|
Luke 9:57-62
The Contemporary English Version (CEV) renders verse 62, "Anyone who starts plowing and keeps looking back isn't worth a thing to God's Kingdom." Plowing in Jesus' day was done, not with a tractor, but behind an animal, something we have little or no experience doing. Few of us have spent any time walking behind a plow—and a garden tiller does not count as a plow! What was it like trying to keep an animal-pulled plow upright and true? YouTube offers many videos of just this thing: people trying to hold a plow straight and keep a team moving forward. It does not look easy. If the plowman took his eyes off what he was doing, the plow would fall over. So, once a farmer became proficient enough to hold the plow up and had the animals trained to move ahead, he would have to keep his eyes fixed on the end of the row to plow a straight line. Back in the day, Farmer John would send his son or his hired hand out to plow a field. He would come by later to check on him and perhaps find the furrows crooked. The plowman had started plowing but perhaps kept looking back. He was not committed to the task at hand or was not focused on the goal. Hebrews 10:39 (CEV) reads, "We are not like those people who turn back and get destroyed. We will keep on having faith until we are saved." Are God's requirements too exacting and difficult for us? Are we committed to the way forward, or are we spending time looking back?
Mike Ford
How Expensive Is Your Religion? (Part One)
|
