The Aquila Report Archives - Page 23 of 942

Can I Submit to My Elders Thoughtfully?

By William Boekestein — 5 months ago

We must all grow in true Christian teaching lest we be “carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). But we should use Scripture, and especially the preached Word, not as ammunition for disagreement but as a means of grace to strengthen our faith in Christ. Instead of looking for the preacher’s shortcomings (see Luke 11:54), we should listen like prospectors eagerly panning for gold, examining what we hear with Spirit-generated charity.

When you read in Scripture that church members must submit to their leaders (e.g., Heb. 13:17), do you cringe, imagining servile compliance to even unbiblical demands? When you hear Luke praising the Bereans for fact-checking Paul’s preaching (Acts 17:11), do you hear an endorsement for church members independently evaluating which parts of pastoral leadership they’ll respect?
Both those responses are wrong.
Yet Scripture does require us to be both submissive and thoughtful. These two principles are hard for us to harmonize; we mustn’t reject proper authority or abdicate our responsibility to be intelligent listeners. There must be another way.
The closing admonitions of the book of Hebrews call church members to submit to their leaders and practice discernment by refusing to be “led away by diverse and strange teachings” (Heb. 13:9). We must submit thoughtfully.
What Is Thoughtful Submission?
Thoughtful submission is the practice of respecting and obeying proper church authority while maintaining a biblically judicious walk with God.
God Requires Believers to Be Submissive
The author of Hebrews says, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (13:17). We must trust them, listen to them, and heed their biblical instruction. In traditional vows for church membership, members promise to “submit to the government of the church,” and “to its admonition and discipline” in the sad event of personal backsliding.
Church leaders are overseers under Christ (Acts 20:28), tasked by him to use the keys of the kingdom to bind and loose on earth as he does in heaven through the preaching of the Word and the practice of church discipline (Matt. 16:19). This is a challenging command. Our leaders are ordinary and flawed people; they’re peers who wield Christ’s authority. Yet as we love and submit to them, we show our love for and submission to God (see 1 John 4:20).
But submission isn’t servility.
God Requires Believers to Be Discerning
The Reformation rejected the Roman Catholic notion of implicit faith, or an uninformed trust in church teaching. Seventeenth-century Reformed theologian Francis Turretin argued that Roman Catholic leaders sheltered the Bible that they might “the more easily . . . subject the people to them by a blind obedience.” But God calls faithful Christians to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). This requires more than simply accepting what a church leader says.
The “noble” Bereans exhibit this discernment. “They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). By refusing to be ruled by human opinions, they exemplify the calling of all believers to share in Christ’s priestly anointing, striving “with a free conscience against sin and the devil,” as one Reformation catechism puts it.
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As for Me and My House: America’s Household Idols

By Dan Hult — 5 months ago

You cannot worship both God and false gods. Joshua is clear that choosing to serve false gods means you have determined that it is evil to serve God (Joshua 24:15). Serving no god is not an option, so there really is no such thing as an atheist. Everyone worships, whether the true God, idols, the ideas they represent, or self (Romans 1:18ff). Worship of idols is incompatible with worship of God, which Joshua makes clear by giving the same reason God gave in the second commandment: God’s jealousy (Joshua 24:19 cf. Exodus 20:5).

Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD….You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.
-Joshua 24:14-15,19-20, ESV
Last time, we looked at Israel’s tumultuous beginning culminating in Judah’s Adam-like failure when tempted and Joseph’s Christlike success when tempted. After the conquest of Canaan five centuries later, Joshua tells them to choose whether they will serve God or idols. Joshua said that he and his house would serve God, so he was exhorting Israel as families not individuals. Worship, whether of God or idols, begins at home…and there are many American “Christian” households that have chosen the wrong gods.
It Begins at Home
God builds His Kingdom primarily through families and has always dealt with His people as families. His covenants are corporate, made with households rather than individuals. Even the tribes of Israel were essentially households of households. The ultimate blessing of the Abrahamic covenant was that all of the families of the world would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:3, 28:14). The family, not the church, has always been the center of worship. The Westminster Divines understood this and devoted an entire document to family worship, but many churches today do not.
It is unsurprising then that Scripture’s first reference to false gods comes in the context of a family: when Jacob fled Laban, Rachel stole the household gods (Genesis 31:19) and hid them from him by sitting on them (Genesis 31:34-35). Her claim that she was menstruating at the time would have caused Jewish readers to see that Rachel was essentially defiling the idols. Thus begins a theme found throughout Scripture: mockery of idols and their worshippers. We should laugh at how these idols were powerless to avoid being stolen, sat on, and defiled. We see the same with the plagues of Exodus targeting specific Egyptian deities. We see it when the idol of Dagon fell prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 5:3-4). We see it when Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29) and when the ruins of Baal’s temple were used as a latrine (2 Kings 10:27). And we see it when Jesus picked a longstanding hotbed of idolatry and demonic activity to proclaim: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15). Isaiah illustrates the absurdity of idol worship by describing a man cutting a log in half, burning half in the fire, and carving the other half into an idol (Isaiah 44:10-17). Jeremiah calls them “stupid and foolish” (Jeremiah 17:8). The psalms are equally harsh: “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8 cf. 135:18). Scripture is clear that false gods are powerless, so it is absurd to worship them. This means that a man who leads his family to worship idols is a fool who makes his family into fools as well. As goes the man, so goes the family. While Elkanah’s home was tumultuous, he led his family in the true worship of God. However, the prevalence and persistence of golden calves and high places shows that he was in the minority. Most men followed Laban, paying lip service to God while betraying Him by worshipping false gods.
No Room for Pluralism
That brings up another important point: you cannot worship both God and false gods. Joshua is clear that choosing to serve false gods means you have determined that it is evil to serve God (Joshua 24:15). Serving no god is not an option, so there really is no such thing as an atheist. Everyone worships, whether the true God, idols, the ideas they represent, or self (Romans 1:18ff). Worship of idols is incompatible with worship of God, which Joshua makes clear by giving the same reason God gave in the second commandment: God’s jealousy (Joshua 24:19 cf. Exodus 20:5). Unlike sinful envy, God’s jealousy is “a zeal that arises when sin threatens a covenant relationship”.[1] Trying to worship God while also worshipping idols is like a wife saying she is faithful to her husband while regularly sleeping with other men. There is no room for an open relationship between God and His covenant people, so idolatry is often described as adultery. Therefore, there is no room for religious pluralism. We don’t know whether Rachel stole the idols because she was trying to be a pluralist or for some other reason such as spite against her father, but we do know that Israel tried to worship God and false gods throughout their history. As we saw here, while the southern kingdom of Judah was sinning by selectively obeying God, the northern kingdom of Israel was attempting pluralism: “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord GOD” (Amos 4:4-5). By trying to worship both God and idols, they were blaspheming God just as a wife greatly dishonors her husband when he is just one of the men she sleeps with. Religious pluralism is and has always been abhorrent blasphemy against God, so every man is exhorted to choose whether he and his family will worship God or idols—he cannot worship both.
Today’s Household Gods
I have previously examined various idols in our culture. Even faithful churches that abhor those idols likely have families that worship them at home then come to church on Sunday and fail to see the hypocrisy. Idols are myriad and often subtle, but some are made blatantly obvious by a popular yard sign that declares: “In this house we believe: black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything”. This is a clear acknowledgement that worship begins at home, and its credal structure proves that it is religious. What one must believe in order to be a Christian is summed up in the historic creeds—the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, and Chalcedon Definition.
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The IVF Gendercide

By John Stonestreet and Jared Hayden — 5 months ago

Parenthood is widely seen as a consumerist activity. Children are viewed in the same way as pets or plants. They are objects to be acquired rather than persons whose intrinsic dignity must be respected. For many parents, children exist to serve their happiness, whether to be a parent’s “bestie” or to fulfill their parent’s hopes and dreams.

Critics of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have long warned that the technology could be used to customize children, allowing parents and doctors to effectively play God. According to a recent Slate article, which sounded like a review of the movie Gattaca, those fears were well-founded. According to the article,
You can have a baby when it suits your career, thanks to egg freezing (or at least you can try). You can sequence your embryos’ genomes for $2,500 a pop and attempt to maximize your future child’s health (or intelligence, attractiveness, or height) … you can even select eye color. There is a vast disparity between who gets to use IVF… and who is using it to create designer families.
Another example is sex selection. Numbers vary from clinic to clinic, but one Los-Angeles-based IVF clinic estimates that about 85% of its patients engage in sex selection. However, which sex is being selected is surprising.
Historically, when parents choose between sons and daughters—think of China under its one-child policy or Romans who practiced infanticide by exposure—boys won out. Today, Americans using IVF are abandoning the sons in favor of daughters.
“Abandoning” is the correct term when it comes to IVF. Standard procedure involves the creation of anywhere between five and 10 embryos that are then implanted either one at a time or in multiples.
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Speaking Truth and Life to Your Children: A Message to Christian Fathers

By Jason Robinson — 5 months ago

As fathers, the role we play in our children’s lives is incomparable. We are called to be protectors, providers, and spiritual leaders, guiding them with wisdom and love. One of the most powerful tools we have is our words.
Words can help shape our children’s identity, instill in them the values of the Kingdom, and draw them closer to God. Whether they are young children under our care or adults navigating the complexities of life, the words we speak can fill their hearts with truth and life.
The Power of Your Words
Scripture reminds us of the power our words carry. Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” As a father, every word you speak over your children can either build them up or tear them down. Your words can affirm their God-given worth or sow seeds of doubt and insecurity.
When your children are young, they look to you for guidance and approval. They absorb your words, forming their understanding of themselves and the world around them. Words of affirmation, encouragement, and correction, when delivered with love, can help set them on a path of righteousness.
Scripture highlights how important it is to share God’s truth with your children. Doing this helps establish a strong faith foundation that will support them, even when you are not physically present.

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Kamala Harris Is Wrong

By Candice Watters — 5 months ago

The government does not own us. In this Harris is right. But we don’t own ourselves. Christians who believe the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) know that “You are not your own.” We were bought with a price—the very blood of Jesus. We must not do whatever we want but instead glorify God in our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). We cannot defy the image of God in fellow human beings, even unborn ones, without defying God Himself.

In last Tuesday’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris said, “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
She’s partly right. We don’t belong to the government as if it owned us and can command our every action. This is deeply ingrained in the American psyche and our representative form of government. But neither do we belong to ourselves—not in the radically individualistic, deterministic way Harris meant it.
From a civics perspective, we belong to the communities we join or are born into. We are members of families, volunteer organizations, and churches. Our memberships require things of us, and we are not free to neglect or defy those obligations without consequence. These community bonds make for rich cultural relationships. They knit us together in ways that enrich us even as we enrich others. All of this is free from government intrusion and control—and rightly so.
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Sin, Biology, and Moral Responsibility

By Hans Madueme — 5 months ago

All sin originates from the heart, the moral center of every person. Everybody is guilty of sinning against God, but the doctrine of original corruption goes deeper. In addition to the inevitability of human sinning, Scripture also witnesses to the fact that we enter this world as sinners, each of us possessing a morally corrupt condition that precedes any sins we commit. This original corruption starts from birth (Ps. 51:5; 58:3) and renders us full of evil and deception (Eccles. 9:3), dead in our transgressions and enemies of God (Eph. 2:1–3). Every facet of the human personality, from the soul and mind to emotions and desires, is tainted by depravity; every sinful thought and action is polluted (Matt. 15:16–20; Luke 6:43–44).

The Christian doctrine of sin implies that human beings are responsible creatures. This overwhelming truth so pervades every book and (possibly) every chapter of the Bible that it hardly needs defense. Sin, of course, is the very reason for the glad tidings of redemption. From the beginning, we sinned by disobeying God’s commandments (Gen. 2:17; 3:1–6), a pattern that has repeated itself every day since that catastrophe in Eden; the apostle John describes sin as lawlessness (1 John 3:4). But elsewhere in the canon, sin is also couched as missing the mark (hamartia), unrighteousness (adikia), ungodliness (asebeia), transgression (parabasis), and so on. Early theologians even tried locating the essence of sin in pride, greed, selfishness, unbelief, and other vices. Nevertheless, Scripture’s different ways of talking about sin agree that it always involves culpability before God (Ps. 51:4). Cornelius Plantinga therefore rightly defines sin as “any thought, desire, emotion, word, or deed—or its particular absence, that displeases God and deserves blame.”
A theory of the person consistent with the doctrine of sin must include the capacity for what I call moral transcendence. Moral transcendence includes three interrelated features that encapsulate the theory of moral responsibility implicit in Scripture.
First, all sin presupposes the baseline experience of the unity of consciousness and intentionality. The unity of consciousness is my first-person experience of sinning against God: “Against you,” says David, “you only, have I sinned” (Ps. 51:4). The experience of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin is not merely a series of neurons firing, or a complex sequence of brain function; rather, it is fundamentally a supernatural awareness of personal wrongdoing. The knowledge that I stand before God as his creature and that I have sinned against him is a first-person awareness of my unified self, an awareness that cannot be reduced to one or more parts of my body or brain. Intentionality, on the other hand, is a technical philosophical term referring to one aspect of consciousness, the “of-ness” or “about-ness” that we associate with mental states (often referred to as “qualia” by philosophers). Whenever I sin, there is always something I desire, want, or think that I need. Seconds before I decide to speak unkindly to my wife, I may feel the conviction of the Spirit urging me to desist because what I am considering saying to her will displease my heavenly Father. If I ignore that prompting and lash out verbally, I may later reflect on what I have done and feel remorse and perhaps repentance. Thus, every instance of human sinning involves intentionality, an array of mental acts directed at things, other people, and ultimately God.
Second, all sin is responsive to reason, and that presupposes a (nonphysical) mind. Sin always involves intellectual, emotional, or volitional aspects of the human person. We believe the wrong things, or the right things in the wrong ways; we desire things opposed to the will of God and we consciously disobey God even when we know that it displeases him. Scripture, in fact, gives a uniform depiction of human sinning: Eve sinned because “the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen. 3:6 NIV).
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Why We Need Revelation (Revelation 1:1-8)

By Darryl Dash — 5 months ago

God, who is sovereign over history, who is self-existent and eternal, who has all power, has a message for us. God himself is pulling back the veil and revealing to us what’s really happening in the world. He wants us to see the world from his perspective. This is what God wants to do. That’s why we need Revelation. We need God himself to reveal what’s happening in the world.

We’re beginning a journey today that is going to take us all the way into next year. We’re starting one of the most interesting and challenging books of the Bible. We are embarking on our journey through the book of Revelation.
Revelation is going to seem unfamiliar. Someone’s said it’s like entering a foreign country. It’s full of symbols that are hard to understand. It’s a sensory book. Someone’s said it’s “like something Dr. Seuss might have thought up after a sleepless night reading Stephen King.”
Revelation is going to challenge us. And yet, as we’re going to see today, the payoff is huge. It’s not a book that’s meant to confuse or divide us. It’s a book that’s meant to help us. David Campbell writes, “Revelation is not a handbook to last-day events. It is a pastoral letter written to Christians of every age and generation on how to live lives faithful to God and Christ in the midst of all the challenges a hostile pagan world throws at them.” This is meant to be a very practical book.
The Canadian preacher Darrell Johnson says that the Bible ever became illegal, as it is in some parts of the world, and he was allowed to keep only one book of the Bible for personal use, he would, without hesitation, keep the book of Revelation. Why? No book of the Bible presents the gospel as powerfully as this book does, he says. In no other book of the Bible do we see Jesus as clearly and compellingly as we do in this last book. “And no other book, in all of human literature, crystallizes what it means to belong to and follow Jesus in this world.”
Today I want us to dip our toes into this book by looking at the first 8 verses. These verses answer two questions for us: what is this book, and why should we pay attention to this book?
What Is This Book? (1:1-2)
That’s the first question we need to ask: what is this book? The first two verses tell us:
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
Here you have two important pieces of information that we need that are going to set us up to read this book well. It tells us what this book does, and where this book came from.
What this book does.
What kind of book is it? It’s a revelation. The word could be translated apocalypse, which has come to be associated with the end of the world or catastrophic destruction. But that’s not what apocalypse means in the Bible. Apocalypse means to uncover or unveil something that was previously hidden.
And this is so important for us as we start Revelation. Right away we have a great description of what Revelation is designed to do. It’s meant to reveal something that we need to know if we’re going to understand the world.
How do we know what’s going on in the world? I open up the news app on my phone. I can go online and find out what’s going on with world events any time I want.
But sometimes I go deeper. I read long-form journalism, or if I want to go deeper, I pick up a book on current events. That’s how we normally figure out what’s going on in the world.
But Revelation does something. It tells us that if we really don’t understand what’s happening in the world because we’re missing some important information. And then it unveils what we’ve missed. It shows us some realities that we could never figure out on our own, but are absolutely necessary if we’re going to understand the world. It lifts the veil between heaven and earth, so we see a fuller picture of the way that God’s working out his plans for this world.
Revelation unveils what’s really happening. It shows us:

the resurrected and glorified Christ
hidden angelic and demonic forces behind what’s happening in the world
the ugliness of the world’s system
the hidden beauty of God’s people
God’s plan for the renewal of all things

In other words, if you just rely on news to figure out what’s going on in the world, you’re missing out. You’ll never understand what’s happening in the world. Revelation is written to tell us the true story of what’s happening in the world and what will happen in the world. It describes earthly events from heaven’s perspective.
That’s what this book does.
Where this book came from.
There’s a second question that verses 1 and 2 answers about Revelation. Where did this book come from? Verse 1 says it’s the revelation of Jesus Christ. He’s the ultimate source. It’s a revelation given by Jesus.
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From Baptist to Presbyterian Church Planter

By Chris Taylor — 5 months ago

Church is no longer somewhere to go and serve, it is now God’s people gathered together to receive Christ and the benefits of His work of redemption through the means He has established. I now believe when we gather for corporate worship, something happens that doesn’t happen at any other time or in any other place, and it happens through the ordained means of Word, Sacraments, and Prayer. I am now trusting in His means of grace not my own list of what another friend of mine calls means of growth (spiritual disciplines).

Multiple news outlets have reported the Church of England is no longer describing their new church start-ups as church plants. A new study says the Church is opting for terms like worshiping community and worshiping congregation that reflect the culture change or rejuvenation that is taking place. The designation church is apparently no longer sufficient to describe the new things that are happening like Shh Free Worship for young families with children, Silent Disco Worship for young adults, and Outdoor Worship for those who like to listen to the audio Bible and pray while they walk. But in the words of one Vicar, this movement reflects “a misplaced desire to be relevant and modern-sounding” and communicates “the Church has given up on church.” The author of the report even admits the change is forcing those within the Church to redefine what they think a church is and that it has “left certain parts of the Church – for whom fidelity to ecclesial forms and practices is central – feeling outside of the planting conversation.”(1)
I’ve been a part of three church plants over the course of my ministry. Two as a Baptist and one as a Presbyterian. The first was in 1997 after being sent to the very first Saddleback conference where I drank the Purpose-Driven Kool-Aid. The second was in 2006 after returning from the first T4G Conference as an official card-carrying cage-stage member of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. The third was twelve years later after arriving in the PCA. I spent my years in the seeker-sensitive (seeker-centered) movement exhibiting my misplaced desire to be relevant which resulted in being labeled defiant by the denominational establishment due to what they believed to be a lack of restraint within the limits they had deemed to be proper and in good taste (they were right). I didn’t fare any better during my stint with the YRR. Rather than humble me, my newfound knowledge of and appreciation for God’s sovereignty in salvation became an incubator for my pride. I, as so many do, overcorrected and spent a few years reacting to the err of my former ways by being condescendingly critical of other churches and harshly communicating what I was against more than what I was for. This opened the door to a legalism that left me and my family in need of an indefinite period of respite.
The PCA church we began attending was an oasis. We were immediately welcomed into the fellowship and ministered to and restored by a faithful pastor who was committed to the ordinary means of grace and the regulative principle of worship.
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I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins — The Apostles’ Creed, Article of Faith 10

By Campbell Markham — 5 months ago

Justice demanded that David’s sin be punished, and it was punished in the sacrificial crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus bore David’s sin and condemnation so that David could be forgiven. The wickedness of all who confess their sins and believe in Jesus Christ is forgiven. “His blood makes the foulest clean.”

The author of a large part of the Bible did some desperately wicked things.
I’m talking about David, Israel’s greatest general and king, and author of at least seventy-three of the Psalms.
God’s justice demands that sin be punished.
It is about 1000 BC, and David has been king for some time. His realm is expansive, his rule is secure, and his armies are off campaigning.
We find him strolling on his rooftop (2 Sam. 11). The sun sets over Jerusalem. The scent of smoke and evening meals fills the air.
David sees a woman bathing on her rooftop, a very beautiful woman. He makes inquiries.
She is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of David’s greatest soldiers—a friend and brother-in-arms. Uriah is away with the army.
David orders Bathsheba to be brought to his chambers…
Weeks later she sends him a note: “I am pregnant.”
David attempts a coverup. He calls Uriah back to Jerusalem for “news from the frontline.” He then sends him home to his wife Bathsheba with a gift.
But there’s no way that Uriah will enjoy an evening with his wife while the Ark of the Covenant and his brothers-in-arms are out in the field. Uriah sleeps outside.
Frustrated, David tries again. This time he gets Uriah drunk before sending him home to his wife.
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Prayer in the Trenches

By Stan Gale — 5 months ago

In this series, we will follow the flow of prayer through the book of Nehemiah and look to apply what we learn to our own work for the sake of the kingdom of God. While in Acts corporate prayer is featured, it is the personal prayer of leadership that we find in Nehemiah. Yet in either case, the object of our prayer is the same – complete and continual dependence upon the living God.

Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! (Psalm 118:25, ESV)
The Bible seems to connect building projects with prayer. Our Lord Jesus assures us that He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Yet He would have us pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the field, and engage ourselves in the building project.
We see the primacy of prayer at work in the establishment and growth of the new covenant church recorded in Acts. The first act of the apostles after Christ’s ascension was to gather in prayer. Assembled in an upper room, the apostles “all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers” (Acts 1:14).
It was clear from the outset that the building of the church was the job of the triune God. The followers of Jesus might be the ones who sowed the seed, mulched it with truth, and watered it in prayer, but it would be God who would bring growth and fruitfulness. Good soil that would produce a crop would come from the Holy Spirit promised by the risen Christ, for the saving purposes of a sovereign God.
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