For a long time I have found this passage curious. I have understood for some time now the reference to ploirarion (Strongs 4142) in verse 8 to refer to the believers outside the churches after the end of the church age.
But I have long puzzled about the reference to "the right side of the ship" back in verse 6. This is a slightly different greek work, ploion (Strongs #4143), in the Bible is used as a figure of the visible church in the church age. Yet, here in John 21:6 the disciples are commanded to cast their nets of the right side of the ploion (4143), and they ensnared a great number of fish.
How could it be that the visible church is somehow involved in a latter rain evangelistic haul?
The key is the phrase "right side", I believe. The word "right" has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the "right side of the ship" means that the Bible is now focusing on the *invisible* church. This reference provides the transition between the end of the church age, or the "night" in which the disciples caught no fish from the visible church (ploion (4143)), and latter rain, pointed to by "the morning", in which the "little ship" (ploirarion (4142)) enabled the catch to be brought ashore.
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