Mark 1:16-17 and Matthew 4:18-19 have Jesus call Peter and Andrew while they are casting nets at the Sea of Galilee. John 1:35-42 has Andrew already a disciple of John the Baptist who, after hearing John identify Jesus as the Lamb of God, follows Jesus on his own and then brings Peter. Luke 5:4-11 has yet a third version — Peter is called after a miraculous catch of fish that nearly sinks the boats. Three irreconcilable call narratives for the same disciples.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
Jesus called them directly as they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee.
16Passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.17Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you into fishers for men.”
18Walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers: Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.19He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men.”
35Again, the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples,36and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”37The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.38Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, being interpreted, Teacher), “where are you staying?”39He said to them, “Come, and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about the tenth hour.40One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.41He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ).42He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter).
4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.”5Simon answered him, “Master, we worked all night, and took nothing; but at your word I will let down the net.”6When they had done this, they caught a great multitude of fish, and their net was breaking.7They beckoned to their partners in the other boat, that they should come and help them. They came, and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.8But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord.”9For he was amazed, and all who were with him, at the catch of fish which they had caught;10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will be catching people alive.”11When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything, and followed him.
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
Three gospels offer three different mechanisms by which the same two men became disciples — the classic Synoptic-plus-John call problem, here compounded by Luke's distinctive miraculous-catch version.
The Mark/Matthew account is spare: Jesus walks past the Sea of Galilee, sees the brothers casting nets, says "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men," and they abandon the nets *euthys*, "immediately" (Mark 1:18; Matt 4:18-20). There is no prior acquaintance, no fish miracle, and no Baptist context. The brevity is itself the point: Mark presents an authoritative summons that needs no psychological preparation.
John 1:35-42 differs at every point. Andrew is already a disciple of the Baptist; he hears John designate Jesus *ho amnos tou theou*, the Lamb of God; he and an unnamed companion (traditionally the Beloved Disciple) spend the day with Jesus; then Andrew finds Simon, declares "we have found the Messiah," and brings him. Peter is not summoned by Jesus at all in this version — he is recruited by his brother — and Jesus responds by renaming him Cephas. The setting is the Jordan (John 1:28), not Galilee.
Luke 5:1-11 supplies a third version. Jesus teaches from Simon's boat, then directs him into deep water; Simon — already addressing Jesus as *epistata*, "master" — objects that they caught nothing all night but obeys. The haul is so vast the nets tear and two boats begin to sink; Peter falls at Jesus's knees confessing himself *anēr hamartōlos*, "a sinful man," and Jesus answers *mē phobou, apo tou nyn anthrōpous esē zōgrōn* — "do not fear; from now on you will be catching people." Andrew is not even named; the spotlight falls on Peter, with James and John as partners.
The harmonization proceeds in two layers. First, sequencing (Carson, Köstenberger, Blomberg): John 1 is an initial Jordan meeting; Luke 5 is a later, formal call at Galilee marked by the miraculous catch; Mark/Matthew abbreviate that same Galilean call. Each gospel thus preserves a different cross-section of one multi-stage process. Second, the theological gloss that discipleship was a progressive deepening of commitment rather than a single instantaneous event — a genuinely defensible model of ancient rabbinic-style attachment.
But the texts resist the layering at concrete points. Mark 1:18's *euthys* and the absence of any back-reference present the lakeside call as first contact, not a third stage. The renaming to Cephas, which John places at the Jordan in 1:42, is treated by Mark 3:16 and Matthew 16:17-18 as occurring later and in entirely different settings (the appointment of the Twelve; Caesarea Philippi) — so the same naming event floats across incompatible contexts. Peter's self-designation as "a sinful man" in Luke 5:8 reads as a first encounter with the numinous, not a renewed allegiance to a teacher he had already followed at the Jordan and again at the lakeside.
The critical reading (Brown, *Anchor Bible* 29; Fitzmyer, *Anchor Bible* 28; Marcus, *Anchor Bible* 27; Davies-Allison, ICC) treats these as three independent traditions. The earliest layer likely had Peter called as a fisherman at the lakeside (Mark). John recast the tradition with a Baptist framing that subordinates the Baptist to Jesus — part of the Fourth Gospel's broader polemic against a continuing Baptist sect (cf. John 1:8, 20; 3:30). Luke composed or expanded the miraculous-catch tradition to furnish Peter with a dramatic vocational moment fitting his later prominence; tellingly, the same miraculous catch reappears in a post-resurrection setting in John 21:1-14, suggesting a floating tradition variously deployed. Bauckham, defending Johannine eyewitness derivation, accepts that the Synoptic and Johannine call traditions are formally distinct, though he reads the distinction as complementary testimony rather than contradiction.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction. No parsimonious reading collapses three different mechanisms — direct lakeside summons, Baptist-mediated recruitment via Andrew, and a miraculous-catch call — into one event. The harmonization must either invent a multi-stage process the texts do not narrate or force three independent traditions into a single contrived chronology.
Sources for this reading
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii): Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 29; Doubleday, 1966) pp. 73-79on the Johannine recasting of the call
Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27; Doubleday, 2000) pp. 178-187on the Markan lakeside call
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (AB 28; Doubleday, 1981) pp. 559-568on the Lukan miraculous-catch call
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 1 (ICC; T&T Clark, 1988) pp. 391-401on the lakeside call and the naming of Peter
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Eerdmans, 2006) pp. 127-145on Johannine and Synoptic testimony
D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (PNTC; Eerdmans, 1991) pp. 154-159on a multi-stage call
Andreas J. Köstenberger, John (BECNT; Baker Academic, 2004) pp. 78-86on progressive discipleship
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
Three gospels offer three different mechanisms by which the same two men became disciples — the classic Synoptic-plus-John call problem, here compounded by Luke's distinctive miraculous-catch version.
The Mark/Matthew account is spare: Jesus walks past the Sea of Galilee, sees the brothers casting nets, says "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men," and they abandon the nets *euthys*, "immediately" (Mark 1:18; Matt 4:18-20). There is no prior acquaintance, no fish miracle, and no Baptist context. The brevity is itself the point: Mark presents an authoritative summons that needs no psychological preparation.
John 1:35-42 differs at every point. Andrew is already a disciple of the Baptist; he hears John designate Jesus *ho amnos tou theou*, the Lamb of God; he and an unnamed companion (traditionally the Beloved Disciple) spend the day with Jesus; then Andrew finds Simon, declares "we have found the Messiah," and brings him. Peter is not summoned by Jesus at all in this version — he is recruited by his brother — and Jesus responds by renaming him Cephas. The setting is the Jordan (John 1:28), not Galilee.
Luke 5:1-11 supplies a third version. Jesus teaches from Simon's boat, then directs him into deep water; Simon — already addressing Jesus as *epistata*, "master" — objects that they caught nothing all night but obeys. The haul is so vast the nets tear and two boats begin to sink; Peter falls at Jesus's knees confessing himself *anēr hamartōlos*, "a sinful man," and Jesus answers *mē phobou, apo tou nyn anthrōpous esē zōgrōn* — "do not fear; from now on you will be catching people." Andrew is not even named; the spotlight falls on Peter, with James and John as partners.
The harmonization proceeds in two layers. First, sequencing (Carson, Köstenberger, Blomberg): John 1 is an initial Jordan meeting; Luke 5 is a later, formal call at Galilee marked by the miraculous catch; Mark/Matthew abbreviate that same Galilean call. Each gospel thus preserves a different cross-section of one multi-stage process. Second, the theological gloss that discipleship was a progressive deepening of commitment rather than a single instantaneous event — a genuinely defensible model of ancient rabbinic-style attachment.
But the texts resist the layering at concrete points. Mark 1:18's *euthys* and the absence of any back-reference present the lakeside call as first contact, not a third stage. The renaming to Cephas, which John places at the Jordan in 1:42, is treated by Mark 3:16 and Matthew 16:17-18 as occurring later and in entirely different settings (the appointment of the Twelve; Caesarea Philippi) — so the same naming event floats across incompatible contexts. Peter's self-designation as "a sinful man" in Luke 5:8 reads as a first encounter with the numinous, not a renewed allegiance to a teacher he had already followed at the Jordan and again at the lakeside.
The critical reading (Brown, *Anchor Bible* 29; Fitzmyer, *Anchor Bible* 28; Marcus, *Anchor Bible* 27; Davies-Allison, ICC) treats these as three independent traditions. The earliest layer likely had Peter called as a fisherman at the lakeside (Mark). John recast the tradition with a Baptist framing that subordinates the Baptist to Jesus — part of the Fourth Gospel's broader polemic against a continuing Baptist sect (cf. John 1:8, 20; 3:30). Luke composed or expanded the miraculous-catch tradition to furnish Peter with a dramatic vocational moment fitting his later prominence; tellingly, the same miraculous catch reappears in a post-resurrection setting in John 21:1-14, suggesting a floating tradition variously deployed. Bauckham, defending Johannine eyewitness derivation, accepts that the Synoptic and Johannine call traditions are formally distinct, though he reads the distinction as complementary testimony rather than contradiction.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction. No parsimonious reading collapses three different mechanisms — direct lakeside summons, Baptist-mediated recruitment via Andrew, and a miraculous-catch call — into one event. The harmonization must either invent a multi-stage process the texts do not narrate or force three independent traditions into a single contrived chronology.
Sources for this reading