Recently, I was lurking in an online discussion about evangelism when one person posted, quite eloquently, about our role as fishermen. Building on Matthew 4:19 where Jesus tells His disciples, ““Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” he applied this metaphor to the Church’s commission to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (Matt 28:19). Evangelism is about being fishers of men.
The poster then extended this metaphor to examine what makes a good or effective fisher: Even to the person who has never spent the day by a lazy river with a pole in the hand or cruised the lake in a bass boat searching for hot spots, it is obvious that an important part of catching fish is using the right bait. The sporting goods store has an impressive array of lures or artificial bait and corner stores around the lake have large signs advertising “Live Bait”. Different bait attracts different types of fish. Experienced fishermen will study the eating behaviors of the fish they are trying to catch. Differences in the time of the year or the weather affect which type of bait will be most attractive to the fish. Wise fishermen also know that it is important to study the natural behavior of the bait. The more the bait looks and moves like the natural meal the fish is expecting, the greater the chances that the fish will go for the bait.
On the surface, it seems to make sense that if Christians want to become better fishers of men we should follow the lead of top fishermen and carefully examine our bait and the fish we are trying to catch. After all, in fishing, bait isn’t a “one size fits all” tool. Reasoning that we need to understand the fish we are trying to catch and their eating behaviors, we then conduct surveys to better understand the “felt needs” of the unsaved community around us. We think that if we can design programs (bait) that meet the felt needs (eating behaviors) of the community around us, we will become more effective fishers of men.
Unfortunately, the idea of using bait to fish for men comes from our modern understanding of recreational sport fishing rather than from Scripture. The fishermen called to become fishers of men did their fishing with nets. Their catch didn’t depend on having the right bait to attract the fish. Instead their most bountiful catches came from listening to the Lord about when and where to cast their nets. A good example is found in Luke 5:4-6 (ESV):
“And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’ And Simon answered, ‘Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.’ And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.”
Those who defend programs attempting to address the felt needs of the unbelieving community will often note that Paul became “all things to all people” (1 Cot 9:19-23) in order to spread the Gospel. Paul certainly approached the description of the Gospel a little differently when faced with different audiences. For example, Paul used the fact that the Greeks acknowledged an “unknown” god with an altar (Acts 17:22-32) as the basis for introducing the Triune God as that god, but the content of the message was still about Christ and Him crucified (see verse 31).
Let’s examine Paul’s reaction to the felt needs of His audiences. In 1 Cor 1:22 Paul points out the felt needs of the Jews and of the Greeks and in the following verses he speaks to how he addressed these felt needs.
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Paul cast the wide “net” of the Gospel rather than dangling different “bait” depending on what Jews or Greeks felt they wanted. Let’s grow the church in the same manner that the disciples employed, teaching in the power of the Holy Spirit the time treasured message of the Gospel. Set down your bait, pick up the net, and listen for where the Lord instructs you to cast it. †
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I’d like to think that we don’t use barbs in fishing for God. Freedom to “spit out” the “bait” or wriggling free of the net, so to speak, are important alternatives for the “hardened heart”; with blessings of love, my brother.
I don’t believe that God instructs us to use “bait”. Bait, by its very nature, is deceptive. It masquerades as something that it is not. Bait, it seems to me, is concluding that the ends justify the means.
The fishermen Jesus recruited to become fishers of men, used nets to do their fishing.
I guess that one may speculate all they want about the nature and effectiveness of the nets, but I believe that it is important for us to realize that it is only that, personal speculation.
I would have to wonder who, that has truly experienced the goodness and mercy of God after being caught in the net, would want to wiggle free.
Great blog, Rick! I was just reading it out loud to Richard, and he said, “It’s only deceptive evangelism that uses bait.”
And then I read your response above. Exactly.
The bait metaphor is descriptive of Adventist evangelism; it operates, in fact, on the “bait and switch” method. It does not reveal up front that it is Adventist; after luring the seeker in and convincing them the bait is real by addressing their felt needs with what sounds like biblical insights, it switches to introducing Adventist doctrines and ends by moving the participant from the large pool of Christianity into the isolated pond of Sabbath-keeping at the local Adventist church.
A friend of ours observed just this morning that one of the ways Adventism hides its true nature and appears evangelical is that, instead of going door-to-door as its primary evangelistic method (think JW and LDS), it holds Revelation Seminars—the model used by evangelicals for many, many years (think Billy Graham and Greg Laurie). So, from the start, the Adventist evangelistic meeting is masquerading as something the culture in general is conditioned to understand as being Christian.
SDAism is certainly well versed in using attractive “bait” to lure in the unsuspecting. Stop smoking programs, vegetarian cooking classes, heart health programs and so on.
But, unfortunately SDAism isn’t alone in this. Some church growth gurus advocate the same thing. Identify what topics are important to the surrounding community and focus your ministry on addressing these topics in order to bring more people into the door of the church. A recent Evangelical author writes on church growth “Jesus told us to be fishers of men…Churches that incarnate themselves into the culture fish with the proper bait and tackle…They customize their worship, teaching, outreach, and ministries to their specific cultural and demographic setting by following the right philosophy: cultural relevance.”
A larger local congregation does not always mean more Christians. “Bad choices” might be more culturally relevant than “sin”; but it is only sinners who know about their need for a Savior. And here is the problem with “bait”, you either have to “bait and switch” or you have to keep feeding the bait intead of your real message. Or worse yet, the bait becomes your real message.