Acts 17:22-31
Jesus
called His followers to be fishers of men. As in any fishing, bait and presentation
is everything. What would you think if a fishermen who hadn’t caught anything
all day told you he had been fishing with strawberries? You would probably say,
“Well, duh? You can’t catch fish on strawberries.” Fish don’t
eat strawberries. What kind of fishermen doesn’t know the proper bait to
use?
Too
many churches and Christians are fishing with strawberries. No wonder their
results are dismal. Paul knew that regardless of what kind of men we are fishing
for, the only appropriate bait for fishing for men is the gospel of Christ.
Just because a certain kind of person seems difficult to catch doesn’t
mean we change the bait. However the presentation may take some adjusting.
How
to catch the most difficult kind of people:
I.
Know the kind of people you are fishing for. (v. 22)
What
makes post-Christian people of today so difficult to evangelize? The answer
is the same thing that made it difficult to evangelize pre-Christian society
of Paul. They were very religious.
“Paul
then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: AMen of Athens! I see
that in every way you are very religious” (v. 22).
On
a positive note, religious people lend an ear to the gospel. The problem is
that they lend an ear to every wind of doctrine.
I
went to seminary in New Orleans. Some friends and I would go down to the French
Quarter and Bourbon Street to witness. New Orleans is filled with all kinds
of religions and beliefs. On any day, you can meet people who believe in all
kinds of gods.
They
were religious. They would be happy to discuss religion with us, but rarely
could we convince by argument that they should follow Christ.
The
men to whom Paul was speaking were Epicureans and Stoics. Epicureans believed
that the chief end of men was to avoid pain. They believed in God, but believed
that He had no interest in the earthly affairs of man. Neither did they believe
in the afterlife. The Stoics taught that the chief end of man was to master
himself to the point that he was indifferent to pleasure and pain. We must know
the people we are seeking to catch.