Did the Gospel Writers Contradict Eacher Other? Matthew and Mark versus Luke on The Calling of Peter, Andrew, James and John.

Someone once inquired with me about an apparent contradiction in the Bible having to do with Jesus call to the disciples to become fishers of men.

The problem is setup this way: Matthew 4:18-22 and Mark 1:14-20 record that Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee, spotted Peter and Andrew casting nets into the water, then the Lord called them to be fishers of men and the two immediately left their nets. Jesus then finds James and John with their father, Zebedee, mending their nets, the Lord calls them, and the two sons follow Him.

Luke 5:1-11 records that Jesus was preaching along lake Gennesaret (also called the Sea of Galilee), and a large crowd gathered to listen to Him. The Lord sees Simon (Peter) and his two boats, and then the Lord requested to be taken in one of the boats a little off shore so that He could teach the crowds, and Peter obliged. After finishing the talk, Jesus asks Peter to let down the net to catch some fish. Peter is reticent because he just spent the night working to catch fish with nothing to show for it but relents. The fisherman then got such a huge catch that the nets began to break and the boat began to sink, which led him to call upon his partners, James and John the sons of Zebedee, to aid in bringing the catch ashore. Peter was amazed but asked the Lord to go away from him because he was a sinful man. James and John were likewise amazed. Jesus, however, tells Peter not to fear and that from that point on he would be “catching men.” Luke then ends the account in noting the fishermen left everything to follow the Lord.

Dose Matthew and Mark’s version of Jesus calling of the disciples contradict Luke’s version?

The differences between the accounts of Matthew and Mark in contrast to Luke are obvious, but there is no reason to believe there is a contradiction. Some solutions involving harmonizing the accounts into a single event, whereas others solutions concede the distinctions between Mathew and Mark’s accounts against Luke’s accounts can be understood as two separate events leading up to the disciples following Jesus. Darrell Bock explains,

Many see Luke developing Mark 1:16-20 by filling in details that Mark chooses not to discuss. This approach is possible because the call to become fishers of people is shared in both texts and the same group of people are present in the accounts, with the exception of Andrew. In addition, the setting at the Sea of Gennesaret (Galilee) is the same.

Nevertheless, seeing two events is also possible.... (1) In Mark 1:19 the fishermen are mending their nets, not washing them as in Luke. This difference is not great, as both might occur at the same time, but the difference in detail is noteworthy. (2) In addition, a distinct set of nets may be in view in each account…. (3) The absence of Andrew is peculiar, if Mark’s account is being developed by Luke, since the structure of two pairs of fishermen in Mark is ignored here. Good arguments can be assembled either way. It is quite possible to explain the differences simply as Mark’s telescoping his account, especially since the mended nets belong not to Peter, but to James and John (Luke 5:2 with 5:7l Matt. 4:21; Mark 1:19). Nevertheless, it can be argued that Luke is narrating a distinct account here, one that gives rational for why these disciples were so quick to leave all for Jesus. The difficulty is that Luke could simply be filling in details for an event that Mark told in summary form. If one event is present, then Luke has probably delayed his account, so he could first give a summary of Jesus’ preaching and active ministry. The delay allows him to develop the theme of gathering disciples into one section. On the other hand, seeing two events here may explain Jesus’ previous contact with Peter in Luke 4:38-39 in that they had also had contact in the Mark 1 account, which Luke has omitted. Two events suggest that Jesus’ teaching and activity, as noted in Luke 5:1-11, helped to solidify the association between Jesus and these men. It is a difficult choice. Matthew 4:18-22 parallels Mark in terms of its placement and description of a nonmiraculous call. It may be that two events are in view here, with Luke narrating the final event of the pair.¹

The view that Luke has a different event in mind than Matthew and Mark resolves the specific details in each of the accounts that appear incongruent; however, the option that the each Gospel writer is referencing a single incident is not out of the question. Literary devices like summarizing, paraphrasing, and telescoping allows each Gospel to accurately report the same in their unique telling of Christ’s ministry. So Mark and Matthew offer the gist of the event, whereas Luke supplies the finer details. Both solutions are plausible and the differences do not mean the biblical writers wrote contradictory accounts.

Whatever way one resolves the difficulty between Matthew and Mark’s version of the disciples calling and Luke’s version, the fact that the differences exist actually supports the reliability and historicity of the Gospels! In The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel observes, “Ironically…if the gospels had been identical to each other, word for word, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired among themselves to coordinate their stories in advance, and that would have cast doubt on them,” to which New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg replies, “That’s right…if the gospels were too consistent, that in itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses. People would then say we really only have one testimony that everybody else is just parroting.”²

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1. Darrell Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Moises Silva (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 449-450.


2. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidences for Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 45.