Another example of the mystery of godliness is the kind of person in whom it grows. For example, some reared in the Faith, learning its language and meaning, throw it aside at the first chance. Others, with no religious education from their youth come to Jesus on their own. We have no way of understanding or explaining the mystery. However, we can learn lessons from it. Note: I abbreviate the points made.
First, the point in the parable is how God's kingdom grows in individuals, not how farmers reap a crop. Second, the end of agriculture is the Harvest, the end of General Motors is Cars, the end of T-Mobile is Cell Phones and the end of Christ's Church on earth is his Return from Heaven to incorporate the church into God's eternal kingdom. History won't go on interminably. As it had a beginning in Eden, it will have its end in Christ's Glorious Return at the maturation called HARVEST. Third, the kingdom's inherent capacity to reproduce itself means humans have a minimum role in its reproduction. See I Corinthians 3:5-7. Therefore, any role we have is insignificant compared to the Holy Spirit's. Therefore, don't boast of our role; and don't refuse to accept it, fearing incompetence. Fourth, that Harvest involves the Personal, First-Hand, Face to Face Authority of Jesus Christ. General Stonewall Jackson established as a military maxim in the Civil War, "Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy" Chronicles of the Civil War, 308. Which is true of earthly battles, which the lack of space prevents me from illustrating. However, when Jesus returns, he shall come with sheer, spiritual brute force, eliminating all of God's enemies. Fifth, any word from God that we understand needs our immediate attention and full compliance. Any word from God we don't understand needs our immediate and full compliance. The issue is always TRUST God whatever he says, and obey it! Fini
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This past week an understandable blue at La Jolla Shores beach could be seen glowing at night in the surf line. Higher concentrations of phytoplankton L polyedra created the bioluminescence. Its only mystery being its arrival cannot be predicted.
The parables of the Sower and The Seed Growing By Itself offer a spiritual mystery not explicable to this day: the difference of production in the Good Seed in the Good Soil. Jesus said even good seed produces at different levels: some 100 fold, some 60 fold, some 30 fold. Why wouldn't it be 100 fold for all good seed, or 60 or 30 since the same Spirit gives birth to all production? We may have conjectures, but since Jesus offered no explanation no one knows WHY. Isaiah 61:11 wrote 2800 years ago, "...the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes harvest seeds to grow," but he didn't try to explain the why and how of different levels of production. The most skilled agronomists today don't know either. We know what happens. We can't explain why it happens that way. That ignorance doesn't keep farmers in every age from planting, watering and fertilizing. The proof to them is in the results, not in wondering how or why it happens. And, repeated annual experience convinces them that it occurs. Another mystery remains unsolved. Why does great spiritual growth occur in some, but not in others, and not at all in some? For example, women usually more positively respond to the Gospel—like those in Ravensbruck concentration camp in WWII. Corrie and Betsy ten Boom led a spiritual renewal. Yet, Allied women interned by the Japanese in North Borneo 1942-1945, accompanied by Catholic sisters, had no spiritual revival. While at Chungkai, Thailand, male allied POW's, with no minister present, laymen read the Gospels and witnessed wholesale conversion to Christ. The seed has in itself the life GOD programmed into it at creation—an evidence of special creation, since every seed bears fruit after itself. It doesn't morph into different forms each time it dies. Its genetic code determines its fruit at each stage. That's the mystery of all life. The seed in the soil; the seed in a woman's womb; and God's word in a human's mind. End Part I |
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