I’ve heard several more seeker-driven preachers explain that the four soils, or the parable of the sower, are the four stages of the Christian life. They’ll say something like this:
Some of you are in a season where the blessings of God keep falling on you like seeds, but the devil keeps snatching them away like the birds on the hard path. Don’t worry, this season of barrenness is just a setup for your season of blessing. Some of you, you’re growing, but there are rocks in your life and you keep hitting them over and over and over. Your breakthrough is coming. Those rocks will be moved and you’re going to be blessed. Some of you are leaders in this church and you’re in temptation and sin, and it’s choking you out, but you just need to untangle those thorny weeds and keep on growing. Some of you have been faithful in all those stages, and now you are bearing fruit in maturity. You’ve endured the burdens and now you get the blessings. You know what it is to find purpose in the pain and now it’s your time to prosper.
Maybe you’ve heard that kind of teaching on the four soils. That approach lessens the harshness of Christ’s words in the parable, so let’s just let Scripture speak and submit to it, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel. We’re going to dive into the meaning of this parable and why it’s so important to get it correct.
First, the seed in the parable of the sower is the Word of God. Jesus says clearly in Luke 8:11, “Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.” This helps us understand the seed is not a material blessing from God but in the context of this parable, the gospel, and the good news about the kingdom of God. No matter where the sower sows it or the kind of soil it falls upon, the seed is unchanging. This is how we ought to view the Word of God and the seed of the gospel.
The other key piece to this parable is the soil, which represents the human heart. Each one is described as being sowed upon with the seed of the Word. But each one represents a different response, just like human hearts. Jesus uses very clear language to describe each heart, and only one ends up producing a harvest.
The soil on the side of the road represents a hard heart.

When Paul says to “restore” in Galatians 6:1 he uses a word that means to put something back into its proper condition. What can more perfectly convey the goal of church discipline than that picture? Believers are never going to be perfect, and when we get off track we need help being put back into position. Discipline restores sinners, protects all involved from the collateral damage of sin, and promotes the purity of the church. Church discipline brings glory to God when it follows God’s prescribed order. 

If you had to make a short list of church practices that have fallen on hard times, “church discipline” has to be near the top. Whether the unpopular nature of confronting sin, or the way people seem to run away from conflict, to the underdeveloped art of conflict resolution, church discipline has become nearly non-existent.
Yet we don’t apply this approach in other contexts like sports, the arts, or physical fitness. You would fire a coach who did not tell players the truth or confront dysfunction on a team. You would laugh at the notion that one could become a concert-performing violinist while ignoring practice. You would never hire a trainer who lets you eat whatever you want, scroll your phone during workouts, and watch movies from a chair while the treadmill speeds along with no human on its track! And yet, how can we tolerate church leaders who refuse to confront sin and church environments where discipline is not taken seriously?
At the same time, I do wonder if one of the reasons for the lack of practicing church discipline in the church today is an issue of ignorance, rather than indifference. Furthermore, perhaps there is a stigma of shame because church discipline has not been practiced with a spirit of love and gentleness.
Whether you’ve never seen it practiced, or been hurt by poorly handled discipline processes, I want to help you think through both the what and the how of church discipline. Here are 10 truths that every church leader and Christian should think deeply about:
1: Only for professing believers
(MATTHEW 18:15; GALATIANS 6:1; 1 CORINTHIANS 5)
The outside world may drive you crazy, but the primary goal of church discipline is to exercise loving judgment upon unrepentant sinners who profess to be a part of the church and see them restored. The world is not the subject of discipline, the church is. In 1 Corinthians 5:12-13, Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for tolerating sexual sin in their midst. He exhorts, “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”
Perhaps to Christians who spend more time yelling about Taylor Swift (and believe me, I find her problematic!) Paul might say: Hey, maybe spend more time dealing with sin in your own ranks, rather than barking about the world being the world.
2: Involves as few people as possible
(MATTHEW 18:15-16)
In Matthew 18:15-16 Jesus makes it clear that church discipline should involve as few people as possible and that things should be resolved privately, long before ever saying something publicly. This is convicting because we are often tempted to go public before going private. A church that practices discipline faithfully will do so with discretion as much as possible.
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This does not at all condone dumbing down the truth, but we see that Paul would be an advocate for not only what Timothy says, but how he says it. By way of application, perhaps one of the best ways to resist a quarrelsome and hard-hearted attitude towards opponents of the truth is to pray for their salvation and that “they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil” (v.26).
So should you be praying for false teachers to repent, while maintaining a soft heart regarding the peril of their soul? I believe the Scriptures support that. Resist bitterness, speak the truth objectively, and be faithful to warn God’s precious flock concerning dangerous deceivers. It is love that compels us to care for saints and call out wolves (2 Timothy 1:3-7).
2: Pray that God would demolish their demonic ministries.
This may seem like whiplash from the last point, but stick with me! Notice I am not advocating for God demolishing “them,” but rather, their demonic ministries. Think of a wrecking ball taking out large swaths of a structure until it can no longer stand with strength — that is what we are allowed to pray for, biblically speaking. You might think, how can you dare to pray against someone’s ministry with such harsh terminology?

I thought I had heard and seen the most horrific sins of licentiousness in the world of false teaching until I met a man we’ll call, “Chris.” He was a gracious and kind brother who picked me up from the airport when I arrived in a southern state for a ministry trip in the US almost ten years ago now. After a warm welcome and some small talk, “Chris” began to share his testimony. He had been active in the inner circle of a major prosperity gospel ministry and climbed the ladder of leadership. One day, upon being invited into one of the highest levels of leadership he was given the pre-requisites. To join the highest levels of leadership and thrive in the inner circle, he would be required to share his wife with other men, engage in homosexuality, and be a loyal leader at all costs.
For “Chris,” the cost was too high. He was not willing to engage in that type of lifestyle to be in leadership. Just like that, after years of building relationships, trusting his leaders, and nearing the moment when he would become one of them, he was out. Worst of all, this falling out caused major division in his marriage because his wife was unwilling to leave the church at that time. When he concluded the story during that car ride, all was not reconciled and there was deep heartache. Still, “Chris” was optimistic because Christ had saved him from the filthiness of what false teaching breeds. He was owned by Jesus now, no longer a slave to sin (Romans 6:1-7).
This story may be shocking for some of you, but it is all too common in the world of false teaching. This story is precisely why we can say that false teachers are not merely an abomination to Christ because they smear His message. They are also an abomination because they mock Him with their lifestyles of sin. In this article, I want to lay out some biblical truths to remind you that false teaching presents a variety of shady deceptions, namely, sins of licentiousness.
False teachers don’t only need to repent of their teaching, but their lifestyles of sin as well.
False Teachers and Licentiousness
In Jude 4 we read a sobering description of not merely sinful teaching, but the sinful lifestyles of false teachers. Jude writes, “For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
The word for licentiousness he uses also translates as “sensuality” and means “lack of self-constraint which involves one in conduct that violates all bounds of what is socially acceptable.”(1) False teachers don’t only go too far with their doctrine, they always go too far with their deeds. They are marked by sins of “self-love” which is precisely why Paul warns Timothy that in the last days, men will be “lovers of self” (2 Timothy 3:2).

Laziness neglects the most important aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual care. We have been given a body to use for the glory of God, laziness erodes it. We have been given a mind to use for the glory of God, laziness pollutes it. We have been given a new life in Christ that is purposed to glorify God, laziness hinders it.

Christians should never be classified as lazy people. Our God is a God of excellence, who models purpose and stewardship for His people from His majestic creation of the world in Genesis 1, to the glorious restoration of a New Eden in Revelation 22.
The trouble with such a dogmatic word—“never”—is that we are sinners who miss the mark of God’s perfect standard at many moments in our fallen state. We are saints who sin. We are progressing in sanctification but still far from perfect. Therefore, we must consider ourselves in need of this reminder: laziness, while tempting and common to all, should be hated and resisted at all costs for the Christian.
Laziness is your enemy.
The Sin of Sloth
The book of Proverbs has much to say on laziness, identifying what has been historically called the sin of “sloth” by describing the sluggard who is always craving, talking, and dreaming with his mouth and mind, but is mostly procrastinating, slacking, wasting, or slumbering with their hands and feet. Several passages paint a vivid picture of the slacker of all slackers:
Proverbs 13:4—He craves but gets nothing because he’s not diligent
Proverbs 19:15—He is sleeping when he should be working
Proverbs 21:25—He has strong desires but lazy hands
Proverbs 24:30-34—He doesn’t clue into the need for hard work or doing the hard things
Proverbs 6:6-8—He is a bad planner, always behind the curve of what season is upon him
Proverbs 22:13—He makes excuses and blames other factors for his own laziness
Proverbs 20:4—When it’s time to grind, he’s a no-show. When it’s harvest time, he has nothing!
Proverbs 26:16—He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else and blind to his laziness
Proverbs 26:14—He is annoying to all around him because his laziness negatively impacts others
You don’t need to be a Hebrew scholar to surmise what God wants us to understand about laziness. But that’s just the poetic genre of Proverbs. The New Testament is all about grace, and laziness is overlooked is it not? Not even close.
Matthew 25:26—In Christ’s teachings, a lazy steward is judged harshly
Colossians 3:23—Work at whatever you do with all your heart, as unto the Lord
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12—If someone is not willing to work, he doesn’t eat. Stop being idle
Ephesians 4:28—Do honest work
Colossians 1:28-29—Paul’s example in ministry is an example to all workers to work hard
Defining the Sin of Sloth
Augustine defined sloth as, “The refusal to respond to our opportunities for growth, service, or sacrifice.” Robert Mangis defines sloth as, “The antithesis of worship. Sloth is the neglect of the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” I would define it simply as: “The sin of not doing the thing I ought to do in any given situation.” Sloth and laziness are scrolling Instagram when you should be working. Sloth and laziness are making excuses when you should be making things happen. Sloth and laziness are blaming others instead of taking responsibility. Sloth and laziness are letting distractions, fears, and anxieties keep you from sitting down making a plan and putting your hands on the plow. Sloth and laziness hate you and your effectiveness for the glory of God! They are lures that taunt you to nestle into the bosom of their pleasures, only to trap you in destructive patterns of idleness. Sloth and laziness hate your physical, spiritual, and mental health.
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When a generation waivers on gender, sex, and identity to the peril of God’s design, we are setting up future generations for destruction. Christians date, court, marry, reproduce, and raise up families based on a worldview regarding gender.

I want to give you a framework for conversations about gender. We can often get flustered or reactive in conversations about LGBTQ issues so it’s important to have some calm, clear, and biblical thoughts. This equips Christians to engage people who may hold different views with more intentionally, more love, and more truth.
The culture you live in regards truth as relative — not absolute. The problem is, by saying there are no absolutes people are claiming an absolute. When people say, “I don’t feel like it’s my right to tell someone if they’re wrong,” what they aren’t saying is that they would, of course, tell someone who said that gender was “absolute” that they are wrong. Perhaps more than any other topic, the truth about your gender is under assault from the culture.
How Culture Defines Gender & Sex
Culture defines gender as different than your sex. According to culture, sex is the biological difference between males and females. In other words, what you’re born as (or with) is your sex. Gender, on the other hand, is defined by Medical News as being different than your sex:
“In general terms, “sex” refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. “Gender” is more difficult to define, but it can refer to the role of a male or female in society, known as a gender role, or an individual’s concept of themselves, or gender identity.
Sometimes, a person’s genetically assigned sex does not line up with their gender identity. These individuals might refer to themselves as transgender, non-binary, or gender-nonconforming.”
As you can see, while sex is scientifically and biologically verified to be 100% genetic — as in, binary and set — modern culture has now chosen to work around that truth. Yes, there are some cases in which a baby is born with both sets of genitalia and parents have to make a decision what sex the baby will be. In some rare cases, chromosome counts vary, but most commonly, women have 46 chromosomes including two X’s and men have 46 including an X and a Y. The Y chromosome is dominant and carries the signal for the embryo to begin growing testes. Both men and women have testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. However, women have higher levels of estrogen and progesterone, and men have higher levels of testosterone.
Biology lesson over.
There are major differences between the male and female sexes, but culture wants to make a gender something more fluid. To the culture, gender is about how you feel. A transgender person will describe that they were born a boy but feel more like a woman. For some, they will say that they were born a girl, but they feel like a boy, so they identify as a boy. Based on the cultural norms of today, we are giving people the freedom to do whatever they want to whomever they want and for that to be okay. When this ends at its logical conclusion, you end up with men who identify as 7-year old girls and use the same bathroom as actual little girls, and that man can molest or harm those girls.
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How easily we can overlook our own ability to bring the Word of God to bear in our daily interactions. What if we thought more deeply about our beliefs, responsibilities, and everyday choices as we dwell together before a watching world? We are resident foreigners with an eternal citizenship in heaven (1 Peter 2:11). Remembering this divine reality changes the way we interact on earth. Imagine how mighty a witness we would be as countless thousands of Christians deploy into the culture every single day with one visual in mind: We are a city on a hill.

Let’s not be surprised. The world is a dark place, and attacks on Christianity by our culture are in abundant supply. A quick scroll through your social media feed or a fifteen-minute segment of the evening news will prove that. While some might say, “It’s worse than ever!” we must admit that somewhere in the world it’s always been like this. Jesus put it this way when preparing His own disciples for His departure: “In this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).
As Christians, it’s more than likely that our faith in Christ will bring us attacks, slander, workplace discrimination, and the loss of friends and opportunities. In the midst of such treatment, there is a temptation to fight fire with fire. But what if we saw times like these as a great opportunity to be a witness? What if our most powerful witness was found in using weapons of warfare that look nothing like the culture’s? As Christians, we are the light of the world. We are a city on a hill (Matt. 5:14). But how can light be light when it looks like the darkness?
The Apostle Paul was no stranger to trouble and dealing with difficult people, yet he continued to encourage the church to preserve its witness in the midst of a wicked culture. “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4:5–7). These words were penned by the same Paul who was slandered by false teachers and had his integrity questioned in Corinth (2 Cor. 10–11). Yet, Paul continued to make every effort to guard his witness by proclaiming the truth and walking with integrity. His heart was wide open to the church (6:11), he exemplified his own words to “owe no one anything” but to love others (Rom. 13:8), and he poured his life out as a drink offering (2 Tim. 4:6). He was a wonderful example of truth and integrity. How can we maintain our witness in today’s culture? By reflecting the character of Him to whom we bear witness.
The enemy’s strategy has not changed. Darkness will stop at nothing in tempting you to behave like the world in times like these.
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The truth is, God is strong enough, wise enough, and powerful enough to bring purpose out of our pain, even if He doesn’t take us out of the pain right away. You and I experience this more often than we realize. Whenever someone we know dies, it can either lead to bitterness toward God, or to our own appreciation of the gift of relationships and the life we’ve been given. Of course, the grieving process may be arduous, but He never leaves us there alone.

This is one of the most pressing questions when it comes to healing, and it must be answered by using the Scriptures. Opinions and abuses abound, so the only way to address this question is to cement ourselves in the truth of God’s unchanging Word.
I’ve seen it time and time again and I’m sure you have too. A world-renowned faith healer hits the news after promising to heal people … but only if they pay up first. Some even go so far as to say that God is going to pour down judgment upon people if they don’t give a certain amount of money. These “healers” would appear to have all the answers for sickness. Years ago, I sat through many services where a faith healer would explain to people why they were sick. Some people were told that they weren’t giving enough money, others were apparently not forgiving people, and others had been spending time with negative people. Not only that, but some were said to be sick because they just didn’t have enough faith. This sort of guesswork breaks hearts, leads lives astray, and spiritually abuses desperate people.
Thankfully, the Bible breaks such deceptive bondage. If you’ve ever been confused about why people get sick or you know someone who needs answers, these truths will be a soothing balm to a weary soul.
Truth #1: Sickness and death entered the world through original sin.
On the sixth day of creation, the Bible tells us that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Notice it doesn’t say “some of what he had made was very good.” It says all. There was no sin in the world, sickness did not exist, and Adam and Eve were set to enjoy a flawless life complete with a perfect relationship with God.
Instead, they were deceived by the serpent and disobeyed the one command God had given them to follow. This is what is called “original sin” because it was the first sin the world had ever known, and it resulted in a fractured relationship between God and His creation (Genesis 3:1–19).
Because of sin, shame came upon humanity (3:10), marital relationships would experience conflict (3:16), women would experience pain in childbirth (3:16), and work would become incredibly difficult (3:17–18). Worst of all, death entered the scene and humankind would return to dust (3:19). Sickness and death are the results of sin and the fallen world we live in. Because of sin, we need a Savior. And while true Christianity looks forward to that day when Jesus will return and restore all things, until then we must realize that sickness and death are a part of this temporary life. Thankfully, eternal life knows nothing of such things!
Truth #2: Sickness and death can strike us because of our own sin.
Let’s face this truth by using the Bible again. In 1 Corinthians 11:27–30, Paul says that taking communion in an unworthy manner is the reason that some people are weak, sick, or “asleep” (which is a biblical expression for death). This is a statement made directly to the New Testament church. Taking communion unworthily includes not taking it seriously, not examining oneself as Paul instructs (11:28), having impure motives, having unconfessed deliberate sin, and being embittered and unforgiving toward others (the very opposite of what communion represents since we’ve been forgiven!).
Another reason that sickness and death can result from sin is based on the law of consequences, the idea that “a man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). If you do drugs, drink and drive, act foolishly and belligerently, take poor care of your body, engage in rampant and casual sex outside of marriage, might you not at some point experience sickness or death (often prematurely)? Sin often does lead to these things. Therefore, when we examine our own lives and the reason for some unfortunate experiences, we must be sure to know the difference between what is self-inflicted sickness or death, and what is a genuine trial or tribulation that we did nothing to cause (James 1:2–4; Romans 5:3–5). Should you find yourself convicted by the Holy Spirit concerning sin that is causing your sickness, take hold of the beautiful grace that Jesus provides. Confess your sin and he will forgive you of your sin and cleanse you (1 John 1:9), and then based on James 5:13–16 you should go to the elders of your church and be prayed for, as well as confess sin and be honest with them about your situation. God’s Word says that in this context, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power” (5:16).
Truth #3: Sickness and death are not always the result of our own sin.
It’s impossible to diagnose the reason for everyone’s sickness, but we could certainly say that most, if not all, of God-loving, sin-confessing, Jesus-believing Christians who are sick fall into this category. If “original sin” isn’t the only culprit, then a certain situation in Jesus’ ministry can shed some light on why some are sick. The Gospel of John recounts the story:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. (John 9:1–7)
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