thought exercise on Agriculture

The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experienc...

In Understanding Genesis Nahum Sarna explodes the myth that in the story of Cain and Abel represents a biblical preference for the shepherd over the tiller of the soil. He points out that “there is no...

It’s been right here all along—the land teaching us how to un-hurry our hurry-sick hearts. Land speaks stunning truths through Scripture. The Hebrew word for land is eretz. It is the fifth most freque...

My first call to ministry was in Eastern Washington state. It turned out to be one of the most prolific winemaking regions in the country. One of the things I learned from a local winery was really qu...

The gospels are earthy. People are close to the earth. They travel here and there by foot. They eat the live heads of grain growing from the soil as they walk through the fields. They get grubby and h...

My mom studied horticulture and could make a dead stick grow leaves. I do not have her genes. So what I am telling you know comes from sources who do know about fig trees. Here’s what they tell me. Fi...

An experienced gardener knows the value of not watering their tomatoes. Well, there's a little more to it, but that's the headline. Suppose you go to the nursery in the spring and get a tom...

While there is a place for condemning, critiquing, consuming and copying culture, the primary posture Christ followers are to have in the world is as culture makers. In regard to history, the word cul...

Many churches today remind me of a laboring crew trying to gather in a harvest while they sit in the tool shed. They go to the tool shed every Sunday and they study bigger and better methods of agricu...

Most of the heroes in the Bible had what we would think of as secular vocations. Isaac developed real estate, Jacob was a rancher, and Joseph was a government official (in charge of agriculture, the e...

John Walton, in The Lost World of Adam and Eve, argues that the Garden of Eden should be seen as a sacred space (a kind of "Holy of Holies") set off from the rest of creation, with the seven...

Through most of history, the human population has lived a rural lifestyle, dependent on agriculture and hunting for survival. In 1800, only 3 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. By...

I once heard a description of what meals are like in heaven. The saints are seated on either side of a four-foot-wide banquet table. The table is set with delicious foods on every plate. The only thin...

Ever since I became a Christian, I’ve met countless believers who treated their lives like the US government treats its various departments. In the US government, there is the Department of Education,...

I was watching the old Dick Van Dyke Show recently, and he was at a party filled with pseudo intellectuals. Dick got trapped into a one-sided conversation with a self-absorbed philosophy professor. On...

The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed b...

Eating does not need to follow this commodified, industrial way. It can occur in contexts where people take deeper notice of and accept responsibility for what they eat. To appreciate what this sort o...

One of my favorite sections of Home Depot is the power garden tool department. Even though I have all the tools I need, I still like browsing through Home Depot’s collection of power mowers, chainsaws...

In this excerpt by a Welsh Farmer, Wilf Davies, we hear about someone who finds his routines life-giving, as opposed to soul-sucking. I can’t help but think it has something to do with his occupation,...

The inordinate desire in the west to increase productivity, to go faster and faster, especially in business, can actually become counterproductive. In this short story from the Chinese philosopher Men...

It takes at least three years to for a grape vine to begin producing fruit. The planting site must be carefully chosen, the vine planted at just the right depth and at just the right time of year, the...

It’s been right here all along—the land teaching us how to un-hurry our hurry-sick hearts. Land speaks stunning truths through Scripture. The Hebrew word for land is eretz. It is the fifth most freque...

A canny Maine farmer was approached by a stranger one day and asked how much he thought his prize Jersey cow was worth. The farmer thought for a moment, looked the stranger over, then said: “Are you t...

A loaf of bread is the bearer of at least four major narratives or histories; (1) a narrative of natural processes that yield diverse plant growth, yeast spores, salt, sugar, and water; (2) an agricul...

One of the many technological transformations of the twentieth century took place right on our dinner plates. Because of its cheapness and convenience, most Americans quickly accepted new ways of eati...

We get a feel for the goodness of working as creatures with bodies in Leo Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina . In the novel, Constantine Dmitrich Levin is a wealthy landowner in nineteenth-century R...

When I was growing up, my dad was a farmer, not a Christian. He had little interest in faith, having been told by his father that the Bible was a fairy tale. But then a local pastor took an interest i...

While in seminary I did some research and editing work for a missiology professor, and I came across a story of a missionary who took Jesus’s illustration of sheep and goats quite literally when worki...

Bread has long been central to the heart and life of Near Eastern and Western cultures. For generations people have associated bread with food, and the availability of bread with good times and food s...

If we are to be God’s image-bearers with regard to creation, then we will carry on his pattern of work. His world is not hostile, so that it needs to be beaten down like an enemy. Rather, its potentia...