So in my last post, I talked about the first image that helps us understand evangelism, the fisherman. Now I wanted to talk about the second image, the farmer.
The farmer is a helpful image for evangelism, namely for his patience. The farmer understands the delicate balance between diligence and patience necessary for a seed to grow. So, with faithful regularity, the farmer waters the seed but she knows that too much poking and proding will usually do more to jeoperdize its grow than help it.
The farmers primary tool is, obviously, the seed. Our seed is the Gospel (or "Good News"). Just like the seed, the Gospel has all the potential it needs to grow inherently built into it. Christians need not "oversell" the Gospel as if we were some used car salesman trying to dupe some moron into buying a lemon. No, we should have more confidence in our message than that. The truth is that, if the Gospel is displayed and demonstrated as purely and truely as it was intended by God, it will have no problem bearing fruit. God told us in Isaiah that his Word never returns to him without accomplishing the purpose he intended for it. So, like the farmer, lets go out and diligently "plant" the Gospel in peoples' hearts and minds by demonstrating the beauty of it in our lives. Our relationships and growing friendships with those around us is the "water" the Gospel needs to grow. And if we are patient and diligent, we will in time see a harvest in the world around us.
Praise be to God for these three images! They are far to clever to have come from me alone. I am encouraged and informed by them even as I write about them - I hope you are as well. This is enough for now, I'll write more about the third images (the carpenter) soon. Till then, remember the fisher and the farmer as you live your life today.
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