I recently received a question from a new convert about John 1.43-51:

Is there any significance to the fact that it was a FIG tree?  Any OT relevance / allusion?  Or was it simply a fig tree (rather than a sycamore for Zacchaeus, olive that was cursed, etc)?  And how / when did Christ “see” Nathaniel … was he doing something that caught Christ’s attention?

Basics first: what kind of passage is this?  What type of literature is it?  It’s a narrative – a story.

Next, what function do details play in narratives?  They’re not meant to have secret spiritual meanings.  Narrative details serve to paint the picture, to make the story real, to move the plot along.

So, what’s the main point of this story?  Jesus does something amazing to get Nathaniel’s attention, to convince Nathaniel to follow him.

How then do the details fit into that story line?  The fig tree detail is Christ’s way of demonstrating supernatural knowledge to arrest Nathaniel’s attention.  It would be like stopping for a coffee on the way home to work and then arriving at home that evening, to meet a stranger whose first words were “When you were in the Starbucks, I saw you.”

Was there any special significance to what Nathaniel was doing at the fig tree (or to the venti caramel latte that you ordered)?  No, otherwise John would have told us.  In fact, the indication of the narrative is that Christ’s ability to see Nathaniel under the fig tree is not particularly significant, hence the reply: “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”

How does the attention-grabbing introduction apply to us?  It shows that Jesus knows each of us before we meet him.  It also shows his greatness – he claims that proof of omniscience is not nearly as amazing as other aspects of his power and glory!

BTW, the tree Zacchaeus climbed could be more properly identified as a sycamore-fig – see the Wikipedia article on fig trees for some images.