The events of 2020, into 2021, reinforced the need to continue to appeal to everyone, especially my likeminded pastor-teachers out there, to simply focus on the kingdom, i.e., the gospel of God and Jesus.
And it begins with teaching and explaining the Gospel about the KOG or what Jesus calls the parable of the sower.
How God one day, by His human Son, will restore the fortunes not just of the nation of Israel but the rest of the nations.
And this will include in a restored, regenerated Earth.
As we have been reading in the book of Revelation.
In Mark 4.13 Jesus says:
If you can’t understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables?
Now, while most Christians hear the word “Gospel,” the phrase “word of God” or even “the Kingdom of God,” they nonetheless are taught something other than what the Bible says.
As we know, Jesus’ favorite teaching technique was to use agricultural language and imagery to explain the Gospel.
For example, in Luke 8.11 Jesus says:
Now this is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.
Jesus uses this imagery because there are a lot of interesting similarities between a plant seed and the Gospel-message.
For example, if you split a plant seed in half you end up compromising what is called the embryo of the seed and the plant will not grow.
My point is what most of Christianity hears each and every Sunday is really half the Gospel.
In other words, pastors talk about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, how he suffered and died for you on the cross, etc.
But that’s really only half the story, half the Gospel, a split seed.
You could argue that even this half is damaged since churches teach some kind of hybrid God-man who could not die and not the procreated, human Son of God.
So in this New Year I hope we can find more and more new opportunities to spread the whole seed, the full Gospel of the coming KOG.
Someone once said that:
A half-truth is even more dangerous than a lie.
And that’s because:
A lie you can detect at some stage but half a truth will continue to mislead far longer than just half a lie.
