Sowing and Reaping Evangelism

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on November 16, 2015 at 2:25pm

If you give your quarrelsome spouse to God, you may get 10 back! lol

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on November 17, 2015 at 6:38am

We don't always reap what we sow in this world and in this life from people or even from God. All we know is that the principle exists and it's true but the cycle can be manipulated and interrupted and left incomplete.

We can sow and another reap.

John 4 NASB

34 Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36 Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”


I'm noticing so many paradoxes and contradictions in the way people believe and teach the scriptures. They're literally jumping out right at me, and the enemy of my soul is trying to tempt me to believe that the bible must be filled with paradoxes and contradictions, but I know he's a deceiver.

Concerning the law of reaping and sowing, we know there is cause and effect but we also know we can manipulate a cause to get the effect we want. We also know that we never know with certainty what we are going to get back from people. We might sow trust in someone but be repaid with betrayal. We know though that with God we will always be rewarded for doing good in the end but we might not even see it in this life.

Sometimes God steps in and works a miracle and the person who smoked and got lung cancer doesn't die from the effects of lung cancer and doesn't reap death from smoking.

There is grace and mercy that intervenes in the cycle of reaping and sowing. It's true that if we plant appleseeds we will always get apples every time all the time but that's only if God blesses us with a crop and it doesn't die. If it dies we don't reap what we sowed.

So the principle exists but there are many factors that can keep the cycle of it from completing.

If we choose to live the Christ life, then we ourselves can interrupt the cycle of reaping and sowing.

When those who sow hatred towards us, if we treat them with love, they reap love while sowing hatred. Yet, God is the one who avenges us. So God will see that His principle of reaping and sowing is fulfilled in some other way in that person's life who does hatred toward us, or will God instead show mercy to him or her?

It's like if I'm mean to someone, the person can de-friend me and if they do it in order to give me what they think I deserve, their motive is wrong, especially if they are saved, but if they cut me off out of love and concern for me with the motive to teach me the right way to treat other people, then their motive is right (punishment verses discipline) but the wrong motive just means that the person is sowing the same kind of meanness towards me as they believe I am sowing towards them.

In my POV, like other scriptures the verses about reaping and sowing must be taken in context.

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Permalink Reply by Seek on November 17, 2015 at 2:39pm

No we don't always reap what we sow, at least not in this life, but ultimately. Even if the person who wronged us gets saved we might think they weren't punished for what they did, but we will ALL be judged and just being in God's presence is going to show us just how sinful we were. A form of reaping by being brought low inside over our actions.

God extends grace but I think maybe He does so because certain things He is using certain people for. He will have mercy on whom He will. Jobs a good example of course as one had to wonder why is God letting this happen. But we don't see what's happening in the heavens. Then we will know fully...the reasons He extended mercy to this one and not to that one. Only we probably won't even care if we know or not at that point.

There is a third option when people back away from others. As we're all human, some people may be dealing with too much that they just need to keep their own sanity as they can't do the other any good if they can't keep themselves sane. I can't see discipline being a motive for cutting ties with another as discipline is discipling. One can't disciple without contact. So it's usually because they're mad, hurt, or getting too worn out that would cause it.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on November 17, 2015 at 4:13pm

Here are some Scriptures regarding church discipline. http://www.openbible.info/topics/church_discipline

Some of these scriptures are about cutting ties with people, as a form of discipline, if I'm understanding them correctly, and I'm in agreement with your last paragraph, and I understand. That's one reason for backing away from people and one that I've had as well. There are other reasons, some right, some wrong.

I do believe in the body of Christ appearing before the judgment seat of Christ

Here are some more scriptures about sowing and reaping physically in this life, not spiritually, but there are many other scriptures, too. It's a good topic and worthy of an indepth study, IMO. I don't have it all figured out by a long shot. I'm still learning.

Job 31:8
then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted.

Micah 6:15
You will plant but not harvest; you will press olives but not use the oil, you will crush grapes but not drink the wine.

John 4:37
Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true.

Deuteronomy 28:38
You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.

Deuteronomy 28:40
You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.

Job 31:8
then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted.

Jeremiah 12:13
They will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing. They will bear the shame of their harvest because of the LORD's fierce anger."

Amos 5:11
You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.

Habakkuk 3:17
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

Zephaniah 1:13
Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. Though they build houses, they will not live in them; though they plant vineyards, they will not drink the wine."

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Permalink Reply by Seek on November 17, 2015 at 4:41pm

Ah not cutting ties as I was thinking but putting them out of the church. It is discipline of a sort but also only after they'd been spoken to about it and refused to stop. In that I suppose the discipline comes in by not being able to fellowship with God like when God seems to leave us in the wilderness at times. Just a guess but maybe it's because His absence leaves an emptiness and makes us pursue Him harder. So the discipline is letting them see what it's like if He wasn't there since they may not have been acting like He was very much.

You and everyone else in the world don't have it figured out and we never will until the day we meet Him. But discussion amongst people is good for learning, letting us see things others noticed that we overlooked. And sometimes it's just downright fun. LOL

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on November 17, 2015 at 4:59pm

It's used in a church and in the church (the body of Christ) but on a personal level, too.

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Permalink Reply by Seek on November 17, 2015 at 8:38pm

I think on a personal level we can still call the unsaved friend and treat them no differently than we would a saved friend. But do it without compromising our relationship with Christ. If an unsaved friend wants you to go to a strip club with them or a bar you may have to start drawing away if this becomes frequent. You may find yourself spending less time with them than your new saved friends out of necessity for your relationship with Christ to grow or out of that growth as what they like is no longer what we like.

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