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Commentary on "Sequential Evangelism and Witnessing"

RICK BARKER

 

Day 6: Thursday, May 3, 2012 - Preparing a Harvest

 

This lesson is greatly confused on the roles in the growth of plants.

If we have any role in this parable at all, it is to be the sowers. We sow by proclaiming the Word of God. The seeds we sow land in different places. God didn't ask the sower to go back and till the land, or water the plants, or weed the garden. Yet that is exactly what the lesson is proposing.

We can look to some of the other nearby parables as well dealing with sowing and the harvest.

Mark 4:26-29: And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The man's role was sowing and harvesting. The earth produced by itself. Very different than the actions the lesson attributes to the sower. Interestingly, in another parable positioned next to the sower and the seeds in Matthew, it is Christ who is the sower and the angels who harvest.

Matt 13:24-30 & 36-42: He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” … Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The Bible talks about sowing and it talks about harvesting, it doesn't talk about tilling, watering, weeding, using grow-bulbs, and protecting the plants. It talks about seed that was sown into thorny bushes, it doesn't mention that His followers are supposed to go in and trim these thorny bushes to help the seed grow.

The point of the parable is about how different people respond to the same message, sown by the same person. Everyone hears the message, but not everyone responds favorably to the message. Claiming that this passage is about tending the soil and the plants is a great perversion of Scripture.

 

GO TO DAY 7

 

Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 25, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

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