Parable Perplexity

Do you ever find yourself looking at a passage of scripture you’ve read a hundred times and realizing you never really processed it? I had one of those moments this morning in Mark 4 as I read and re-read what commentators refer to as “The Parable of the Seed Growing”. This short parable is unique to Mark’s gospel. Perhaps it is so easy to gloss over because it contains similar imagery to the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 (and earlier in this same chapter).

Or perhaps other people pay closer attention to detail that I do.

A Distinction Too Fine

Some writers distinguish between the phrases “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God” in the New Testament, asserting they are intended to mean different things. This post from KJVBible.org is a typical example. Gaines R. Johnson claims, “Knowing the doctrinal difference between the terms ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ and ‘Kingdom of God’ is the key to understanding the complete time line of Biblical history past, present, and future, the proper place of the Church and the prophetic future of Israel.”

That’s a stack of pretty impressive claims, and it warrants a bit of investigation.