The Word This Week
Luke 8:1…
Jesus was primarily teaching an agrarian blue-collar crowd, but even the people who lived in cities were very closely linked to agriculture since there were none of the modern conveniences we enjoy pertaining to our food supply.
All the people lived very close to the land, and they knew their lives depended upon a good crop yield locally. There was no world-wide food supply to back up whatever shortages may occur in their local crop yield. So everyone was very aware of the principles of doing all you could to assure good crop yield.
So Jesus taught a spiritual lesson based on the agricultural principles everyone knew in order to communicate drawing mankind to God is the same as the attention we may pay to how seed is distributed.
The principles were clear. You don’t sow seed to waste it. Every seed is precious because it represents food that is multiplied many-fold from a single seed. For instance, from a single corn seed sown properly, many ears of corn are the result – each ear containing hundreds of grains of corn.
Now think in terms of how the Word of God is designed to be implanted in the human heart. It is the condition of the heart the ‘seed’ of the Word of God is cast upon which determines the outcome. We know the problem does not rest with the seed, since the Word of God is good seed, capable of vast reproductive power when cast into a receptive heart.
The issue is the ‘soil,’ and everyone would understand this.
The question is: would they take the step of fully integrating the illustration to understand Jesus wasn’t talking about dirt?
This has been the downfall of many a man down through the centuries. Men have ‘ears’ but they are not willing to ‘listen.’ If you think Jesus is just talking about seed and soil, you will miss the point entirely.
But this is why Jesus taught in parables. Each parable Jesus taught had a logical and rational illustration easily understood by everyone. But each parable Jesus taught also had a deep spiritual truth which the parable was meant to communicate – but only to those willing to ‘hear.’
Pastor Bill
Jesus was primarily teaching an agrarian blue-collar crowd, but even the people who lived in cities were very closely linked to agriculture since there were none of the modern conveniences we enjoy pertaining to our food supply.
All the people lived very close to the land, and they knew their lives depended upon a good crop yield locally. There was no world-wide food supply to back up whatever shortages may occur in their local crop yield. So everyone was very aware of the principles of doing all you could to assure good crop yield.
So Jesus taught a spiritual lesson based on the agricultural principles everyone knew in order to communicate drawing mankind to God is the same as the attention we may pay to how seed is distributed.
The principles were clear. You don’t sow seed to waste it. Every seed is precious because it represents food that is multiplied many-fold from a single seed. For instance, from a single corn seed sown properly, many ears of corn are the result – each ear containing hundreds of grains of corn.
Now think in terms of how the Word of God is designed to be implanted in the human heart. It is the condition of the heart the ‘seed’ of the Word of God is cast upon which determines the outcome. We know the problem does not rest with the seed, since the Word of God is good seed, capable of vast reproductive power when cast into a receptive heart.
The issue is the ‘soil,’ and everyone would understand this.
The question is: would they take the step of fully integrating the illustration to understand Jesus wasn’t talking about dirt?
This has been the downfall of many a man down through the centuries. Men have ‘ears’ but they are not willing to ‘listen.’ If you think Jesus is just talking about seed and soil, you will miss the point entirely.
But this is why Jesus taught in parables. Each parable Jesus taught had a logical and rational illustration easily understood by everyone. But each parable Jesus taught also had a deep spiritual truth which the parable was meant to communicate – but only to those willing to ‘hear.’
Pastor Bill