. Whenever everybody got set up in their places, just to show how it unfolded. I put together these dev hunts since I was a boy, doing it in the way that my dad wanted it done. And then after I got old enough, I did it the way I wanted it done. And now today, I own the field, and I put it together. Blake: Oh, it's funny how every year, the hunting season starts up, and my phone starts going off with people I hadn't talked to since last hunting season. Mickey: Talk to me about what it meant for you, for your wife and new baby, to show up at that hunt. Blake: I mean, it's awesome because being raised in a hunting household like we have been, I mean, my first memories are hunting memories with family and that being, you know, community and a special time, whether it was, you know, all the cousins coming in and all of us going on a quail hunt together and, you know, all the kids running around with guns, probably not the safest thing, but, you know, we got it done and we all walked out, you know, without getting shot, but, you know, from the time I was a kid, I remember, you know, hunting memories being the first thing, so that was always important for me to share that with, with, whenever I had children, I want that to be what they remember. I want that to be a time of, you know, community and a time of peace for them and for them to know, to enjoy the outdoors and enjoy hunting, whether we have a gun or not, makes me think of stories, you know, of hunting with you and it didn't matter if we killed anything or not, we're just out there enjoying wildlife and enjoying time, and so my wife, you know, praise God, she's, you know, loves hunting, maybe more than I do, and I can't wait to get him in a duck blind this year, you know, and so whenever it was opening day of dove season, she knows how big and important that is, you know, for our family. She wanted him to be there to at least get pictures, even if it's before the hunt. So we got some pictures with him at the Dove field with, you know, our family there. And he was wearing his little camo onesie. And so we got awesome pictures and got to, you know, make a memory and we'll be able to show him forever that you were four weeks old when you attended your first time. And then, you know, she she packed up and took him home before all the shooting and everything. And it was just it was a very special moment for me and especially share that with my son. Mickey: It was a special moment for me too, because my first grandson and to have a daughter-in-law who knows what's special to you for her to pack him up and to bring him and have him at lunch, and then had him out there, and he'd get those pictures, and like I was saying earlier, I don't have the memories of playing with the bird dogs in my diapers, but my dad showed me pictures of me playing with the bird dogs in my diapers, you know? And then, so right now, Coulter will see him at a dove field at four weeks old. He won't remember it, but he'll be able to see it. So I thought that was, that made that hunt the most special hunt of my life, you know? Blake: And there's something I would love to talk about on that subject, because you know, a lot of times you've spoken about your father and your relationship with your father, and you know, especially the harder side of it. But to just kind of make it full circle of him taking those videos and your kids. He loved y'all's kids in the woods with something. That's to him that he shared with you. Can you speak on that? I mean, because back in the day, I mean, this was, what, ‘70? This would have been in the ‘60s, whenever he's taking videos. It's not easy to get a camera back then. You know what I mean? And so he was devoting some time to documenting his kids enjoying the outdoors. No doubt. Mickey: My dad, he had the sweetest side to him. He loved kids and he loved animals to his core. But he believed in disciplining his kids and disciplining his animals to his core. So that side of it was tough, but he loved them. He loved them to his core. And so he documented all that. And he was, I would say my dad was a near and I hate to say this, but near perfect dad until his dad got cancer and passed away, and he was left to be the executor of the whole farm, and so when all hell broke loose of his sister committing suicide or getting murdered, and so now he's the executor of the whole place, and then he was a guardian for two children that weren't his to bring into our life, and so everything went haywire, and so that's whenever my dad became something that he wasn't before all that happened. Before all that happened, oh my gosh, he and I fished, I was with him hunting, and my first memories was with him, and there and that. If that hadn’t happened, Our life would have been, as I said, we put the funk in dysfunctional. Well, that came in at around eight years old, eight or nine years old. But anyway, yep, but that's, he had all the film and all that going on, and it was great to see. Blake: You know, it is interesting that paternally in our family, it's almost generationally that now hearing that, that the fathers really care about the kids hunting and spending time, and that time is such an important time. You know, you played sports and everything growing up, but I've never heard a memory of your dad and you in sports. I've got memories with you, but it was, those memories don't hold as, I don't hold as, or cherish as much as the memories of hunting with you and us having these awesome hunts and praying over, you know, a meal after we go on a great hunt with a, with a great, you know, community and taking my friends hunting and, and it reminds me of a story I've heard you tell where you're dad was part of a deer club, and they said for you not to bring you anymore. Right. So he left the deer club. And that's what I remember is, you know, I remember being a kid, and you took us to Texas. And we would go bow hunting, and it would be men, and then your son there. And the men were going to put up with it, or you weren't coming. Mickey: And that came from my dad. Blake: With the hunt the other day, what are some things that stuck out to you? Mickey: Heat. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I don't know that I have ever been that hot. I was soaking wet from the time that I got out of the truck to the time we started dressing dove. Blake: And Irwin pulled up, gets out of the truck, and goes, well, you're a tougher man than me if you're wearing pants. I was like, man, I'm worried about these ticks. By the end of it, I was considering cutting my pants off because I was like, I'd rather have ticks. Mickey: And it was hot. And then we showed up, and we sat up under this tent, and somebody looked up and said, have you ever seen so many wasps? And I looked up, right above my head was a, the size, one of them was the size of probably a football, and then two of them were the size of softballs. Blake: Wasp nests? Mickey: Maybe a thousand wasps on each one of them. You can't even imagine. Blake: Top three least favorite things in the world. Mickey: Yeah. And so I got my wasp spray out of my truck. Everything you ever need is in my truck. Blake: No doubt. I mean, you've got, it's like Santa Claus's bag. You reach in the back of that truck and there's just stuff. Mickey: If I show up, I've got tools to pick something. I got a chainsaw to cut a tree. I got it all. So I get my raid out that I need to replace. And you got to have some nerve to sit there and spray and, and all these things take off and start flying around. You don't know if you're going to get hit. But then if you let it off, then the ones that didn't get it. They are going to get you. Blake: They just know that you don't like them. Mickey: So I killed every one of them and didn’t get stung at all. So that's a good thing. So I killed all those off. And so that was a treat. That was different than any other dove hunt. Blake: What did you think about we got our guy Aaron picking up a gun, shooting a dove for the first time? Mickey: Oh, well, that was pretty neat. And then, you know, since it was his first time, then I'm going to tell the story. But it was a dove sitting still. Well, first of all, I said, here's one coming, aim three feet in front of it and shoot it. And he throws up. Well, he didn't get in the zip code. So I'm thinking, I need to get him on one sitting still. So there's one that landed on a limb and he's sitting there standing still. And I said, now then, close your left eye. You've heard this a million times. Close your left eye, aim down the rib, and put the orange dot on the dove and pull the trigger. The dove never moved. Put another shell in it, put it back up, close your left eye, dove never moved. And he goes, I'm putting it right on there, and I says, no, you're not. He looked at him, I'm like, if you were, he would be dead. Now then, we're going to load it again. I don't know why he's still sitting there, but it's probably because you're not getting really anywhere close to him. But so I got behind him, and I said, aim down the rib, and so he lays his head down down the rib, and I said, now then, put the orange dot on it, and he shot it, and he goes, I got him. So he kills his first dove, and so that was an exciting thing to see. Blake: We had some other early hunters in the field and I'm riding around having a good time shooting doves. It's hot. I'm trying to stay in the shade and I'm running around. We got a camera out there. So I'm trying to bounce up to the top, bring my dog up, get some cute shots or whatever. And I started getting calls about, Hey man, we've got somebody shooting us. I was like, Oh my God. So I hopped on a four wheeler and took off down there. I don't know why it never crossed my mind to let people know not to shoot the people across the field, but some, some low birds were flying in and I had just dropped the ball, not, not really letting everybody know. And we had some new hunters and they just, if they saw birds, I guess they saw red. They didn't see anything behind it. Mickey: Right before you talked to them, I thought I was shot. It went right over my head. I'm talking about, I heard pow and it was like, Oh my gosh. I looked around and you were pulling up on the four wheeler talking to them. They were shooting birds way too low. It sounded like they were in war. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And the guys across the creek said, are y'all killing every time? I'm like, no, these kids are shooting every shot in their gun. It burns 100 miles away just to see how far they can kill them. So we had a blast. I had every shells laying everywhere where those boys were having themselves a blast. Blake: I'm telling you, I think shooting an over and under this year, it was a game changer for me. You know what I mean? I just love, but the amount of times that I've shot a semi-automatic for my whole life, you load it through the bottom. You know what I mean? So you load the shell through the bottom and you just get muscle memory to that. And whenever birds are flying around and you're trying to reload quick, I tried to put shells in the bottom of that over and under that I'm supposed to crack open, let the shells fly out and put the shells in, close it back. I kept on trying to load them in the bottom to the point that Mason started laughing at me at one point. Because I'm missing birds because I was sitting there getting frustrated that it wouldn't load. Mickey: If I'd have been a smarter dad, and if I would have bought you boys single shots or over and unders, whenever y'all were real young, all the money I would have saved on bullets, put it in Coulter's account, Coulter would probably be worth $100,000 a day. Mickey: You kids shot bullets like, I mean, people would say, and I'm like, whatever. I don't care. But you were probably more guilty than any kid I've ever seen. Your poor little dog is worn out at the end of the day. Blake: I don't think he's gotten off his bed since we got home. He was laying on the bed yesterday. Ellie sent me the funniest picture of him laying shoulders off the bed, just his butt laying on the bed. He's just looking at her like, I'm exhausted. He's getting a little old to hunt that hard. Mickey: And when I would shoot one to make it fall down the hill, it'd just be like, ah, he didn't know how to lay there. At 65 years old, going up and down that hill, I'm just like, you know, I'll let two or three get down there, and then I'll walk down there and get it. Blake: You know, kind of like the real far-off shots, you know, it's almost like a competition to shoot something a little different. You're the only guy I see that'll walk around on a phone call the whole hunt and still be killing doves at the same rate. Mickey: But I shot really well with a .410. Blake: When the lights are on, the camera was out there Mickey: But when that camera showed up, man, I was on the money, man. Blake: Real quick, we're going to take a brief break for a public service announcement of the best way to cook a dove. Dad, go ahead. Mickey: In the South, we fry everything. And so the best way to cook doves, in my opinion, is that you take the doves and you take, I use self-rising flour. And I put pepper, and I like a lot of pepper, and I put salt, and then I use Old Bay Seasoning. That's the secret. You put Old Bay Seasoning, and when you think you have enough, double it. And then I batter them in this flour, and I fry them in coconut oil. I fry them in a skillet, a black iron skillet, so that I can turn them, and I'll turn them one time. So I fry them on one side, and then I fry them on the other side, and whenever they get to be medium rare, and a good golden brown, I take them up, and they'll make you slap your grandmother. They're good. They're really good. <br> Blake: Matthew 4:19 says, “and he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Guys, whatever you're doing, wherever you find that fellowship and that community, as long as your priority is on Jesus, and you're using that, like you said, for that platform for Jesus and keeping your priorities straight. That's what we're called to do. Whatever your passion is, whether it's hunting or fishing, if you're using that to spend those times, like whenever we're cleaning doves, to have that moment of fellowship and that moment of prioritizing Father God and your walk with Jesus, then that's what it's all about."