My friend Bill Mowry just challenged our writers’ group to use our imaginations:

How can we use our imaginations to write about what is familiar? Allow me to be real. I get bored reading one more blog or article on Scripture memory or a minor dissertation on the Great Commission. We seem to quote the same references, share similar anecdotes, and rely on the same arguments. My heart and mind scream out, “Tell me something new! Take a familiar topic and make it inviting!”

I read Matthew 13 recently, and Jesus was big on imagination and creativity: seven “parables” – stories and metaphors – and six of them begin with “The kingdom of God is like…” The parable of the wheat and the weeds says the same thing as the one about a fishing net. Really? And how is a mustard seed like yeast in bread dough? Let’s look at those over the next few days.

But first, what’s the one parable in Matthew 13 that doesn’t begin, “The kingdom of God is like…”?

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13.3 – 9, ESV)

Yep. The Parable of the Sower. Often preachers challenge us with “What kind of soil are you?” I think that’s OK, but I’m not sure it’s the main point. The obvious message seems to be that when you’re sowing seed, no matter how you do it, some respond and some don’t. (Jesus explicitly explains later that the sower is sowing teaching about the kingdom, as Jesus is doing in this chapter.) And because some respond and some don’t, the sower needs to keep sowing seed!

Unlike some traveling evangelists, I don’t think Jesus would report the numbers of those who “made a profession” and stuck around for a week or a month. His objective was long-term fruit. And even among the fruit-bearers, there are differences. Jim Rohn used to say, “Don’t send your ducks to eagle school!”

So stay tuned: “The kingdom of God is like…”

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. (John 15.8, ESV)