Back on June 22 of 2018 I had published the first of a series of articles on “Proclaiming Christ in a Deaf World,” and that first article was on the Sower from Matthew 13:3. As I have reflected on the theme of the Sower since then, it has occurred to me how many verses in the Bible relate to agricultural subjects and pictures. Many of these verses teach the disciples of Jesus how to communicate Christ to any culture. That is, there are embedded in these verses principles for how to present Christ to a culture like ours, that generally ignores Him. I wanted to cover some of those verses now with a few brief comments on each. This will serve as an addendum to the June 22 article of the Sower.

(These are in no particular order but appear as they occurred to me.)

Luke 16:10-11 – “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.” The act of sowing the gospel seed persistently and patiently over the long term is an act of faithfulness. It is not glamorous, but sowing the gospel is necessary if we are to gather in a harvest of souls. People cannot believe in what they do not know or understand (Romans 10:14-15), and sowing is the ministry that spreads knowledge of Christ and raises awareness of salvation. The disciple of Jesus, then, is to be faithful in scattering the seed of the gospel.

2 Corinthians 9:6 – “He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully.” This is a principle that is both logical and observable. If you want a big harvest, you must scatter a lot of seed. If you want to reap a big harvest of souls, then you must talk about the gospel a lot. How are you sowing? Are you sowing infrequently and sparingly? If so, then why would you ever expect to reap bountifully? While there are many ways to effectively sow the gospel seed, the essence of sowing is to do it persistently and scatter a lot of seed all the time. No strategy of sowing and no theory of sowing will be more critical to the task of sowing than the simple idea that sowing more means you will reap more.

Galatians 6:7, 9 – “Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” “. . . in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” This is not the primary application of this verse, but I would say that, if we are faithful to sow the gospel seed, then in due time (in the Lord’s time) we will reap a harvest of eternal life.

Genesis 2:15; 2 Samuel 23:12 – When the LORD God had made the man, He placed him in the garden “to cultivate it and to keep it.” Shammah “took his stand in the midst of the plot (field of lentils) and defended it (against the Philistines) and the LORD brought about a great victory.” The point here is that the LORD has given to each one of us a plot of ground to cultivate and to defend. This “plot” is the circumstances of our life, including the people and the places and the events of our lives. The LORD expects us to take our stand there and to proclaim His holy name in the midst of that plot.

There will be some more ideas in “The Sower – additional thoughts Part B,” Which I hope to have out in the next few days.

SDG         rmb         1/18/2019