Fishing - Jesus' Way

    In our class yesterday morning, we were discussing Peter in Luke 5:1-11. One of the questions supplied was about Peter's work fishing that changed from going after men instead of aquatic life. Specifically, the direction of answers migrated to equipment and preparation.

    In the course of discussion, many people mentioned “bait” as a necessary ingredient for effective fishing which immediately made me think of two things.

    “Bait” is a deception – the goal of bait is to fool your intended quarry by offering something they want and wrapping that around something painful/bad/etc... When fishing for men, that is the exact opposite of what we are doing. In fact, the better analogy would be that we're helping remove the hook that Satan has snared them with by wrapping it in the temporary pleasures of sin

    When we think of today's fishing to explain the picture of what was going on in Jesus' day, we are completely missing the point. I don't even know if rod fishing was going on back then, but the fishing that is talked about is net fishing which is quite different

    Rod & Bait fishing is angling for a specific type of fish (discriminatory), net fishing catches anything that swims by (non-discriminatory). So, rod fishing is what most of “the church of Christ (non-denominational, non-institutional)” has done for at least the 20 years I've been paying attention. We go to neighborhoods where we're comfortable (if we go at all!) and talk to the pharisees of our day who feel that they lack nothing. Instead of casting our nets to spread the message to all who need to hear it – including those unfamiliar to us for whatever reason – we keep the message to ourselves!

    Perhaps the other problem with Rod fishing is that you can just cast your line out, sit down and wait – it's very passive! With net fishing, if you just leave your net out there all day, it'll become tangled or torn up and will be completely useless. It has to be actively used!

    If we are willing to engage ourselves and get down to work sharing the message in whatever community we have opportunity to do so (obeying what Jesus commands!), we will likely have the same problem that Peter and his associates did when they listened to Jesus – their nets were so full they nearly broke and it filled two boats to the point of nearly sinking them!

    Let's all get a plan together and get out sharing God's message today!