Years ago, a kind man named Dooley, after teaching the Wednesday evening Jr. High class at church, decided to share with the class some of the misheard hymn lyrics that he remembered.  I know he mentioned more than one, but I can’t remember the others.  The one I do remember is the title for this post: Are you sowing the seed of the king, dumb brother? (original words are: Are you sowing the seed of the kingdom brother?).

After discussing misheard hymn lyrics in one of last week’s posts, this one sprang to mind.  And when it did, it got me to thinking, and I began to ask myself:

Are you sowing the seed of the king, dumb brother?

And that is the exact question I want to pose to you today.

Before anyone gets offended, let me explain.  The word dumb still has the meaning of “silent” or “mute,” though it isn’t used that way much anymore.  For example, look at Isaiah 53:7 (KJV): as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth.  This is the meaning I want you to think about.

Are you sowing the seed of the king, silent brother?

Evangelism is stressed in almost every congregation I know.  Bulletin articles are written about it.  Sermons are preached about it.  And every member agrees it needs to be done.  And the congregation doesn’t grow.  So more sermons are preached, more articles are written, and every member is even more convinced that it needs to be done.  But what happens?  Do we go out sowing the seed?  Or are we silent?

Preachers are oftentimes just as guilty as anyone else of being silent.  For some reason, we get it through our heads that we’ve spent hours upon hours studying for teaching class, writing sermons, preparing articles, and visiting the members, so we’ve “put in our time.”  Somehow we give ourselves a pass for not doing any evangelism outside of the invitation we put at the end of our sermons.

Are you sowing the seed of the king, dumb brother?

It’s easy to point at others and say, “they’re not evangelizing.”  And that is probably a legitimate accusation against many Christians.  But the question isn’t “are they evangelizing?”

The question is “are you evangelizing?”

I’m not comfortable evangelizing.  God never promised a comfortable life.  Those wonderful folks in the Bible who went out evangelizing did it because they wanted to do it.  Their mindset was that it was a glorious thing to bring others to Jesus Christ.  They were willing to do things that may have been uncomfortable—even risking being murdered—because they thought Jesus and His church were worth it.  Do you?

I’m no good at evangelizing.  Have you ever actually tried it?  There are many different methods, and you’d be surprised at how easy some of them are.  Some are as simple as handing a DVD to someone, and telling them, “I really think you’ll find this interesting.  When you get done watching it, let me know what you think.”

I’m afraid.  The one person who knows me best can attest to the fact that I am a massive fraidy-cat when it comes to needles.  I spent a month avoiding a shot, and then when it came time for me to give it to myself, I couldn’t do it.  I was afraid.  But I finally forced myself to do it.  And you know what?  It’s really not that bad.  If you will finally just start doing it, you won’t be afraid anymore.

This article was written for you.  It was also written for me.  Let us both challenge ourselves every day to speak out for Christ and not be dumb—silent—any longer.

Are you sowing the seed of the king, dumb brother?

–Bradley Cobb