Discipleship is Cultivation

By Matt Watson 

Matthew 13:3-9

“‘A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still, other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.’”

Cultivators

For the last three weeks, I have been busily preparing my garden. I’ve marked beds, hand tilled the clay, wheelbarrowed topsoil, raked the beds smooth, collected rocks in a bucket to be deposited on a fence line, sown seeds and transplants, realized I’ve made some mistakes already, wheelbarrowed compost, planned the next season’s plantings with my mistakes amended, and finally installed drip irrigation. 

Every morning I walk outside with a cup of coffee and inspect the beds and the flower pots before watering to see if anything has sprouted. I mutter over each: “Nothing yet here. Oh, this one is just starting to have leaves poke up above the surface. Hmm, I may not see much from this bed. Have the squirrels stolen my corn?”

All this work and fretting is worth it though, because of the hopeful joy of what the garden will produce. However, it is also a long, slow, slog of failing forward and learning from each previous season’s mistakes. I often say that the only difference between a green thumb and a black thumb is that a green thumb has killed more plants. 

This process of cultivating the soil, creating an environment for seeds to sprout and flowers to bloom by applying the right nutrients at the right time, protecting them, feeding them, and fighting the weeds for them, is a clear picture of discipleship.

That is one reason Jesus used so many agricultural parables. In an agrarian society, all of life revolves around seasons and harvest, and they would have clearly understood the implications of these parables. Just as they sweated over the ground they worked or the sheep they herded, so too does Jesus sweat over the people he is shepherding and saving.

Discipleship

Matthew 13 teaches us the importance of discipleship through cultivation rather than just evangelism. The farmer cast his seed wherever he could. But some seeds the birds stole (probably squirrels too if they have them), some seeds the weeds choked out, and some seeds had only shallow soil and could not persevere. It was the well-worked soil that allowed the seeds to become sprouts, and then to root and produce fruit or flower.

We are called to make disciples of all men, teaching them to obey the Lord and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:18-20). Every Christian is called to this task. However, before this Great Commission, there is the “First Commission,” from Genesis 1:28 which says, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

This is more commonly called the Cultural Mandate, and it implies that as created image-bearers of God we have the commission to go cultivate the earth to make it suitable for discipleship. Like the three-pronged hand cultivator that I use to scratch at and break up the surface of the hard clay, we are called to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. We scratch at the hard surface of idolatry and all false worship, of sin, of distraction, and anything else that doesn’t reflect our holy God. 

We do this by making babies, adopting children, discipling our young men and women, joining together in community to read the Bible and apply it, breaking bread with each other and with neighbors (Acts 2:42), coaching soccer, working well at our jobs, speaking well of our bosses, praying for our government leaders (especially the ones you don’t agree with), and supporting the city (1 Tim 2:1-4; Jer 29:7). 

Cultivating is hard work. It is playing the long game, and we may not always see the fruits of our labor. Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building” (1 Cor 3:6-9). 

God Makes It Grow

This is the painful part of cultivation and discipleship, because even if you perfectly disciple your child if their hearts are not changed by the Holy Spirit then they may not be a Christian. I knew a man who became a Christain at 78 and then died of cancer at 80. That was many years of prayers for this man from friends and family, but in the end, he started following the Lord. We are not always called to harvest, but we are called to cultivate. 

Wendell Berry, a Christian farmer, and poet speaks to this in the essay Our Only World about the lengthy care requirements of the forest ecosystem. Trees far outlive humans, so the care of them is not only life-long but generations-long. Comparing this to discipleship, he says, “But a forest economy, however well adapted, however concordant with its ecosystem, cannot stand or continue alone. For a local economy to become truly sustainable, it must function as a belonging, a support and an artifact, of a local culture. The great need we are talking about is to hold the local forest ecosystem together, but that leads to a second need, just as great, which is to hold the local forest economy and therefore the local human community together. The two needs could be answered only by a thriving, confident, stable local culture in which the young would learn from their elders.”

There is something you can do to cultivate and make disciples. You may need to say no to someone or something. You may need to make a change. But Jesus is cultivating you and making you into a disciple, calling you to go and do the same. Let us join our King and Father in this work and go work the soil of the culture for his namesake and glory.