World Missions & Evangelism, Inc.

In this last look at Mark 4, let's check out what I am calling the Counter Intuitive principle. Mark 4: 30-32 "Again he said, 'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'" You could look at this principle in several different ways. You might say that this is a parable about the power of a seed. As they say, you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you can't count the number of apples in a seed. Clearly it is talking about the kingdom of God growing from a small seedlike start, to a large multiplying movement. I have preferred the version in Matthew 13: 32 that says that the mustard seed grows into a "tree". I have a personal interpretive thought about this that when

Mark 4: 26-29. "He also said, 'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.'" The next biblical principle I want to highlight I am calling the "All By Itself" principle. In the last post, I looked at the parable of the sower and the 4 kinds of soil, representing the 3 fold cord of the word, understanding, and obedience which result in a harvest. This is central to the cpm strategy that we and others are using. In this next parable, Jesus said that the kingdom of God multiplies "All By Itself". What does this mean? This is what Roland Allen called "The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church" in his powerful book ma

Recently I read Neil Cole's excellent book, "Organic Church". I can't believe that I had not read it before. It is really great. He has done a marvelous job in exegeting cpm strategy from the New Testament. I realize that he has his own application of this strategy, and he doesn't seem to use the term church planting movements as much, but essentially he is talking about the same thing. I can really recommend this book. (While I am on book recommendations, check out "The Rabbit and the Elephant: Why Small is the New Big For Today's Church" by Tony and Felicity Dale and George Barna . It is tremendous, and they make numerous references to David Watson and the work he has done). At any rate, the thing I like most about Cole's book (other than the fact that he seems to think the same as I do about everything) is the exegetical tone of it. He is bringing out these principles from the scripture, and especially from the Gospels and Christ

In the last article I showed that Luke 10, the sending of the 70, was used in the early church and specifically by the Apostle Paul as a guideline in ministry. In this note, I want to return to that theme and look at how Paul used Luke 10. As I pointed out, Paul quotes from Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:18. It is interesting to me how he used it. First look at the 2 verses. Luke 10:7-"Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house." 1 Timothy 5:18-"For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages"." Paul quotes Jesus from Luke 10:7 and calls it Scripture, indicating that by the time he wrote 1 Timothy, Luke had already written his gospel, and that Paul saw it as Scripture. This is a point that has been noted by a number of conservative scholars in their commentaries on the book of 1 Timothy. Ev

In Church Planting Movements around the world, and especially those with which we have been associated and patterned after, Luke 10 and the Sending of the 70 has been used as a pattern for the work. The finding of persons of peace as a starting point is actually one of the critical elements. Recently, I have heard some questions raised about this. Is Luke 10 really about church planting? Jesus was not sending out church planters, it has been said. Are those of us in the field of cpm studies and practice doing violence to scripture, and doing eisegesis rather than exegesis of this passage? As I begin to address this question, let me first say that no one in the cpm movement is teaching or suggesting (intentionally) that Luke 10 is about church planting. Clearly it is not....the church did not even exist at that time (I am not splitting theological hairs here from my somewhat dispensational background, and if some covenental theology friend sees it differently, no problem). In Luke