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God's Plan for Growing His Kingdom - Mark 4:26-29

You may not know the name of Donald McGavran, but you have likely been influenced by him. In fact, every church, every pastor, and every Christian has to some degree. McGavran was born in 1897 and died in 1990, and spent 30 years of his long life among the unreached people of India. But McGavran’s mark was made on modern Christianity in 1970 when he published a seminal work entitled “Understanding Church Growth.” Before that time, the phrase “church growth” was rare in the Christian realm. Today, hardly a day goes by without hearing it. For that reason, McGavran is called the father of the modern Church Growth Movement.

Today, churches are evaluated by a single factor: size. Someone asks you, “Where do you go to church?”, and you say, “I go to Immanuel Baptist Church.” What is the next question that gets asked? “How big is it?” And if you say, “There are around 130-160 people there on a given Sunday,” they will say, “Oh.” And it is the kind of “oh,” that you might hear if you just told someone your dog died. There is a note of sadness in the tone. There must be something wrong with a church that does not have more people than that attending it, they think. After all, every day, they drive past monstrous edifices where thousands gather every Sunday. Those are good churches, they are doing things right, everyone else must be doing something wrong. This is the way Christians have thought for the last 35 years, due in part to the movement sparked by McGavran.

Now, I don’t want you to think badly of Donald McGavran. When McGavran talked about “church growth,” he did not merely intend to talk about big churches where the number of people in attendance was the measure of success and health. McGavran coined the phrase “church growth” because he was aware that the word “evangelism” carried a lot of negative baggage. I have often said that saved people and lost people have at least one thing in common: the word “evangelism” makes them both nervous. So for McGavran, church growth and evangelism – the sharing of the gospel of Christ – were synonyms. For McGavran, the goal of “church growth” was not the building of bigger and bigger facilities or the launching of more and more programs. It was seeing lost people saved and the Kingdom of God advanced to the ends of the earth. It is an undeniable fact that in many of the largest and fastest growing churches, personal evangelism and global missions take a backseat to the church’s own programs and priorities. They continue to grow rapidly because of the synergy and excitement of the crowd, but most of their growth comes from folks who are transferring in from other churches. I am not speaking out of school here. For several years before I became a pastor, I counseled new members in one of the largest and fastest growing churches in North Carolina. I would say that 80-90 percent of that church’s new members were already saved and were coming from other churches. And it is often the case, though not in the church where I served, that the church’s financial burdens of maintaining its own facilities and ministries forces global missions to a sideline activity. The church may be growing leaps and bounds, but little impact is being made on its own community or the world for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Yet, the church is hailed as a success story by all who see it – and for one reason: it is growing numerically.

It is said that, before McGavran’s death, he remarked that he wished he had referred to the movement as effective evangelism because so many churches focused on numerical growth to the detriment of evangelistic outreach—something he never intended by using the phrase “church growth.” Now, I said in my opening statement that you have been influenced by McGavran. You have been led to think that if we have empty seats in the pews and aren’t seeing new faces in the crowd every Sunday, that something is wrong.

I don’t want to suggest that these things are unimportant, but I want to be very clear about something. The growth of this church or any other is not an end unto itself, but should be a means to a greater end, and that end is the building of the Kingdom of God by seeing lost souls saved and lives transformed by the indwelling presence of Christ. It is not only possible, but very common, for churches to grow without this. Marketing, entertainment, social action, political involvement, and a host of other activities can draw a crowd, yet they make little or no difference in the magnification of God’s glory or the establishment of His Kingdom. It is the growth of His Kingdom in the world, rather than the growth of any particular church, that brings Him the most glory. And it is the growth of God’s Kingdom that Jesus has in focus in the parable found in our text today. This parable is the only parable which is unique to Mark. It is not found in other gospels.

Here in these verses, Jesus begins to teach the multitudes what the Kingdom of God is like. What great and glorious image would He use? Would He liken it to a great empire of world history, or the entrepreneurial vision of a financially successful mogul? Would He employ a simile of grandeur and majesty? No. He says, “The Kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil.” One of the commentators says, “A more banal comparison could not be imagined.”[1] There are all kinds of activities in the world which capture our attention and imagination. If you flip the channels on any given night, you find all kinds of so-called “reality shows,” which document the daily activities of such diverse things as fishing for lobsters and the daily routines of a family of meerkats. But, no one has ever made a reality-show about seed sowing, and no one ever will. Who wants to watch plants grow? This is not the most exciting imagery in the world. I had this friend in high school who lived what seemed to be a very boring life, and we called him “Fescue,” because being with him was like watching grass grow. This is very ordinary stuff, but it is the imagery Jesus uses here nonetheless. Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to a process of seed growing unto a harvest, and in so doing, reveals to us God’s Plan for Growing His Kingdom.

I. The Activity of Kingdom Growth.

Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil. The wording is of a farmer taking handfuls of seed and casting the seed broadly across his fields. It is reminiscent of what we saw in the parable of soils earlier in Chapter 4. He slings the seed far and wide. Some of it falls on the road, some on rocky places, some among thorns, and some on good soil. But he isn’t rationing the seed. There’s plenty of it and he does not discriminate – he just throws it out there. That is how it all begins.

Earlier in this Chapter, Jesus said that the seed is the Word of God. So the advance of the Kingdom begins with the announcement of God’s Word. And where seed falls on good soil, just as in the earlier parable, growth begins to occur. So when God’s Word gets planted into the life of an individual whose heart has been prepared by the sovereign activity of God to receive it, that Word begins to develop in that person’s life. The Kingdom of God begins to dawn within that individual – “the seed sprouts and grows.”

As Jesus went about proclaiming God’s truth, He was met by opposition, misunderstanding, and rejection. One would think that the seed He was sowing was destined for a crop failure. But He was confident that the process was in the works – the seed was being sown, and where it found good soil, it would begin to produce its crop in stages: first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. At first, faith might spring up inside of a person’s heart as a mere positive interest in the things of Christ, and then mature into a confession of Him as Lord and Savior, then a willingness to forsake everything for His sake and follow Him even unto death. And as that took place in people’s lives, the Kingdom of God was being established – at first, appearing to be a barren land, but then little sprouts, then leafy stalks, then fruit ripe and ready for harvesting.

And so as we think about the growth of the Kingdom in our day, we must not forget the activity to which Jesus likened it – the casting of seed upon the soil. Spreading God’s Word far and wide is the activity of the Kingdom. Today, many of us are busy with a thousand other activities, but it is this task which God has said will bring growth to His Kingdom. We can make a church grow by other activities, but that church growth is taking place with no impact for the Kingdom of God unless it grows by the sowing of the seed of God’s Word.

II. The Mystery of Kingdom Growth

So, the farmer sows the seed, and then what? Surely he must work himself to the point of exhaustion to make the thing grow and to bring about the desired outcome! No, Jesus says after he sows the seed, the man goes to bed. And the next morning, he gets up. And this happens over and over again. Imagine you go into Barnes and Noble and make your way to the gardening section, and you find a book entitled, God’s Way to Grow a Garden. You open it up, and it’s one page. It says, “Step 1: Plant the Seed. Step 2: Go to bed. Step 3: Get up. Step 4: Repeat steps two and three until the seed has grown into a mature plant.” That will be 24.99 please. No, you wouldn’t buy that book. It sounds too easy. Everyone would be a farmer if this is the way it worked. “What do you do for a living?” “Well, back in the spring, I planted some seeds, now I just go to bed and get up everyday while I wait for it to grow.” But that is exactly how Jesus said His Kingdom is going to grow. Sow the seed of His Word – then by faith, wait patiently for it to bring the harvest.

How does a seed grow? You say, “Well you plant them, water them, give them sunlight, etc., and there you have it.” You still haven’t said how they grow. What makes them grow? What process happens to bring a plant into existence from a seed? Is it chemical, biological, supernatural? Jesus says that the man who sows the seed doesn’t even know. We still have a hard time explaining this one. Think of it this way – you can count how many seeds are in an apple; but do you know how many apples will come from a seed? No. It is a mystery, how seeds grow. We don’t know. It just seems to happen automatically. That’s exactly what Jesus said.

In v28, He says, “The soil produces crops by itself.” Those words “by itself” translate the Greek word automate, from which we get the word automatic. The seed contains within itself the power of growth and generation. Human effort adds nothing to that mysterious power. Human insight fails to explain it rightly. And in this way, the Kingdom of God is like this. How can we bring it about? In Jesus’ day, the Zealots tried to force it into being through political revolution. The apocalyptics thought they could hasten the coming of the Kingdom by careful observations and reckonings about times and signs; The Pharisees thought they could midwife the Kingdom into being by their scrupulous legal observances. These attempts are still being made today. But Jesus said that this Kingdom begins with the planting of a seed, and that seed contains all that is needed to bring the Kingdom into existence.

God spoke in Isaiah 55, saying:

· ⁸ "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. ⁹ "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; ¹¹ So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

God’s Word contains the power to produce the result for which He sends it out. All we have to do is share it, and He has promised to do the rest. His purpose is the establishing and building up of His Kingdom, and He does that by transforming lives through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation.” How do you convince someone that they should fear a lion? Really simple, just let the lion out of the cage. Done! Convinced! How do you make a lost person come to know Christ? You can’t make them. You just share the gospel with them. Unleash it, let it out of its cage. You just sow God’s word into the soil of their lives. That seed will do the rest. Yes, there is a place for apologetics, and there is a place for relationships, but nothing takes the place of the sharing of the message God’s word, because that is where the power is. And if you share it and nothing happens, then it is the fault of the soil, not the sower or the seed.

Here is where I want to go back to my opening thoughts about McGavran and church growth. The school of thought that has emerged, rather unintentionally, from McGavran says that the only good and healthy churches are the ones that are growing large and fast, whatever the means. The end (rapid and sizeable growth) justifies the means, in their view. But this parable is showing us that God is concerned most with the growth of His Kingdom, and is most concerned that the seed that brings about that growth (His Word) is being sown. And the growth is not instant or rapid, and may not be a very impressive process. The skeptical onlooker will say, “Nothing’s happening! Something’s wrong! That church is dead because it isn’t packing the house every Sunday!” But the right perspective understands that true growth comes from God’s word, and where it is being proclaimed within and without, that church is healthy and a vital part of God’s kingdom work. We can go to bed at night and rise up in the morning confident that, despite all initial appearances to the contrary, God is going to do His part to build His kingdom through the seed we have sown, in His way and in His time. We don’t have to obsess over the details of it, or be able to explain it, put it in a box, and sell it at Lifeway. We just sow the seed, and let the harvest come as God has promised.

The mystery of this is great – God has come to establish His kingdom in Jesus Christ. He has tread into enemy occupied territory, as C. S. Lewis put it. But He did not bring a militia, He did not hurl a thunderbolt, rather He sowed a seed, and that seed will grow and accomplish His purpose. That brings us to the final point:

III. The Certainty of Kingdom Growth

Just as surely as the seed was sown, a harvest is going to come. In God’s time, and in God’s way, it is going to happen. And when it does, that farmer will be ready with the sickle. And for some, the day of harvest will be good news, and for others it will be bad news. In Matthew 13, Jesus tells another parable, one of wheat and tares, in which He says that there are tares (weeds) growing in the midst of the wheat, and the only way to deal with them is to let them grow, and when harvest time comes, take the sickle to the whole field. The wheat will be gathered into the barn, an image of believers in Christ being taken to their eternal dwelling place in the presence of God. But the tares will bound up and burned, a picture of the eternal torment of hell. Which will it be? The day of harvest is coming for certain, the sickle is sharpened and ready, and it will not miss when it sweeps across the field.

Is this good news or bad news for you? If it seems to be bad news, then you need to hear and respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The word “Gospel” means “good news.” And it is the best news in the whole world. God created you in His image and longs for you to know Him and be with Him forever. But because of our sins, we are separated from Him. Yet, He has come to us in the person of Christ, to live the righteous life we never could, and to die in our place as a sinless substitute. He took our sins upon Himself in death so that He might cover us in His righteousness. If you have never received Him, you can today, by turning from sin, and calling upon Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The seed has been planted; what is the condition of your soil?

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[1] James R. Edwards, The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 142.

See What You Hear: Mark 4:21-25

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It was a common practice in days of old in Europe for people to take “walking tours,” where they would travel through the countrysides on foot as far as their feet would carry them, and then they would stop and rest at homes and inns which were open to travelers and resume their tour the next day. Once, a man was walking through the countryside and he grew weary, so he stopped at a monastery and asked the friar if he might stay there over night. The monks welcomed him in and prepared a room for him to get some rest. As he prepared to go to sleep, he heard the most amazing sound he had ever heard. He had never heard anything quite like it. It was so beautiful that he could not sleep. The next day, the monks asked, “How did you rest?” He said, “Not very well. I couldn’t sleep for I heard this amazing and beautiful sound all night long. Tell me please, what was that sound.” They said, “Oh, we can’t tell you sir, for you are not a monk.” The man was disappointed, but said, “Then please allow me to stay one more night, that I might get some rest. Perhaps tonight I will sleep better.” They agreed, and that night, once more, he was kept awake by this amazing and beautiful sound. This went on for a week or so, every night the same thing. Finally, he said, “I must know what this sound is!” They said, “We can’t tell you, because you are not a monk.” The man said, “Alas, I must know, therefore I will become a monk.” They said, “But sir, that involves a year of preparation and study.” He said, “I don’t care. I must know the source of this beautiful and amazing sound.” And so he began the process of becoming a monk. Every night he heard this beautiful and amazing sound, and every morning he inquired about it. But every morning, he heard the same answer. “We can’t tell you; you aren’t a monk.” Finally the year of preparation and study came to an end, and the man became a monk. And then he finally learned what this amazing and beautiful sound was.

“Well, what was it?” you might ask. Well, I can’t tell you, because you are not a monk. And I don’t know myself, because I am not a monk.

In the last few sections of the Gospel of Mark, we have seen the reality of “insiders” and “outsiders.” The insiders are those who have seen Christ’s miraculous power and heard His authoritative word, and responded by faith to Him and committed themselves to follow Him and do the work of His Father. The outsiders are those who have seen and heard, but whose hearts were hard, and they did not respond in faith, but in unbelief. This was the point of Jesus interaction with the Scribes and with His family in Chapter 3. It was the point of the parable of the soils and His explanation of that parable in the earlier part of Chapter 4. It is the same point here in our text today.

In these verses, we find two miniature parables – one of a lamp and one of a measure. And between the two parables are two sentences which serve as a key to understanding the point of both. In verses 23 and 24, we read the words of Jesus, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. … Take care what you listen to.” “If anyone has ears,” Jesus says. Well, do you? Go ahead and check, I think most of us do. But are they ears to hear? Well, that is what they are for, but apparently not everyone uses them for that purpose. Do you have ears to hear? Jesus says, if so, then hear what it is He is saying to you in His word! In v24, our English translations offer the words Take care, take care, pay attention, consider carefully, to render the single Greek word blepete. That word literally means “to see.” “See what you listen to.” So, ears are not just for hearing, but also for “seeing.” “See what you hear.” You have ears, but can you hear? You hear, but are you listening? Do you “see” the truth of what He is saying to you? That is the point of the two parables Jesus speaks in these verses.

In the first parable we find a picture illustrating the idea that …

I. Light is for Seeing (vv21-22)

Jesus says, “A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it, or under a bed?” The obvious answer is “No!” The lamps found in homes in Jesus’ day were small clay lamps filled with oil, which would give off light sufficient to light an entire room, if it were placed in the proper location. That would be on a stand designed for just such a task. What would happen if you put it under a basket? Not only would the light be hidden, but the flame would be extinguished, because a flame needs air in order to burn. And what if you put it under the bed? The bed of which Jesus is speaking is not a bed like we sleep on, but probably the reclining couches used at the dinner table in those days. If you put the lamp under that, you can’t see what’s going on, and you might just catch the thing on fire. Don’t put the lamp there. Put it on the lampstand where it belongs and it will give light to the whole room.

Now there are two things going on here grammatically here that you don’t pick up on in the English translations. First is that Jesus is using the definite article here: it’s not just any lamp, it is the lamp. And secondly, the wording He uses does not indicate that the lamp is brought, but rather that the lamp comes. Well we clean it up a little for English, because only in Disney movies do lamps walk around by themselves. But this is no ordinary lamp Jesus is speaking of. It is the lamp that comes into the world to enlighten every man, as stated in John 1:9.

In the OT, a lamp is frequently used as a metaphor for God, the Messiah, or the Word of God. In 2 Samuel 22:29, David sings, “For You are my lamp, O Lord; And the Lord illumines my darkness.” In 2 Kings 8:19, after lamenting of the wicked unfaithfulness of the house of Ahab, we read, “However, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David His servant, since He had promised him to give a lamp to him through his sons always.” That lamp was the Messiah. And David says in those well-known words of Psalm 119:105, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” You remember that from VBS, don’t you? Well, in keeping with these Old Testament images, Jesus says that a true lamp has come into the world.

John put it this way in the first chapter of the Gospel that bears his name: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. … There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Old Testament says that the Lamp is God, God’s Messiah, and God’s Word. The New Testament agrees, and all are found in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is God. He is God’s Messiah. He is God’s Word. And He has not come to be hidden, but to enlighten with spiritual truth. But hasn’t He just said in vv 11-12 that some of His truth is hidden? Indeed, He has. He has veiled the truth of the Kingdom of God in parables from the hard-hearted who refuse to hear and believe.

But, why are things hidden? Are they hidden so as to never be seen again? No, you don’t call that “hidden.” You call that “lost.” When children play hide and seek, they go and hide, but they don’t hide forever. They are either found, or else the cry goes forth, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” But first they are hidden, so that later, they might be revealed. You hide things that are precious so that they will not be abused or misappropriated by those who do not recognize their true nature or function. But you hide them so you can bring them out again when the time and conditions are right.

Jesus explains the parable in v22, saying that there are some things that are hidden, but those things are intended to be revealed. For now there are secrets, but later they will come to light. This is a theme that runs all the way through the Gospel of Mark. When will they come to light? A clue is given to us in Mark 9:9. After taking Peter, James, and John up to the Mount of Transfiguration where they could see the glory of Christ unveiled before them, He ordered them to not tell anyone what they had seen UNTIL the Son of Man rose from the dead. And after the resurrection, what does He tell His followers? GO AND TELL IT TO EVERYONE! So for now, there are secrets, mysteries, hidden things, only accessible to the insiders of the Kingdom, but later, those things will be made known through the resurrection of Christ and the proclamation of His followers.

This Light is not for hiding, but for seeing. Some will not see, because their eyes are shut. They will not hear because their ears are shut. They will not understand, because their hearts are hard. And for them, these truths of Christ remain veiled and hidden until they are willing to hear, to listen, and to believe. So, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” The light is for seeing.

But secondly, Jesus moves on to tell us that …

II. Truth is for Understanding (vv24-25)

See what you listen to! Since the light is for seeing, we will see the truth of what He is saying, if we have ears to hear. Here Jesus tells a parable of measures. “By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.” Similar statements occur in various contexts in the other Gospel accounts, and this passage has often been abused by some to indicate financial or material blessing to those who give generously. But what is the context here? It is hearing and understanding God’s truth and rightly responding to it. And we must leave it in that context in order to understand it rightly.

There will be different degrees of response to what is heard. You have heard it all your lives – you get out of it what you put into it. That was true of your education, it is true of work, it is true of your relationships, and it is true of your participation in worship and the receiving of God’s Word. It is a principle of reciprocity. The diligence you expend in understanding and responding to Jesus will be proportionately rewarded. If you bring a small shovel of interest, you will get a small shovel full of understanding. But if you bring a large shovel of interest, then you get a large shovel full of understanding. And God’s grace exceeds the limits of mere reciprocity. Even more will be given in return for what you put in.

Jesus explains this further in the next verse: “For whoever has, to him more shall be given.” Truth received and carefully absorbed into one’s life will enlarge one’s capacity to receive more truth. Proper understanding will lead to accepting Jesus and entering the Kingdom of God, and then to more and more blessings from God. But notice that the converse is true also. “Whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.” The one who does not use his ability to understand the truth, who does not use his ears to hear, his eyes to see, his heart to understand, that one further blunts his ability to understand it. Not only did you grow up hearing, “You get out of it what you put into it,” you also heard, “If you don’t use it, you will lose it.” That is what Jesus is saying here: neglect of spiritual ability results in spiritual atrophy—a progressive weakening and wearing down of that ability until it becomes utterly useless. For now, the invitation is given, the doors of God’s Kingdom are open to all who will hear and respond. But if they do not, then the door will close forever, and they will find themselves separated for eternity.

And so it is, as R. T. France has said, that the optimism of vv21-22, that all that is now secret will in due time be revealed, is balanced by the realism of vv24-25, that there will still be those who fail to benefit from divine revelation.[1] That is why it is of such great importance that you see what you hear! If you have ears, God gave them to you so you could hear. And if you can hear, then will you listen? And if you will listen, will you understand? God has given light so you can see, He has spoken truth for you to hear and understand. And it is the most important matter in this life or the next that you do so.

When the Bible was translated into the Conob language of Guatemala and Mexico, that first part of verse 24 was stated so as to mean, “Hear dying what you listen to.” It is a life and death matter, both for now and eternity. Do you listen to God’s Word as if your very life depended upon it? Did not Jesus say that this Word was more important than food? He did! In Matthew 4, when tempted by the Devil to turn a stone into bread, Jesus said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Where is it written? It is written in Deuteronomy 8, where Moses says to the people of Israel that God let them be hungry and fed them with manna so that He might make them understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. The great Puritan pastor Richard Baxter was fond of saying, “I preach, as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” This may be the last sermon I ever preach. It may be the last one you ever hear. Does that thought enter your mind as you enter worship on a Sunday? Does it enter your mind as you open your Bible each day? It may be the last passage you ever read. So, do you listen, do you read, do you digest the Word of God as though your very life depended upon it, as though this truth was more important than the very food you eat?

That is the kind of listening Christ is calling for: the kind that begins with a willingness to hear, and moves on to a determination to understand, which then finds belief and obedience arising within the heart and sets out to follow Christ by faith. If you listen that way, you will not listen in vain to His word, for you will receive from God deeper and deeper understanding of His truth as you allow it to take root in your life. Neglect this word, and what little understanding you bring to the task will soon slip away leaving you to grope in darkness when inestimable light was offered to you.

It is like looking at a tapestry. Is there anything more beautiful than an image that has been hand woven with its individual threads coming together to present a unified depiction of some real object? Well, it depends on which side of the tapestry you are standing on. If you are looking at the back, then its all strings and knots, and nothing looks right; it just looks like a big mess. Oh but if you are looking at the front, you become lost in the breathtaking detail of the image. And so it is with the truth of God. To some it is meaningless, just a fragmented hodgepodge of meaningless sayings. But to those who stand on the right side of it, it is a thing of great beauty, and becomes all the more beautiful as He graciously guides us in our understanding of it. It is as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18: “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”

Yes, it has become quite clear in these last several passages we have examined that when it comes to the Kingdom of God, there are only two kinds of people. There are insiders and outsiders. Paul says, “those who are perishing” and “us who are being saved.” But the good news is that the door to the Kingdom is open to that one on the outside who recognizes his or her true spiritual condition and discovers their need of salvation from sin. Christ alone is the answer – by His death on the cross, your sins are paid for, and by His resurrection power, new life is afforded to you if you will turn from sin and come to Him by faith.

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[1] R. T. France, The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 212.

A Forthcoming Article by Terrance Tiessen

If you saw my previous posts, "On the Scent of a Tulip and Whether it Bears Thorns," and "Thoughts on Middle Knowledge and Divine Inspiration," you are aware that my position on the conundrum of divine sovereignty and human freedom is one of "Middle Knowledge," which I liken to Terrance Tiessen's position of "Middle Knowledge Calvinism," articulated in his monograph, Providence and Prayer. I had a chance to correspond with Dr. Tiessen following my "Thoughts on MK and DI" post, and he mentioned his forthcoming article in the Westminster Theological Journal. Since I do not subscribe to that journal, Dr. Tiessen was kind enough to send me a copy of the article in email. I have just completed a thorough reading of it, and I can say without a doubt that he has well defended the compatibility of middle knowledge and Calvinism. In fact, he has well answered both the grounding objection, and the other normal objections one often hears from those in the Calvinist camp. In fact, I have now found in his wording the precise label for the position I hold: "A Monergistic Appropriation of Divine Middle Knowledge." I like that much better than Molinism or any kind of hyphenated-Calvinism.

Be on the lookout for Tiessen's article: "Why Calvinists Should Believe in Divine Middle Knowledge, Although They Reject Molinism," in a forthcoming issue of Westminster Theological Journal. I am hopeful that this will be the seedbed for a monograph from Dr. Tiessen on the subject.

Good News for Movie Lovers

If you are a movie lover (as I am), then I can't encourarge you strongly enough to look into ClearPlay (which I discussed in a previous post entitled "Watching Movies Without Violating Your Conscience"). ClearPlay is a DVD player with a built-in software that "filters" objectionable content from most DVDs (see www.clearplay.com for a full list of movies; the list is expanding every day). The great news is that these DVD players are now available at Target stores, where you can buy them at a great savings over the ClearPlay website. What's more, the Target deal also includes the "Filter Stick" (a USB flash drive you use to download movie filters), a free trial membership to the filter subscription service, and over 2,000 filters (which I assume are pre-loaded onto the USB drive). So, if you love movies, head out to Target and get one of these things. We got ours from ClearPlay last fall, and now enjoy watching movies together as a family without worrying about what the kids (or adults!) will see or hear.