Shrimp boat blues

Jesus describes the end of time many ways in the Bible. I found one to be rather interesting since it has to do with fishing and fishing seems to dominate my thinking as of late. I’m talking about the parable of the dragnet where Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a dragnet cast into the sea and the catch was gathered. They dragged it onto shore and separated the good into vessels and threw the bad away.

Jesus stated that is what will occur at the end of times. The angels will separate the good from the bad. The good will go to heaven and the bad will burn in Hell.



I have actually fished around shrimp boats that did exactly that. They would drag their nets for miles across the bottom of the ocean and then pull the nets in and anchor up and separate the shrimp from the by-product or trash fish and creatures that they didn’t want to market.


It was always great to fish around one of these boats when this was occurring as they would throw the unwanted fish into the water and it would attract all kinds of fish for me to catch. It was not too pleasant for the trash fish to be thrown to swarming masses of predator fish such as the hungry sharks that awaited them, just as it will not be pleasant for the non-believers.



Matt.13:47

Again the kingdom of heaven

is like a dragnet that was cast into

the sea and gathered some of every kind,

which when it was full, they

drew to shore; and they sat down

and gathered the good into vessels,

but threw the bad away.

So it will be at the end of the

age. The angels will come forth,

separate the wicked from among

the just,

and cast them into the furnace

of fire. There will be wailing and

gnashing of the teeth.