The Christian Farmer Reads His Bible
Illustration★★★★The Christian farmer reads his Bible regularly and finds its language and pictures alive with his own experiences and way of life. It is no mere literary figure to him when he reads, “I have swept aside your ill deeds like a mist, and your sins like a cloud” (Is.
44:22, Moffatt), for with anxious eye he has watched the wind dissipate the threatening storm. It is with understanding heart he knows the meaning of “fear not . . . for I pour water on the thirsty land and streams on dry ground, I pour my spirit on your children” (Is. 44:26). Most any day’s experience will recall what he has seen as he reads, “He ruins rulers of the world—scarcely planted, scarcely rooted in the earth, when at a puff from Him they wither” (Is.
40:24). When Paul says that we (the church) are God’s field to be planted (1 Co.
3:9) and Christ calls his Father the Farmer (husbandman) (Jn. 15:1) the Christian farmer gives immediate assent and recognizes the spirituality of his own means of livelihood.
The point
A Christian farmer finds the Bible's language alive in his daily work; God's promises about water, growth, and divine farming resonate deeply; Christ calls His Father the Farmer.