GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 7:9
Bait and Switch
Consumers often face a sales tactic known as “bait and switch.” For example, an appliance store may advertise a low-priced item. However, when the customer arrives, he is told that the item has been sold out, but there is a higher-priced item available. Alternatively, a merchant will advertise a “Black Friday Deal,” often known as a “doorbuster,” but the merchant will only have, perhaps, five of the advertised items. When the customer arrives, the advertised product is sold out, but there are more expensive items available.
An insurance company is now advertising life insurance for $9.95 per unit per month—only 33 cents a day. The “unit” varies with age and gender. In my case, the $9.95 would purchase a “unit” of $421 in life insurance—which cannot be paid out until premiums totaling $238 have been paid over two years. If I wanted a $10,000 policy, I’d need 237 “units,” which would cost $236 per month or $2,836 per year. The oft-repeated advertisement only emphasizes the $9.95 per month, which will never increase and for which acceptance is guaranteed, this appears to be an example of bait and switch.
When the delegation of religious-cultural watchers—Pharisees and scribes—journeyed north from Jerusalem to check up on the new preacher they had heard about in the region of Galilee, they accused Jesus of violating the “tradition of the elders” because he allowed his disciples to eat without ceremonially washing their hands, as the tradition of the elders prescribed. Jesus turned the tables on them by accusing them of a classic version of bait and switch. “And he said to them, ‘How neatly you set aside the commandment of God, in order that you might establish your own tradition!’” (Mark 7:9)
Oh yes, there are Christian versions of “bait-and-switch.” Any version of Christianity that offers the virtues of union with the Father outside the Word of God, the Bible, is engaging in bait and switch. One has the Bible as the foundation for his faith, but then he must perform a particular act, or believe in an extra book, or be part of this particular organization, or be baptized in this particular way, or… The switch is in the “and.” The Jerusalem delegates had the Word of God and the tradition of the elders. Jesus said they “easily” or “neatly” set aside the Word in favor of their tradition—bait and switch.
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