What Did Jesus Do?
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea...
And he told them many things in parables...
Matthew 13.1,3
Everyone knows Jesus was a carpenter. Or was He? I don't recall ever reading anything in the Bible about anything that Jesus built, do you? Joseph was a carpenter, and most of us make the assumption that Jesus learned the trade at Joseph's side and then went into the family business. But I'm not so sure. In fact, rather than a carpenter, I believe Jesus might have been a farmer. The Lord sure knew a lot about agriculture. And, even more, He was always sowing.
Take that time recorded in Matthew 13, when Jesus who had merely gone out to sit beside the sea, and ended up having to climb into a boat because of the crowd that gathered around Him on the beach. Matthew 13.3 says the Lord spoke to them in parables, but what Jesus was really doing was sowing. Oh, the people, even His disciples, didn't understand what was happening, but Jesus was sowing while He told a parable about a sower.
You see, Jesus didn't tell parables for amusement, though they were entertaining stories in their own way. The purpose of the parables was the building up of the kingdom of God through the sowing of the Word in the hearts of those who heard them. Every parable was a seed Jesus himself scattered on the soil of hearts. And, just as in the parable itself, those “seeds” landed on some hearts that were hard and barren, and some landed on hearts that were kind of shallow, other “seed” landed on hearts that were very open and receptive but unfortunately burdened with many worldly distractions and cares, and still other “seed” landed on hearts that were very fertile indeed.
Of course, even the best seed in the best soil needs some care and attention if it is going to grow and produce abundantly. For instance, there was Simon Peter. Peter responded quickly enough to the Word, but it took more than hearing a few parables to produce the apostle who would stand up on Pentecost and preach one powerful message. Jesus sowed the Word in Peter. And then, like a good farmer, He tended to the growth of Peter's faith, and the development of Peter's understanding throughout their time together. Like a farmer, Jesus had confidence in the seed He was sowing, and faith in the soil He sowed in, and ultimately the Lord entrusted the fullness of the harvest that would be His Church to Peter. Oddly, the harvest would spring from a “rock.” (See Matthew 16.13-20)
Now, a sower knows that much of the seed that is scattered will never yield anything for harvesting. But sowers also know the incredible potential of good seed in good soil—yields of thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold! On that memorable Pentecost Peter would exceed the expectations of the parable and produce, not a mere hundredfold, but three thousand souls! (Acts 2.41) Even if you are not willing to concede that Jesus was a farmer, you have to admit, He sure did know how and where to sow.
While it is widely accepted that Jesus recruited fishermen to make them fishers of men (Matthew 4.18-22), it might be just as accurate to say that the Lord was a farmer who was looking for sowers. The kingdom of God is a great harvest in need of workers (Matthew 9.37), but before there can be any harvesting there has to be a great deal of sowing. That's what Jesus did.
S.D.G.
Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment