The evangelist Billy Graham shared the gospel with an estimated 215 million people.[1] Many of them responded by placing their faith in Jesus for salvation. While his sermon might have lasted only forty minutes in which someone accepted the gospel, I wonder how many of those people had people praying for their salvation for forty years.
Rarely does someone accept the gospel the first time we share it with them. Often it takes years of conversations, prayers, and interactions with people before they accept the gospel.
Jesus touches on this tension in the fourth chapter of John using an agricultural metaphor, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor”(John 4:35–38, NASB).[2]
In these verses I believe there are three lessons that Jesus is trying to teach to His disciples and to us.
In this passage Jesus describes a harvest ready for His disciples’ time. Farmers in the first-century divided their agricultural year into six two-month periods: seedtime, winter, spring, harvest, summer, and a time of extreme heat.[3] This meant they had to wait a minimum of four months between sowing seeds and reaping the harvest. Barley is green when it’s growing, but when it ripens it turns from green to light brown. When Jesus says the fields are “white”(v. 35) He means the fields are extremely ripe. What Jesus is telling His disciples is that they don’t have to wait four months: the field is ready now!
In this passage Jesus describes a harvest His disciples didn’t sow. Jesus told them they would “reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor” (v. 38). The harvest Jesus describes is a harvest that was sowed by others before His disciples. Perhaps He’s referring to the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, or His own miracles.
In this passage Jesus describes a harvest for us now. People in the twenty-first century wonder about God and are curious to learn more about who He is. They ask questions such as: Is there more to life than just a better job, bigger house, nicer car, and fancier vacations? Why do bad things happen to good people? How do I get through the difficulties of life?
As we reap the harvest in front of us we benefit from someone else’s sowing. Let’s remember that the fields around us in our family, at work, and in our community are ripe and ready for harvest.
[1] According to Samaritan’s Purse, Billy Graham preached the gospel to 215 million people in 185 different countries. See “Biography: Billy Graham” at https://www.samaritanspurse.org/media/bio-billy-graham/. Accessed May 6, 2024.
[2] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
[3] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 246-247.