Planting Seeds of the Gospel
“And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”
– Matthew 13:23
During the late 1700’s into the early 18oo’s, the legend is told of Johnny Appleseed who traveled the American frontier randomly spreading apple seeds wherever he went. The popular image of Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman in 1774, describes him as dressed in pauper’s clothes and wearing a cooking pot on his head. It is said that he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock and wildlife, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery.
But history records that apple seeds were not the only thing that he planted in his itinerant travels. He also planted the seeds of the gospel, often by reading and sharing the stories of Jesus.
As born-again believers, we too are urged to plant the seeds of the gospel as we go about our daily routines. The fruits of Johnny Appleseed’s casting of seeds still proliferates and bears fruit to this day, as well as his planting of the seeds of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Here is a lasting legacy we too may leave for generations to come. For what we plant today may continue to bear fruit in days and years to come.
We may never know, until we get to heaven, what fruit may have been produced by a single seed dropped in the heart of someone today.