the world are clearly apparent. But how is the world to be changed? That's the inevitable question: how is the kingdom to be brought in? What strategy will Jesus employ to precipitate this decisive transformation in world history? Will he raise up an angelic army and march on Jerusalem or Rome? Will he call down supernatural fire from heaven to consume the wicked? What means does he intend to use to bring in the kingdom of God? This was in fact a great source of debate among Jews in his day. And it is the answer to that very question to which he refers when he speaks of the 'secrets of the kingdom of God'. He claims to bring privileged information on this vital point from the highest possible intelligence source in the universe, from heaven itself. And the clue to that secret strategy, for those who are able to penetrate the parable in which it is encoded, lies in the cipher of the seed.
Putting the evidence of all his parables and teaching together, it is clear that Jesus anticipated that the kingdom of God would come in a way hitherto unforeseen by the Jewish people. It would arrive in three phases, rather than in a single apocalyptic crisis. First, there would be a time of planting as the Messiah arrived, incognito and disguised, to sow the seed of the kingdom in the hearts of a few chosen disciples. Then there would be a period of growth as that seed, multiplied through their testimony, fertilized many other lives until eventually the spores of the kingdom had become distributed throughout the world. And finally there would be a time of reaping when the Messiah would return, this time amid universal public acclamation, to harvest the fruit which the seed he had sown had produced, and so bring in the full manifestation of the kingdom of which the prophets had spoken.
So the answer to that vital question, 'How is the kingdom of God to arrive?' lies in the metaphor of the seed. And what is that seed, this vital instrument by which the new world of the kingdom is sown in the very
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