Second, Peter’s wardrobe. Why do we need to know that when Peter realized it was Jesus on the shore, “he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea” (John 21:7)?
The third is the “fish” piece: “Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn” (John 21:11). Obviously John was impressed by this number. But since almost all of the story’s readers would lack the context to find this number impressive, why would God want it included?
If we look close enough, the “nonessential” pieces are telling an important story of their own. The idiosyncratic details, like who gets named, what Peter does with his clothes, and how many fish were caught, are the idiosyncrasies of an eyewitness report — of someone who actually saw the events. Isn’t this the way we all tend to report things that really happened? We include some details and not others — often details our experiences have conditioned us to notice. These details are not nonessential. They may not directly contribute to the main point of the story, but they tell us important things about the human author of the story.
The Oddest Detail
There’s one more detail I’d like to pick up and examine. When Jesus invited the guys to breakfast, John inserted a very strange comment: “Now none of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord” (John 21:12). What an odd thing to say! They didn’t recognize him?
