Are we a farming people today, even country folk? What are we as a people?

[gordon 2]

It occurs to me that many of the parables and words in the New Testament are of agricultural items and themes used to explain spiritual realities: orchards, fruits, pigs, sheep, goats, fields, wine, bread, wheat, pruning, fig trees, donkey, wells, hen, harvests etc.

Are these references still relevant to people today? I was at a service in Florida one Sunday were the pastor explained how a shepherd tended sheep because there was no sheep farming " hereabouts ".

When I was a kid many people in rural areas in general had a small veg. garden, sometimes full out farms, sometimes just hens and hogs.

I was told by my grandfather that hunting as we know it only came in to its own after WW1 and that most people got their meat from their small local farms. People had fenced in cattle, draft oxen and horses etc..

The percentage of population involved with hands on farming today is significantly less than the numbers just 100 yrs ago.

Are the many references to farming in the New Testament especially in the way they are used to teach and provide sometimes profound meanings still relevant to people today?

Are we still a farming people? Or is farming knowledge a hobby knowledge only and recreation like what hunting has become compared to hunting for survival? If we are not a farming people and not real hunter people is scripture still relevant to the people we have become? What have we become?

 

[NE GA Pappy]

We are no longer an agriculture educated society. I would say that it all started with the move to cities after WW2, and the abundance of grocery stores that sprung up nationwide. It use to be that only the city dwellers depended on the stores, but at least by the 70's most families depended on the stores, whether they lived in the city or more rural areas.

You now have entire generations that have no idea where their food comes from. All they know is that they go to the store, fill a buggy, and swipe a card to pay for it. I bet if you took 500 high school seniors and put them in the woods, 25 wouldn't walk out 5 days later

 

[gordon 2]

Isn't it interesting as society in general since the 1950s has been moved away by a process from our references to using the land as farm field and pasture to the lives of suburbians and to its many unique references, especially that real estate is a financial investment in the end, which has even permeated to define the life style country folk now enjoy, that society has become more and more secular--even its spirituality. It's almost as if society can't latch onto the references it use to... Or is it?

Hunter gatherer societies offered sacrifice to God to glorify him. They offered their best. To a mostly agricultural society God offered himself as sacrifice for man's sake and so to glorify God .

Is our society a return to hunting and gathering in a mostly economic environment where we are "trained" to participate as competitors within? Is its philanthropy sufficient to move God's approval?

How does a society like ours, with the children we have raised to it, latch onto spiritual life? Is it doomed to be all over the place until it is changed to something else because the gospel references no longer hold?

 

[Madman]

How does a society like ours, with the children we have raised to it, latch onto spiritual life?

The same way we have always done it.

Even in agriculture societies the church has always taught how to overcome.

We overcome the world by giving alms.

We overcome the flesh by fasting.

We overcome Satan by prayer.


Teach your children to overcome.

 

[ClemsonRangers]

i think we are down to 1% working on farms

 

[Nicodemus]

A few of us are. And have the skills.

 

[livinoutdoors]

It may make a difference or not, but there are many young folks coming back to a more traditional agricultural based way of life. Some of them are faith based, some not. There is at least an effort to try.

 

[NCHillbilly]

It may make a difference or not, but there are many young folks coming back to a more traditional agricultural based way of life. Some of them are faith based, some not. There is at least an effort to try.

I see a lot of college kids that are very interested in growing food.

 

[NCHillbilly]

If the Bible was written today, it would be published digitally on Instagram, and would contain miracles like Jesus turning the water to Hazlenut lattes, and providing wifi to the multitudes with only three modems and seven routers.

 

[gordon 2]

If the Bible was written today, it would be published digitally on Instagram, and would contain miracles like Jesus turning the water to Hazlenut lattes, and providing wifi to the multitudes with only three modems and seven routers.

Yes and if it came to pass I know you'd believe.

 

[Madman]

I see a lot of college kids that are very interested in growing food.

I’m taking the tractor to the shop next week, if it quits raining. Two of the younger guys that work for me want to start a garden.

 

[gordon 2]

I’m taking the tractor to the shop next week, if it quits raining. Two of the younger guys that work for me want to start a garden.

Now that's the way it should be. I have always felt that church should offer the use of garden tillers to young families if they so desire to have small garden plots. The lessens for the kids would last a life time for some of the kids and most likely make Sunday School somewhat more relatable... I would think. But hey, if the church could afford a couple of tractors with experience operators to donate their time, or some such arrangement that would benefit young families... so much the better.Ps There would be nothing wrong in making garden plots for seniors who so wish also. Some have grand kids etc...

 

[Madman]

I have about an acre of field by the office, they can plant as much as they like.

We have always had a home garden, raised a few head of cattle when the boys were young so that they would understand about live stock. Had friends with chickens, so I never raised them. I had enough of hogs and chickens and milk cows, growing up.

Hunting, field, dressing, meat cutting, storage, be it freezing or canning, needs to be lessons for all young folks.

Just like every boy needs a dog, responsibility should be taught when they are young. And a 5 year old can reach those bush beans near the ground easier than I can.

 

[SemperFiDawg]

It occurs to me that many of the parables and words in the New Testament are of agricultural items and themes used to explain spiritual realities: orchards, fruits, pigs, sheep, goats, fields, wine, bread, wheat, pruning, fig trees, donkey, wells, hen, harvests etc.

Are these references still relevant to people today? I was at a service in Florida one Sunday were the pastor explained how a shepherd tended sheep because there was no sheep farming " hereabouts ".

When I was a kid many people in rural areas in general had a small veg. garden, sometimes full out farms, sometimes just hens and hogs.

I was told by my grandfather that hunting as we know it only came in to its own after WW1 and that most people got their meat from their small local farms. People had fenced in cattle, draft oxen and horses etc..

The percentage of population involved with hands on farming today is significantly less than the numbers just 100 yrs ago.

Are the many references to farming in the New Testament especially in the way they are used to teach and provide sometimes profound meanings still relevant to people today?

Are we still a farming people? Or is farming knowledge a hobby knowledge only and recreation like what hunting has become compared to hunting for survival? If we are not a farming people and not real hunter people is scripture still relevant to the people we have become? What have we become?

If your concern revolves around the notion that maybe the Bible uses outdated terminology, I would suggest reflecting on the fact that everything is precisely as God intends.

 

[gordon 2]

If your concern revolves around the notion that maybe the Bible uses outdated terminology, I would suggest reflecting on the fact that everything is precisely as God intends.

Right. My concern is that society today might have over dated biblical terminologies regards planting and growing crops perhaps simply for the fact that our suburbanite society does not teach much on " the important need and lessons due growing your own food'. In much of the developed world in the past 75 yrs, world populations have been urbanized significantly comparatively. We are traders of services more than of products today. etc. Farmers are corporations and multi national corporations now. When individual farmers fail today the corporations or insurance companies buy the land as investment. The references are very different today...