Catfish!!!
Oh man did I love those catfish. Sure the Atlanta aquarium had whales and sharks and penguins and things. But the highlight was definitely the catfish. Sorry I take that back, the highlight of the day was Rachel. The FISH highlight of the day was the Catfish. Those Catfish were huge. It's hard to get a frame of reference from the photo. But those fish were like the size of your head. And they had the Aquarium set up so that you could walk under neither the Tanks. So the fish were swimming right over your heads.
Rachel wanted to get to the bottom of why I was so excited about catfish.
R: Why in the world are you so excited about catfish?
D: Because of Galatians Chapter 2.
R: What do you mean?
D: Before certain men came from James he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived he began to draw back separate himself from the Gentiles, because he was afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group.
R: What in the world are you talking about?
D: Paul confronted Peter because he was afraid of eating with the Gentiles in front of the Jews! ... THE JEWS!
(pause)
R: I don't get it
(I point at the Catfish with a big grin.)
D: Catfish! Jews!!
(An even more awkward pause.)
D: Jews! CATFISH!!!!
It was a very funny moment.
So here is the point that I was SO excited about that I could not express to Rachel in an intelligible way. According to Old Testament law catfish are unclean animals. They are bottom feeders. Disgusting creatures that should not be eaten. That was the Law. But Paul says in Galatians “If righteousness could be obtained through the law then Christ died for nothing”. So when Peter was eating with the Gentiles the reason he was afraid of the Jews seeing him was because the Gentiles eat unclean food. LIKE CATFISH! So Paul was mad at Peter because Peter was taking the issue of food and making it more important then the Gospel, which is why Paul confronted him.
And it is an astounding thing really, that I am a Gentile. I’m an ethnic catfish, outside of the Jewish line. But Galatians say, “Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
And my thought is “Are you kidding me? Really? A slimy bottom feeding unclean Catfish Gentile like me can be considered righteous like Abraham?” Like the Syrophoenician Gentile woman in Matthew 15 saying “Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the master’s table”. And Jesus responds by praising her faith.
So yeah! =) Whenever I see a Catfish or I eat a Catfish I think YAY CATFISH! It reminds me that before I knew Christ I was a filthy catfish. But now through the Gospel I am righteous in the eyes of God.
Later on in the aquarium Rachel was showing me pictures of the sea nettles. They were really pretty sea nettle pictures. I in my random way I said out of the blue, “Say, can we go back and look at the catfish again?” She looked at me with a bizarre puzzled look. Then she smiled and said in here sweet voice. “Sorry Sweetie. I don’t want to take away from your catfish joy.” And said to her, “I don’t want to take away from your sea nettle joy either”. I was very funny.
So yeah Catfish.
YAY CATFISH!!!
