Good Morning Friends,
“Jesus taught them many things by parables,
and in his teaching said: ‘Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell
along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not
have much soil. It sprang up quickly,
because the soil was shallow. But when
the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had
no root. Other seed fell among thorns,
which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop,
multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.’” (Mark 4:2-8)
There are many important lessons that Jesus
teaches in this parable, but the one lesson that struck me as I thought about
it today is that there is an abundance of seed.
There is no shortage of seed.
Farmers today do their best to manage the
costs of production. They determine just
how much fertilizer is the optimum amount to put on each field. They don’t want to use too little fertilizer
because then their harvest won’t be as plentiful. They don’t want to use too much fertilizer,
either, because that would be needlessly spending money. They want to buy and apply just the right
amount.
The same principle is true for the amount of
seed they sow in each field. They don’t
want to sow too little seed or the harvest will be less than it could have
been. But they don’t want to sow too
much seed, either. Too much seed will be
wasteful of the seed and wasteful of the money necessary to buy it. They want to buy and sow just the right
amount of seed.
But that principle wasn’t true about seed for
the farmers in Jesus’ day. Seed was
plentiful – more plentiful in the land of Israel than good soil was. They wanted to sow the seed liberally so that
they could be sure that no good soil was missed. They wanted to make sure every good piece of
soil was used to produce a harvest. For
a farmer in Israel in Jesus’ day seed was not to be the limiting factor in the
harvest – soil was!
The seed of the Gospel is abundant. There is no shortage of seed. The seed of the Gospel is much more plentiful
than good soil is in which to sow it. In
the Kingdom of God, we want to be sure that we sow the seed of the Gospel
generously so that every good piece of soil is used to produce a harvest. We never want seed to be the limiting factor
in the harvest.
The point is – we have the seed of Gospel –
plenty of it. We are to sow it
generously!
His, by Grace,
Steve
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