Home / Growing / Plant Like Growth / Plant Like Growth
 In one record of Jesus' words, recorded in Mark (a book in the Bible), he describes the impact of his teaching on a person's lifestyle. (As the Bible is a large book, there is an accepted system for finding your way. First the individual book's name is given, in our case Mark. Then a book is subdivided into chapters. So Jesus' words can be found in Mark chapter 4. Then a chapter is subdivided into verses. So in Mark chapter 4, verses 1-20 are important in what follows. This system is abbreviated to Mark 4:1-20)
In Mark 4:1-20 Jesus likens the change in a person's lifestyle, when his values are adopted, to a plant that grows from seed. He observes that adopting his values, and growing confident in their use, can depend on other factors. For Jesus, these factors included Satan's activity, persecution and the power of materialism.
These are still factors today. Nothing has changed. But given our backgrounds are different, there are other factors that today need to be spelt out. These could be called habits that help growth. There is wide agreement amongst Christians, who have experienced development in their faith, that the following factors are important. They are what we might call environmental.
Five environmental factor that help a plant to grow strongly from a seed are:
If just one of these is lacking or weak, the plant struggles to grow or even dies off. If we follow Jesus' method then each of these environmental factors can be used to illustrate a reality about developing as a new Christian.
|
