| Welcome Visitors |
|---|
|
Sunday Morning Schedule Sunday School: 9:00
Sunday Evening Schedule Services at 6:00 pm Office Hours 9:00-12:00 & 1:00-3:00 Tuesday through Friday |
| Quick Links |
|---|
| Listen to Online Sermons |
| Order Sermon Tapes |
| How to Become a Member of Trinity Baptist Church |
| AWANA |
| TBC Pastor’s Corner |
| Pray for Trinity |
| Helpful Links |
| Bible Studies |
|---|
|
Sunday School
Sunday: 9:00 am |
| Bible Studies |
| Home Fellowships |
| Vacation Bible School |
Report site problems to:
trinity@moscow.com
Site Design by
DJ Scallorn
"And walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they immediately left the nets and followed Him.
This was going to be the year I took up fly fishing. Last year and the year before that were going to be the years I took up fly fishing. Every Christmas I’m given wonderfully crafted fly fishing gear. If I ever go, I will at least look like a pro! I am not a fisherman in any sense of the word, but I have to admit, the whole fly fishing scenario is attractive to me. I can actually muster up a daydream or two of standing in the middle of a mountain stream wearing khaki waders, an Indiana Jones leather hat, and canvas fishing vest, casting that long flexible line back and forth hoping to coax a hungry fly-eating fish onto my hook.
Fishing really is a good sport for pastors and Sunday school teachers. Not only does it offer a respite from the harried activities of life, but it makes for great teaching illustrations in sermons and lessons. When Christ said that He would turn his disciples into fishers of men, who better to truly understand that than us fisherman! After all, all you need is a pole, some line, and a good hook, and you can fish for fish or people, right? That’s the image I had in my mind when I read Matthew four.
I don’t know if I can count the number of sermons I’ve heard in my lifetime that used a pole, line, and hook to illustrate that passage. That’s not the image Christ had intended: His was net fishing, not line fishing. The ancient world knew line fishing well, but that is not the imagery of “fishing for men.”
Searching through my Greek lexicon, it speaks of a fisherman’s net as “large, circular, having heavy weights around its perimeter.” Fisherman would either stand on the shore and repeatedly cast their nets into the water, or drop their nets from a boat. In Matthew four, the nets used were those tossed from the shoreline. Fishing in this manner was tough, labor-intensive work.
The imagery of using a lure and line, and waiting for some fish to strike the carefully selected bait is not what Christ had in mind. The finesse of fly fishing is completely out of the picture. The scene has nothing to do with “hooking” an unbeliever with the gospel. It is not the picture of one person being “reeled” in at a time. That’s line fishin’!
Rather, net fishing involves many fisherman on one net, much strain, long hours of work, often with little results. The goal is to pull in countless fish. So when you stick that imagery in your mind as you read Christ’ words in Matthew, the lesson is different. When Christ said “I’ll turn you into fishers of people” he was saying:
I think Christ has in mind for us to be net, not line fisherman. Shall we gather around the net? See you there!
Trinity Baptist Church
711 Fairview Dr. Moscow, Idaho 83843
208.882.2015
trinity@moscow.com
| Articles |
|---|
| Value & Intensity
Pastor Dan Bailey
|
|
archives |
| Trinity Baptist Church |
|---|
711 Fairview Dr.
|