Seeds have an amazing ability to retain and preserve their quality and ability to reproduce and multiply. Seeds kept for years still retain the same untouched qualities they had generations past. I have heard of some 2,000-year-old seeds that germinated. They can not only reproduce the same DNA—the qualities of what they are—but they can reproduce it in great quantity.
I have been meditating on the parable of the Sower; it is actually a parable about our response to the Word (Luke 8:4-15). The Word of God is like a seed. You have to take the seed and plant it, take care of it, make sure you have the right soil and the right amount of water for it to germinate, grow and produce. It made me think of a couple of examples I had read before from John Robert Stevens.
Some say that they want to just hold to the Scriptures. They end up putting it on a shelf like a package of seeds. What will it grow? What will seeds grow in a package? Not one thing. That is what the Bible is: a package of seeds. You must take it, and you must plant it in your heart, and you must water it! Let the Holy Spirit breathe on it; and after a while, it begins to grow; it begins to spring forth. †1
Although you undoubtedly say that the Bible is the word of God, if it is forgotten on a shelf, that word is as ineffective as a package of seeds that you forgot to plant in your garden last year. They may still have a spark of life in them, but they are not doing anyone any good; they are not producing anything. A Bible on a shelf is like a packet of seeds that has been lying there for a while: nothing has germinated. Nothing has happened. †2
In this we see that the Word is the seed and we are responsible to take an action every time we hear a Word. Just like reading a manual doesn’t change anything if we don’t follow the instructions, in the same way, just having a bunch of seeds in a package will not produce a garden if we don’t do anything.
“For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. ” (Hebrews 4:2, NASB95)
1Excerpt from the This Week “Expand! Explode!” by John Robert Stevens, Copyright © 1976 by John Robert Stevens & The Living Word, a California non profit Corporation. Used by permission.
2Excerpt from the This Week “Blown Into Kingdom Come- By the Word” by John Robert Stevens, Copyright © 1982 by John Robert Stevens & The Living Word, a California non profit Corporation. Used by permission.