Written by Dallas Willard (1935-20213), an American philosopher, author and speaker, known for his writings and teachings on Christian spiritual formation. This is an excerpt from his book “The Scandal of the Kingdom.”
The Parable of the Sower is one of the most important parables Jesus gave about the Kingdom of God because it answered the question, “Why doesn’t the Word — the logos — have the effect on people we might hope for?” It moves us to ask again why God doesn’t just change people. This does not reflect a lack of power on God’s part. In fact, if God wanted to turn me into a helicopter and fly me out the window, He could do it. Please understand that if God wanted to, He could have rewired every one of us to be faithful followers like Job, Hannah, and Daniel. This is not a question about what God can do; it is a question about what God will do. It is a question about the precise manner of how God chooses to interact with people to accomplish His purposes. It’s true that the God of all the earth can do anything He wants to do, but there are a lot of things He doesn’t want to do. If we’re going to work with God in the Kingdom of God, we have to find the ways He has chosen to work, and then work with Him in those ways. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of love and understanding and maturity, where people live together under the governance of the most glorious Being in all of reality — God Himself. It will never be a Kingdom of people who are knocked on the head or rewired to become religious robots. It is a Kingdom of God’s creatures whom He made to learn and grow freely.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. [Colossians 2:6–7]
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