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He said that the kingdom of God is a mystery (Mark 4:11). When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God in parables, I think that he used parables with ample room for interpretation, because it is impossible to say that the kingdom is this or that. The kingdom of God is like a merchant looking for expensive pearls who finds precious pearls, sells all their possessions and buys them, but that is not the whole kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like a farmer who planted a mustard seed in his field, and that seed grows into a large tree, but that does not explain the entire kingdom of God. In that sense, the kingdom of God continues to be a mystery hidden in its mystical wonder. It is clear that the kingdom of God is a living, three-dimensional truth that can only be expressed implicitly. Therefore, when Jesus gave a parable alluding to the kingdom of God, he added, “He who has ears, let him hear.”
2. Basic Principles for Interpreting this Parable
A paradigm shift in parable interpretation is Adolf Julicher's <The Parable of Jesus Die Gleichnisreden Jesu>, published in 1888. Previous interpretations of parables were mostly allegorical and allegorical. Julicher clearly argued in this book that parables are not allegories. He defined a parable as a simile with only one point of comparison, and each parable is a single picture expressing a single purpose or reality. side )
I agree with this. If so, what is the only picture that the text has?
3. I think the text is divided into three parts. The first part is a scene where a man sows a seed into the ground. The next part is that the sown seed is not grown by the farmer, but is grown without the farmer's knowledge. However, the process of growth is not to grow in a jumbled mess, but to grow in an orderly fashion. It is a scene in which a seed sprouts, sprouts, a stem grows, the ears are plucked, and the ears become faithful to form a grain. The last part is the scene of harvesting the grain with a sickle when it is sufficiently ripe. Here we can see only one consistent picture of this parable. It is sowing, growing, and harvesting.
4. The Interpretation
First, the process of sowing
When we look at the entire text of Mark 4, it is said that the seed is the Word (Mark 4:14). It has been said that people are like sowers of seeds. This sower is Jesus, and we who have received the seed of the word from him. The text clearly states that we must do this process of sowing seeds. The earth must be the people of the world.
Second, the mystery of growth
It is man's work to sow the seed, but it is not man's work for the seed to germinate, grow into a stem, glean, and produce faithful grain in the ear. It is because it is said that the seed grows while people sleep and wake up day and night. It is not the work of man to make the seed grow, but it is done according to the mysterious order of the heavens and the earth created by God. In other words, it would be good to say that we grew up in the secret and secret work of God.
Third, the harvest time
The sower hopes to reap and sows. Sowing implies the will of harvest. The text only says that the harvest time will inevitably come, but there is no distinction between wheat and bamboo. But it is clear that there is a time of harvest, a time of judgment. In Mark 4:20, earlier in this text, it is said that the seed yielded a crop of thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. This is the joy that the person who sowed sowed, and the joy of the person who received the seed, that is, the person who heard the gospel and received it. There is no such thing as the joy of God here. It speaks only of the person who sowed the seed and the joy of the grain itself.
5. Conclusion / What is the direction of Christian life given by this parable?
First, there are things that man must do and things that God does. To entrust it to God does not mean to sit on the sidelines. Sowing seeds is a human job. It is God's work to make it happen or not. Entrusting it to God's will means 盡人事待天命, but it does not mean that we should give up knowing that it is under our control.
Second, there are no shortcuts. There is a saying in history that there are no leaps. There is no leap in the kingdom of God. There is no shortcut. The process of sowing, growing, and harvesting is orderly. The process of growth is also from shoot to stem, from ear to grain. There are no shortcuts here. All who walk in the way will find comfort in their beds (Isaiah 57:2). God is not a God of dizziness (1 Corinthians 14:33). Whether in spiritual or cosmological matters, God is a God of order.
A society that seeks shortcuts is a sick society. A society that ignores the process and evaluates only the results is prone to corruption. There are injustices and injustices where individuals and societies find shortcuts. Our proverb has something to fix. <Even if you go to Moro, you only need to go to Seoul>. It will have to be changed to the proverb, “It’s okay if you can’t go to Seoul, so you have to go right away.” There are no shortcuts to the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a country that is built on the right path like a farmer and like an ox. Even if it's late, it's straight forward.
Third, there is a harvest time. In the end of the kingdom of God, whether we did well or not, there is a clear judgment. There is a judgment called the blessing of self-fulfillment and the curse of self-emptiness. And there is the final judgment, the judgments of heaven and hell.