A Puritan Approach to Fishing

I have just finished a little booklet on evangelism, according to the Puritan method, by a modern author whose name I will not mention.  It is really an amazing book.  Somehow the author manages to write fifty pages on the subject of evangelism without even once suggesting that we talk with unbelievers except from the pulpit.  Instead, the book declares that the one and only method of evangelism is to preach from the pulpit the "whole counsel of God," using "plain sermons" done in the Puritan style, heavy on doctrine and archaic language. 

It is not a book on how to evangelize sinners,  it is a book on how to evangelize sinners three hundred years ago.  The majority of the book is occupied with what is wrong with modern evangelistic methods.  After having read this slim book, I am ready if  ever meet an Eighteenth Century sinner.

I respect the Puritans.  I respect their love of the Bible,  their prayer and piety. But their approach to evangelism was a product of their time when even unbelievers came to church, and the vast majority of people believed in God and respected the Bible. This is not the case today.  Today, the majority of people have no idea what the Gospel is, and have no inclination to find out.  The never set foot in a church or place of worship except on holidays and weddings.  If a preacher believes that the only way of evangelizing is through the pulpit then he should move his pulpit  outside in the front yard of the church, where at least he has a chance that a passersby might accidently hear and believe.

But enough about this book.  It did not do much to make me rethink my view of preaching or evangelism. It did, however, cause me to rethink my view of fishing. What if we applied the same approach to catching fish.  What a difference it would make!

The Bibles supports fishing, I am happy to say, as an activity which can be readily practiced by believers. After all, did not God Himself fish when He drew out Leviathan with a fishhook?  Did not the apostles fish on the sea of Galilee?  Did not our Lord, on more than one occasion, command  his disciples to fish?  And what about Jonah?  It is heartily reassuring to know that fishing is AOK with God. 

But what are we to think of the modern diversity of fishing methods, and the proclivity of many so called "fishermen"  of  our day to fish in strange places for strange fish?  The foolishness of their activity is shown by the number of times, once they have  a fish on the hook, they subsequently let it fall away. Their shallow, worldly approaches to fishing may attract many fish, but they often lose as many fish as they land.  With such large numbers of fish, they often do not have time to properly clean them.  And how many of those are the best quality?  They regularly land trash fish as well as good ones. 

It is not enough to fish--we must fish as God intended! That means the use of a net, preferably on the sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is the only place where God specifically commands any to fish.  That one lake should be sufficient for us.   Though it might be difficult for the average fisherman to make it to Israel,  the rewards of knowing that we are righteous fishermen, attentive to His word ought to be enough to make the extra trouble worthwhile.  

In the Holy Scriptures, the fish caught, were those which God intended for us to catch--those preordained for our consumption.  Indeed, did not our Lord tell Peter which side of the boat to cast upon? Was not the number of the fish caught recorded in Scripture on one occasion(157) so we might know that the number of fish was specially ordained?  Without our Lord's command and specific direction, the disciples came back empty.  Without a clear sense of the Spirit's leading and God's specific command,  they should not have even tried.

The modern fishermen cares naught whether his fish are rightly  or wrongly caught. All he cares about is filling is cooler.  The modern fishermen uses unnatural means, such as artificial bait, fish finders, and outboard trolling motors. He focuses on quantity instead of quality, when he should be trusting in God to bring the fish to him, as Peter did of old.  Does he not hear his Lord's command,  saying "Throw over to the other side of the boat?"  Shocking!

As with everything else a pastor does, proper fishing begins with proper preaching.  Fish need to be intellectually challenged to jump into our nets.  It must be explained by clear and simple proclamation that it is their duty as lower creatures of the water to obey us, their masters.  They need to respect the authority given to us over nature in Genesis 1:28. 

A proper fisherman be a man of prayer.  He must get his heart right before God.  Then if he does not catch fish he will know that he is really at fault for not praying with sufficient intensity and passion for fish.  Once he has prayed with force and intensity, then he must  stand over the lake pleading with tears, saying "Come thou fish! Come and be captured for the Lord's sake!" He must read to the fish from the Scriptures, (King James preferred), admonishing them that it is their duty to become part of our diet.  He must comfort the fish, by revealing the glories that await when he is filleted, breaded, and dipped in tartar sauce! Surely it is his only the fish's willful disobedience in loving his meager life, coupled with our lack of zeal in our prayers and preaching, that has kept these creature from their appointed places in our frying pans.

But what if our cooler is still empty at the end of the day?  What if we catch nary a single fish? It matters not. We can still rejoice, because we know that we have fulfilled our Lord's command to fish.  We have done our duty,  whether or not any fish have actually come into our nets. We can go back the next week and the next, getting no results, because we are firm in our assurance that the fish whom God has foreordained will come, even if we have not seen any yet seen them, or any other.  And if the fish seem to be laughing at us under the surface, and think us to be a bunch of loonies, then indeed our empty stomachs are proof of our faithfulness and obedience, as we have not stooped to worldly methods of fishing.

But what if we never catch any fish at all?  Rejoice anyway, brethren.  We have the advantage of having more time to spend in his study the Word, finding more and more things to disapprove of in ourselves,  and more of what God has forbidden in fishing.  We can study all night,  since we are not burdened with the necessity of actually cleaning any fish. 

Amen and amen!