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

In English, this phrase initially appears as something of a pun, "fishers of men" rather than "fishermen," but in the original Greek it has none of these connotations. The Greek term for fisher used (halieus ) doesn't mention fish. It is a more general term for one who works at sea.

Instead, our seach for meaning takes us in a different direction than comparing people to fish. One of Christ's analogies for the kingdom heaven is a net put down into the sea taking in both good fish and bad. In ancient Greek, one of the near synonyms for halieus is sageneuter, which specifically means one who uses a net in the sea. After Christ's resurrection, one of his appearances was occasioned by a miracle of filling the apostle's nets. This signalled the coming of the time when the apostles would begin actively converting people.

At this point in the Gospels, Christ's statement tells us a more about how Christ sees the coming of the kingdom of heaven as a process. Here, we are told for the first time that this process isn't one of simple divine action or fiat. It is the action of people working with other people. (The Greek term translated as "men" here is a generic on for people of either sex.) It is a form of work not just a miracle of transformation. Here Christ is calling the apostles and us to this mission.