Using fish to catch fish

Originally posted July 23, 2011, at Country Preacher’s Corner. Republished with permission of the author.

I’m not much of a fisherman. I don’t quite have enough patience, especially when three little kids, who have even less patience than I do, are running around screaming for attention while I’m trying to concentrate on being lazy with my line in the river. But I digress.

While fishing on the Medina River I think I got a little insight into evangelism.

Numerous perch swam in the shallows as we fished for our main desire: catfish.

We were using stink bait to attract the cats, but with no luck. That’s when my father-in-law began talking about how nice it would be to use some of those perch as bait. Apparently, using fish to catch fish is a better strategy.

I undertook the task and within a few minutes had caught a couple of perch. Baiting our hooks with our new bait, we waited once again. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t quite with us this go round. I think the noisiness of my children had something to do with it.

But it did get me thinking about fish catching fish.

Especially in light of Jesus’ admonition to His followers to be “fishers of men.”

For even as we fish for people, aren’t we those who have been “caught” already?

Are we not fish who have been caught by the Great Fisherman?

And are our lives “bait” as we wade in the water of the world?

Do our lives attract other fish? Do our lives scare them away?

If we are fish catching fish, how does it behoove us to live and move and have our being?

(I realize the weakness of this analogy is trapping another person/fish unwillingly and luring them into a place they might not want to go. As Christians, I do not believe we are called to twist arms and catch folks coercively. Yet, I still think the analogy does bear some thought.)

Find a link to Kevin Haug’s blog Country Preacher’s Corner at Lutheran Blogs.