Like a Growing Seed (Part Two)

Part One introduced and explained the Parable of the Growing Seed found in Mark 4:26-29:

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

The parable is clearly about the process of growth, comparing the development of a plant from sowing to harvest to the spiritual maturation of a citizen of the Kingdom of God, a Christian. What sets this parable apart from other similar parables is that its emphasis is on the invisible and miraculous nature of growth. The sower may put the seed in the ground and do some cultivating, but "he himself does not know how" real development happens. God is behind the scenes, bringing His children to spiritual maturity in preparation for their harvest to eternal life.

Like its physical counterpart, spiritual growth happens slowly and incrementally. We should not expect a newly baptized Christian to be able to produce self-control as easily and to the same degree as one who has been in the church of God for several decades. In the parable, Jesus compares the Christian to a growing seed, and no one expects a sprout to produce ripe fruit immediately. This process takes time and steady progress through a series of stages of learning and experience.

This should be comforting, especially to those who are new in the faith. It should also set a goal or series of goals for each of us to strive toward. We do not want to remain a spiritual sprout like the wicked servant with one talent in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:24-30). Fearful and lazy, he squandered all of his opportunities for growth by burying his talent while making excuses and blaming his master for his own shortcomings. Instead, we should desire to fulfill by the end of our spiritual lives the awesome goal Christ Himself gave us, to "be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

As we continue to develop under Christ, we must accept that we may not see a great deal of improvement at any given time. It is not as some Christian pollsters try to tell us, that spiritual growth is easily quantifiable, whether we read so many chapters of the Bible or pray for x hours each day. Because it is of a spiritual nature—by definition, something that is beyond our physical senses—Christian growth can be difficult to determine, discernible only when a person's godly speech and actions reveal a marked improvement. We may be able to see growth somewhat crudely in certain stages, but most of it will occur unnoticed and unheralded.

The actual mechanics of spiritual growth are beyond understanding, like trying to fathom the infinite depths of the mind of God. As hymnist William Cowper wrote, "God moves in a mysterious way/His wonders to perform." We might as well ask how a kernel of grain becomes a fruitful stalk of wheat. All we really know is that God is faithful, continuing to work in His people to bring His crop of firstfruits to harvest (I Corinthians 1:4-9). He will make sure that every plant that He has chosen for His field has what it needs to grow, produce pleasing fruit, and enter into the fullness of His Kingdom.

The apostle Paul may have drawn upon this Parable of the Growing Seed in his analogy recorded for our edification in I Corinthians 3:6-9:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one [united in their work], and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building.

He changes the metaphor at the end of the passage to God's building because he is progressing toward describing His people as the Temple of God (verses 16-17). However, the idea in his analogy is the same as in the parable, that God is the One who gives the increase to the crop in His field. He has provided the ministry to help things along (see Ephesians 4:11-16). He will give His sons and daughters whatever is needed to bring them to maturity—the best resources and experiences to cause real growth.

As he continues the building analogy, Paul cautions in I Corinthians 3:10, "But let each one take heed how he builds on it." He is speaking specifically to the ministry here, but this care also applies to the individual. In other words, returning to the growing-seed metaphor, the plant has some work to do too; it does not just stand in the soil and do nothing. Even though God provides the bulk of the resources for growth—water, nutrients, sunlight, etc.—the plant has to absorb them and use them to maintain itself and to grow.

In the illustration, the seed, activated by water, puts out roots and a shoot. Continued use of those resources causes it to put on height, develop a head, display flowers, and eventually produce fruit. God could spend eternity supplying sun and water to the earth, but if the seeds never responded to His blessings, not one sprout would ever break the soil's surface.

In the same way, God provides the knowledge, environment, energy, gifts, and whatever else is needed for a Christian to grow and produce spiritual fruit, but the Christian must consistently respond to God's providence to make them happen. Paul goes a step further and cautions us that, not only must each Christian respond, but he must be careful how he responds.

A plant that does not respond well to what God supplies withers and dies, and so does the improperly responsive Christian. Jesus addresses this in His Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23), speaking of seed that "fell on stony places" and that "fell among thorns." These fail to grow due to "tribulation or persecution" or "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches." In effect, they let external troubles and the stresses of living in this world halt the growth process. Such a Christian, Jesus says, "stumbles" or "becomes unfruitful."

Obviously, an analogy can be taken too far, but this one holds up well. God has planted us in His field, and He is looking for spiritual growth so that He can harvest us for His Kingdom. For our parts, we can cling to the promise in Malachi 4:2: "But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall . . . grow. . . ."

Like a Growing Seed (Part One)

Mark 4 contains a parable that is not often discussed, probably because it does not appear in Matthew 13 or among those well-known parables that Luke alone records, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Parable of the Growing Seed is unique to the book of Mark, the most basic of the gospels, perhaps due to it being so simple and its point so self-evident.

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. (Mark 4:26-29)

This parable has obvious similarities to the Parable of the Sower, but it teaches a completely different principle. It is like the parables in Matthew 13 only in that it is a Kingdom parable and that it has a similar form. As a Kingdom parable, it is a metaphoric explanation by Christ about how God's Kingdom works. Jesus tells His disciples in a kind of spiritual code how they should expect the Kingdom of God to function.

We must understand that the Kingdom of God that He is speaking about is not what we normally think of as God's Kingdom, that is, the time after Christ returns in great power to the earth to set up His government. A future aspect certainly exists in the Kingdom parables, but in most of them, He specifically refers to the present reality of God's church and its future until the return of Christ. Recall that Paul writes in Colossians 1:13 that we have already been "conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Spiritually, then, we, as members of His church, are already under the dominion, reign, and rule of God. We have been called out of this world (I Peter 2:9) and given citizenship in God's realm (Philippians 3:20).

Kingdom parables show generally how the true church and true Christianity operate in this world. When He brings the Kingdom in its fullness in the Millennium, Christ will deal with matters much differently. His instructions in these parables, however, are to help us in our current, physical lives, not later, for how helpful would they be if they spoke only of things that will occur after the resurrection? As part of Christ's instruction to His disciples, these parables describe how God's Kingdom—in its present, spiritual manifestation—and its citizens function among men on the earth.

In this parable, therefore, Jesus uses the natural process of plant growth to explain how those whom God calls develop spiritually in this world. The process is quite simple, paralleling the growth of a seed into a full-grown, food-producing plant. Just like the growth of a plant, it happens invisibly and somewhat mysteriously too.

Since the Enlightenment, science has taken much of the mystery out of agriculture. We understand a great deal more about how it works than the people of the first-century church did. They would sow seed in their fields, the rains would come, and they would wait. In a few days, they would see sprouts coming up—a miracle! It was just as miraculous to think that the sprout would develop and not only produce another seed, but many other seeds, a great crop.

Jesus says that one becomes spiritually mature in a similar way; the spiritual process contains many parallels. For instance, He says that the sower sows the seed and goes his way, sleeping and rising, watching how things are going, but he really does not know how these things work. He knows that they happen, and he trusts that they will.

This brings out the fact that the sower in this parable is not Christ but a human. Notice that He does not say, "The Sower goes out to scatter seed," but "A man goes out." In other places, especially Matthew 13, He is specific about who the Sower is, but here it is general, a man. If it were Christ, it could not be said that He does not know how they grow. No, this sower is a man whom God uses to sow the seed. He scatters the seed and then goes about his other tasks.

Soon, the seed sprouts due to the resources that God provides; at a certain time, He supplies the light, warmth, water, and nutrients, and the seed germinates. The sower does little more than cast the seed. All that the sower—a minister—does is to speak a word, write an article, or preach a sermon. The recipient is attracted by it, but it is God who does the bulk of the work.

Ministers are not aware of all the ways that God is working behind the scenes to bring a person to the knowledge of the truth. They understand that He does it but not the mechanics of how He opens an individual's mind, turns him to the truth, and allows him to begin to accept His way of life. Ministers, like the sower, just go to bed at night and get up the next morning to continue to do His work. God does the rest, working behind the scenes. He is the Prime Mover, working invisibly and mysteriously to bring forth a productive "plant."

His work goes far beyond just helping the plant to sprout, for He also wants to see, as Jesus says, ". . . the head, after that the full grain in the head" (Mark 4:28). He is looking forward to the fully developed plant, along with ripened, finished fruit—spiritual maturity.

A Christian develops spiritually in the same way as we see in this analogy. God will use whatever method He chooses to get a person's attention. It might be something insignificant that we might not think would catch anybody's eye, but in God's hand, it is sufficient to lead the individual to the truth.

That is just the beginning. God continues to work with him in ways that are beyond human discernment. A minister can be highly instrumental in feeding and cultivating the individual, but he cannot see the invisible, spiritual ways that God is developing that person for His Kingdom. He may have a long experience in the churches of God, but it is not necessarily the case that a minister will be able to see someone's spiritual growth in detail.

In the same way as the plant's growth is described in the parable, a minister may be able to see major changes, but they are crude gauges of all the development that is taking place. He cannot discern each individual's efforts to grow. This is what Christ is suggesting: Growth is taking place despite it being unseen.

If a person inspects his plantings each day, he will see almost no growth from the day before, but if one waits a few days or week between inspections, it is amazing how much they have grown! Similarly, each Christian grows in stages and at a slow enough pace that it can seem like no growth at all. But God is working, and He is aware of the growth—and that should be very encouraging.

Beating the Rat Race (Part Three)

I Samuel 12 is instructive on the subject of finding a still, quiet place in a hectic world. It recounts a major event in the history of Israel, and as we will see, the prophet Samuel twice advises the Israelites to be still so that they could think deeply about the course they were taking. We would be wise to take his advice before making any major change of direction in life.

In I Samuel 8, the people had gathered to demand that Samuel give them a king just as all the other nations had. Besides being a prophet, Samuel was also Israel's judge at the time, and being old, he had turned most of his duties over to his two sons, Joel and Abijah. However, unlike the incorruptible Samuel, their services went to the highest bidders. Even so, Samuel was quite distressed when Israel asked for a king because he understood that their request was a thinly veiled rejection of God (I Samuel 8:7). He also knew that a king would eventually accrue to himself the nation's wealth and power and essentially enslave the populace. Nevertheless, God told Samuel to comply with their request.

Shortly thereafter, Samuel anointed Saul, a Benjamite, as king, and I Samuel 12 records Samuel's address to the people on this occasion. However, not long before this, the Ammonites had attacked the people of Jabesh Gilead and put the city under siege. The two sides had agreed to a seven-day truce so that the people of the city could decide what they were going to do. They had hurriedly sent a note to Saul, saying, "Come help us. We are in distress."

Saul had slaughtered a yoke of oxen and sent the cut pieces to the tribes of Israel, threatening to slaughter them if they failed to help him rescue the folk of Jabesh Gilead. So the men of Israel had mustered for battle and annihilated the Ammonites. It was a resounding victory for Saul and the Israelites. In this exalted mood, the nation had gathered for Saul's coronation.

Then Saul was officially installed as king "before the LORD" (I Samuel 11:15), and afterward, Samuel rose to speak. He begins his address by reminding them that he had done as they had asked in crowning a king over them and that, in all his many years in office, he had never stolen from them, taken a bribe, or oppressed any of them. They acknowledge that he had treated them properly. He had dealt straightforwardly and honestly with them throughout his entire life.

This is an interesting introduction because it leads to what he says next. In doing so, he had established his credentials as trustworthy and truthful, so what he was about to say was worth listening to. He is about to make them aware of something vitally important.

In I Samuel 12:6, he says, "It is the LORD who raised up Moses and Aaron, and who brought your fathers up from the land of Egypt." Perhaps this seems self-evident, but he is still setting the stage for his main point, making sure that they understood that God was behind everything that had ever happened in the history of Israel—certainly, He had orchestrated her most seminal events. God had called and trained Moses and Aaron for their work in freeing Israel from Egyptian bondage, and in a way, Samuel alludes to the fact that God had raised him up, too, as judge and prophet. In other words, he has the full backing of God.

Then he gives them a piece of advice: "Now therefore, stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD concerning all the righteous acts of the LORD, which He did to you and your fathers" (I Samuel 12:7). They had just crowned their first king, and they were very excited, caught up in the festivities. They had also just won a huge victory over one of their enemies, and they were aglow with jubilation and a feeling of invincibility. Being united under a king made this a new age for the land of Israel—these were exciting times! But Samuel says, "Everyone, be quiet. Calm down and let me reason with you."

Then he reiterates what God had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt and in the wilderness. After they entered the land, they had trouble with oppressive foreigners, and God had raised up judges to give them victories and shake off the oppression. Yet, free and prosperous, Israel had soon forgotten God, committed idolatry, and once again became enslaved. God had delivered them by the hand of a new judge, and this pattern of prosperity, apostasy, oppression, and deliverance repeated itself many times. The history of Israel was one of God's blessing and mercy and their perfidy and rebellion, which God countered by punishing them. This pattern, Samuel warns, would continue even though they now had a king:

Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen and whom you have desired. And take note, the LORD has set a king over you. If you fear the LORD and serve Him and obey His voice, and do not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the LORD your God. However, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you, as it was against your fathers. (I Samuel 12:13-15)

Then, the prophet repeats his advice for them to stand still, this time to "see this great thing which the LORD will do before your eyes" (verse 16). Samuel calls for God to send thunder and rain. What makes this storm miraculous is that Saul's coronation took place during the wheat harvest in late spring—around Pentecost—when the dry season had already begun. Thunderstorms in May or early June were unheard of, but "the LORD sent thunder and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel" (I Samuel 12:18).

This miracle showed the people that God backed Samuel's every word. His was a true saying from a trustworthy prophet of God. If they would listen to reason, then they could take instruction from his address and use it to their benefit. If they would remain faithful to God, then the monarchy that they had asked for could work, just as it had worked under the righteous judges. However, if they failed to listen, then this system was no better than the last one, and they would once again be oppressed, enslaved, and scattered.

Notice the Israelites' reaction: "And all the people said to Samuel, ‘Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we may not die; for we have added to all our sins the evil of asking a king for ourselves'" (I Samuel 12:19). Once they stood still, they began to realize what they had done, and God's added "ka-boom" from heaven drove the point home.

Samuel's warning was tremendously serious, and the Israelites needed to be still to perceive just how far they had strayed from understanding and doing God's will. In their previous agitated, excited state, they could not truly listen to him, and they certainly could not see godly reason. The same holds true for us in these tumultuous times. If we really want to know what God is trying to tell us, we need to calm down, be still, and listen intently to His Word.

Pentecost and Memorial Day

Every now and again, the Feast of Pentecost and Memorial Day fall back-to-back on the calendar, as they do this year. At first blush, they seem to have little in common: one is religious, the other secular; one focuses on the harvest of firstfruits, the other on the patriotic sacrifices of loved ones; one has an agrarian background, the other has its roots in war; and so forth. They seem to be as far removed from each other as ancient history and current events, as distant as Jerusalem from Washington.

Yet, we should not be too hasty in concluding that they do not share any common features. Immediately, we can see that they occur in the same season of the year, as spring is ending and summer looms. In this way, they both mark time, an end and a beginning.

Memorial Day does this in a couple of ways. For most, and especially for children, this holiday, situated as it is at the end of May, represents the end of the school year and the beginning of the more carefree summer months. If the administrators had an ounce of sense, most schools would not run their academic year beyond Memorial Day, since 99 percent of the students have already mentally finished their studies for the year. Requiring them to attend class into the heat of June serves only to fulfill meaningless mandated days-of-instruction regulations. Of course, it follows that this holiday ushers in the months of summer vacation until Labor Day in early September.

A more serious set of ends and beginnings in Memorial Day is one that those who have lost loved ones in the nation's wars realize all too well. For these, Memorial Day closes one year and begins another without the soldier, sailor, airman, marine, or guardsman or –woman who gave his or her life in the defense of American freedom. This day is for them not so much a holiday as it is a solemn day of remembrance and pride in the patriotism of their fallen service member. In many, it renews a commitment to the national values that so many have died to protect.

For its part, Pentecost concludes the seven-week count from the Days of Unleavened Bread, specifically commanded by God and unlike the determination of any other holy day. Such an oddity is a biblical tip-off that underlying spiritual meaning awaits our further study and consideration. That the count begins in the atmosphere of the Feast of Unleavened Bread—when thoughts of overcoming sin and putting on righteousness are thick in the air—traverses a time of verdure and growth, and finishes in a harvest, a reaping or gathering of ripe produce, should clue us in to at least one of the lessons God wishes us to learn from this annual exercise.

It marks a beginning too. Acts 2 tells us that the Christian church began on the Day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead as a type of the wavesheaf offering, as the First of the firstfruits (Romans 8:29; I Corinthians 15:23; Revelation 1:5). On this day, God sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in those few who had been converted during Christ's ministry, providing them with the understanding, power, and skills to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God to the world. From then until now, the church of God has fulfilled this commission to a greater or lesser extent, the gates of the grave not prevailing against it (Matthew 16:18).

Because Pentecost focuses so much on the church and its work, it is not too much of a stretch to consider it a kind of day of remembrance of those who have gone before us spiritually. From that first Christian Day of Pentecost to our own time, thousands of men and women have given themselves in sacrifice—both in dying and in living—to transmit the true gospel to us. Many true Christians in the first century, and certainly almost all the apostles, suffered martyrdom for their convictions about God and His way of life. Some of them suffered cruelly in the "pleasure gardens" of Nero and in the "games" in the Coliseum, but many more died alone and unheralded at the hands of rioters, wicked judges, and tyrannical rulers.

The sacrifices did not end there. In many times and places, the true church and its practices have been outlawed under penalty of fines, imprisonment, and death. Under such injustice, keeping the Sabbath was risking one's life—and the lives of one's family members. Whether it was being baptized by immersion or celebrating Passover or even reading Scripture in one's native tongue, practicing God's way of life was for such people a matter of life and death. Yet, down through the centuries, many gladly took this risk upon themselves, and what is more, some had the courage to proclaim it beyond their families to the public. Most of these paid the highest price for their boldness, but the truth of God never ceased to be handed down from one generation to the next.

What the author of Hebrews says about the Old Testament faithful in Hebrews 11:35-40 can be applied to many true Christians over the last nearly two thousand years:

Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

The Day of Pentecost pictures the spiritual harvest of firstfruits, among whom will be the Christian faithful down through the centuries. They still wait in their graves for their resurrection with us at the return of Christ, and for the fulfillment of God's promise of eternal life and their reward in the Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 15:51-52; I Thessalonians 4:13-17). Perhaps we can take a few moments this weekend to consider their sacrifices and thank God that He has called such heroes of faith into His Family.