(Ver 2.2)  Today is now Part 12 of a very important series of lessons on Understanding Seeds in the Bible.  We have covered a lot of very significant information that will not be repeated so I would highly recommend that you go back and start your reading with “Part 1”.  I almost purposely left this part of this subject of seeds out of the series because it is so popularly preached on TV that it gives many a negative perception on a positive subject.  However, money and finances are clearly found in the Bible so I will touch on it today.  I believe if you study the Gospels you will see that Jesus taught on money more than any other subject.  I have heard many preachers, especially TV preachers, jump all over this subject and it appears to come across that they do it because they are only after your money.  Of course I do not judge them because I do not know their hearts, only God knows a man’s motivation for doing what he does.  It could be that God told them to teach this subject with great emphasis and I would sound like a fool if I would criticize what God does.  So, I cannot say or will not judge if this is true or not, I just said it just appears to many to be this way because of the emphasis that they are placing on a minor part of a much greater subject about seeds.  It would seem to me that to only pick one part of a subject and teach that causes the wrong perceptions to be given and to many people it is true that perception becomes reality and this is not a good image to portray to the world.  So far, I have given you eleven different lessons about seeds in the Bible and have not mentioned money or finances even once.  I guess since I do these Bible lessons for free and never ask you for money, is the one reason that I can include this lesson on money in the series today. 

In searching the Bible for any form of the word “seed” I found approximately 257 verses in the KJV that directly mentioned this word.  Out of this total I counted less than 20 verses that speak about money or that can be applied to money directly.  Of course this is a subjective number of verses depending upon your desire to try to apply verses from one topic to another.  This is certainly a legal method of Bible interpretation; God does it all the time.  You can find that God used the same word seed to describe at least 10 different things in the Bible and the laws and principles that govern them are universal truths that cross over into each topic area.  But, it is always difficult to teach some subjects like money and not sound like you are asking for money, especially in light of what the Bible says on this subject.  That is just the inherit problem with this subject and I will do the best that I can in spite of this appearance.  I hope that you can see the difference in what I say since there are no names or ministry names attached to this website and no donate buttons anywhere that allows you to give money to me.  If you are a Christian you should be giving your money to where you go to church and are being fed spiritually; we’ll see more about this as we go into this lesson.

So even though seeds of finance are a minor part of this subject in this entire seed topic realm, it is still a valid concept that applies to your money.  First, off think about this, farming and agriculture were common methods of income in Bible days.  The seed concepts of sowing and reaping applied whether you planted corn or raised sheep.  If you farmed then you raised crops or animals that could be sold or traded to others.  So the seed concepts found in the Bible about farming must also apply to modern day money and finances directly, also.  Farmers used seeds to grow crops and these crops produced more food than the originally planted seeds.  So the principles of sowing seeds into good ground, seed increase and multiplication are clearly applicable to our modern money.  In the world of finances money would represent the seed.  Today we can take money and invest it in the stock market or whatever expecting it to grow over time.  This is a seed principle that works when you plant your seeds in good ground.  You see good ground in the financial world are the companies that are going to be profitable.  If you place your money in a company that is foolish then it can go out of business and you lose your investment and that is the definition of planting your seed into bad ground.   In America we have many people who buy lottery tickets.  These are people who are hoping to hit it big and win millions of dollars overnight.  I have not found that concept in the Bible.  In the Bible if you want millions of dollars you must start with what you have and plant it to cause it to grow into millions of dollars.  This is the Bible concept of financial seed planting and reaping an increase.  These are clear Bible farming concepts that you need to learn and to apply to your life and what you do in the world.  If you are expecting to hit it big and get rich over night the odds are that it will not happen.  Yes, the lottery does occasionally reward someone with a large payment that gives the appearance of the possibility that it can happen to anyone.  However, mathematically speaking the odds of it happening to you is extremely low; in fact it is more likely that you will get hit by lightning and die than to think that you will win the lottery.  So let’s examine some scripture that can apply to money and finances in relation to seeds.

Gen 8:22  While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

While this scripture does not directly mention money it can be applied to money very easily.  This verse states a Bible law that establishes the concept of planting seeds and reaping harvests as long as the earth exists.  This would seem to imply that this principle will exist in the new earth to come also, so it seems to me to be a concept that we need to learn.  God tells us that our world was designed to be a seed world of sowing and reaping.  If you plant your seeds in good ground you will always harvest an increased crop or return on your initial investment.  Your seeds sown are always your initial investment that you risk losing.  The same enemies that you find in the natural world of natural seeds also apply symbolically to the financial world.  The concept of weeds, insects and the birds of the air that eat your seed; these are all symbolic enemies to financial dealings.  Before you can invest money anywhere you should first determine if this is good ground to plant in.  Too many times people put money somewhere and then change it to something else before they make anything where it is planted.  This would be like planting corn seed in the ground today and then digging it up tomorrow to take it to another field that you heard was better ground.  If you think this is stupid to do, you are right, but in the financial world people do it everyday.

Lev 26:16  I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

What I wanted to do was to show you that every seed sown can have an enemy.  Here we have God telling the children of Israel that the seeds they have sown will be eaten by their enemies.  This was usually caused by a reckless disregard for obeying the Word of God.  Whenever the children of Israel disobeyed God, this would open the door and allow enemies to come in and take what they had worked for.  So this is a lesson for Christian to learn from as a bad example of what not to do.

Deu 28:38  Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.

So you can see another verse where insects can come and eat your seed.  Here God says that you will take a lot of seeds into your field and harvest very little of them because they were all eaten by an enemy.  In our world today, financial enemies abound all around us.  There are false investment schemes that take your money and you can lose everything.  A man in the U.S. is serving jail time right now for taking billions of dollars from people and spending it on himself and his family.  His lavish lifestyle lasted for several years until it finally caught up with him, but most of the people that put their money in his false funds all lost their money.  These are some of the potential enemies to financial transactions and many of them are backed by satanic influences that causes you lose your money.

Deu 14:22  Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.

So here is another verse that does not mention money directly, yet clearly applies.  The word tithe means to give a tenth.  The word increase is a numerical financial term of positive results.  This verse also says that your field brings forth year by year.  So this is a principle of being faithful to do what you know to do in a consistent manner.  Being consistent is a seed principle.  There are many factors to planting seeds in the natural that apply in the financial world.  For, example, one key factor of correct seed planting is timing.  Did you know you can plant the right seed in the right ground at the wrong time and totally fail and lose everything?   So knowing when to plant is a key to getting positive results.  There are of course other seed concepts that also apply to money.  You can under seed a field and not reap what you should have.  You can over seed a field and also cause your crop to be unprofitable.   There are really too many factors to consider about seeds that apply to investing that I cannot go into them all.  It is not my goal to teach you how to invest your money; it is only my goal to introduce you to Bible concepts and to note the things that God has created in the world that give us views into spiritual laws.  I’ll take you to one more Old Testament verse before I move to the New Testament:

Isa 55:10  For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

Here is a verse that is speaking of natural things and spiritual things simultaneously.  It can also clearly be applied to financial things.  The blessings of God are many times manifested in the natural realm in financial blessings.  You can see this concept in the Book of Job when God blessed Job in the end with more than he had in the beginning.  You can also see the concept repeated in the life of Abraham when God blessed him exceedingly and abundantly so that his herds could not coexist with his nephew Lot’s herds because the land would not sustain them both since they were so blessed.  You can see the blessing of God on the life of Jacob when he worked 7 years for Rachael and his father-in-law tricked him into seven more years.  Jacob’s father-in-law saw that he was blessed because of Jacob’s presence and tried to manipulate his income and cheat him out of his blessings from God.  So we can see this pattern repeatedly found in the Bible that God blesses people financially with an increase in the natural realm.  So the verse in Isaiah can be applied to natural seeds, spiritual seeds, and financial seeds and so on.   If God gives us seed and bread these are clearly symbolic of financial things that represent income producing and life sustaining factors.  Let’s look at some New Testament verses about seeds and money:

2Co 9:6  But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

Here we again find a verse that crosses subject topic boundaries.  This verse applies to many things and it represents a spiritual law of God.  The basic law presented to you is this; you will always reap what you sow.  If you sow a little bit, you get a little bit back.  If you sow a lot you get a lot back.   These are just basic seed laws found in the Bible.  You can see that this verse does not mention seed directly, however to sow is to plant seed; therefore the seed is indirectly related.  Let’s see what else this chapter says about seeds of finance:

2Co 9:7  Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. 

What is a cheerful giver?  You can again apply this to many things, including money.  Being a cheerful giver involves primarily your attitude.  If you have a right positive attitude you will be blessed in what you do.  Have you ever read the story of Joseph in Genesis?  Here is a man that was handed some very rough set of circumstances in life and he maintained a great attitude through them all.  Joseph always expected God to fulfill his words that were spoken to him, so even though his brothers sold him into slavery he continued to believe in the best outcome.  Joseph spent a great amount of time in prison, but wherever he was, the blessing of God was upon him and he was raised because of his attitude.  This is a very powerful example for Christians today.  It tells us that we do not always have it exactly the way that we would like it to be all the time, but we can still expect God to work it all out to cause it to be good for us in the end.  So this verse is all about your positive attitude and your faith in God.   You can read the other verses in this chapter and hopefully see the connections to money and finances, but I’ll end this chapters’ discussion with this one more verse:

2Co 9:10  Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)

As you can clearly see the term seed sown is self-evident.  The term increase is also self-evident.  The “fruits” of your righteousness is of course symbolic of your harvest.  So this verse clearly applies in the spiritual realm to our effort to grow in spiritual maturity.   However, this verse will also cross over in the context of the natural realm and must be related to our financial blessings from God.  It can also mean emotional blessings.  It can further apply to our seeds that we plant in the lives of other people that allows God to grow them and produce fruit in their lives.  There are just a wide variety of applications for almost every verse on seeds.  This is why I teach that money is just a small part of the bigger picture of seeds given to us in the Word of God.  So let’s examine another chapter of the N.T. about seeds:

1Co 9:7  Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?

As you can see from this verse, God is comparing several similar concepts of financial matters.  God says nobody finances their own war.  God says nobody plants a crop and not also eats from it.  Nobody raises sheep and not drink the milk of the flock.  These are all symbolic representations of a spiritual set of realities found in the Bible.  We the church are in a spiritual warfare with a spiritual enemy named Satan.  Then Paul was a sower of the word of God and he says that anyone who sows will eat from that which he has sown.  Then sheep are a widely symbolic representation of the people of God in the Bible.  So the clear implied meaning is Paul fed the sheep and the sheep fed him back.  This is not rocket science so grasp these simple concepts and learn to live by them.

1Co 9:9  For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?

Here we have a Bible concept that is very profound being explained.  Many times God writes a Bible verse about natural things that cross over into the spiritual realm and this is a prime example of this.  Paul is saying that God wrote about oxen and corn but that these apply to him and to us.  In other words God did not write this verse for the benefit of the oxen, it was written for our benefit so that we can learn from it.  Oxen when treading corn are said to be partakers of the corn and this is a Bible principle given to us from God.  If the oxen are working then they should eat from their labors of work.

1Co 9:11  If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?

So this is a popular TV preacher verse found in the Bible.  However, Paul is not writing this asking for their money he is only explaining a very powerful concept of sowing and reaping.  Paul was sowing spiritual seeds into their lives and Paul said it was good for them to give back carnal or natural things back to him.  In this verse Paul is claiming to be like the oxen that was working and that he should be a partaker of his own labor.  However, what we see here are two principles being exercised simultaneously.  To give to Paul would cause Paul to receive a harvest from what he has previously spiritually sown from the Word of God.  For them to give financially to Paul is a concept of them planting back natural seeds into good ground; therefore they can also expect a harvest for what they have planted.  In other words if they wanted Paul to continue to bless them with spiritual things it was good for them to give to Paul of their natural things like money, food, etc. so that Paul could live on the earth to continue to preach and not have to work to eat.

1Co 9:13  Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?

As we continue to read in this chapter, Paul and God is giving us a key principle that ministers of the gospel are partakers of those which they minister to.   In other words this was a designed system of church government by God.  It promotes a minister who is focused on you and not himself.  If your minister had to work for a living in the world, you and the rest of the church would be a secondary thought to his primary time taker of working for a living.  However, if the church pays for his wellbeing and financial needs then the minister can focus on God and the church and ministering to the sheep of God and not have to worry about where he will eat tomorrow.

1Co 9:14  Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.

God again says what I just tried to say.  The minister of God should be paid by the people who he ministers to.  This is clearly the concept of sowing and reaping for both participants.  The minister should minister in faith that the people will meet his financial needs and the people should give to the minister in faith that the God of their salvation will give them increases from the seeds that they have sown.  So here is the flip side of the coin that also goes with this subject of sowing and reaping:

1Co 9:18  What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.

God in this verse clearly says that anyone who preaches and charges you money for the information is being an abuser of God’s designed plan.  Paul very clearly says that he should not charge anyone to preach what God has given to him for free.  This is what discourages me about many TV preachers that I listen to.  While they say good spiritual things for 20 minutes, they end their show with a request for you to buy the rest of the message on CD or DVD and it always costs much more than it does to produce these and to send them out.  A DVD can cost $20 plus postage and handling fees and this is clearly outrages for a piece of plastic that costs maybe 20 cents in bulk.  Clearly these ministers of God are looking to your purchases of their messages to fund their TV ministries.  So I understand and I am not stupid that TV cost a lot of money, but yet in what they do and the way that they do it, it gives the appearance of being an abuse of power that God says was not acceptable.  It also promotes a philosophy that only the rich can afford to know the truth of the Gospel and that is not a fair thing to do.  As you can tell this bothers me a great deal and I think it is very wrong.  Here is what Jesus said on the subject:

Mat 10:8  Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Jesus tells us that God did not charge us for the information that we learned to preach, so we should not charge others to hear it also.  That is why I do a free blog on a free website and I never ask for money or request you to send me a donation.  Money is not a motivational factor and why I do what I do.  However, that does not mean you should not do what God says to do either.  Wow, this is a very complex subject that involves the participation of everyone doing what they should do, when they should do it and then everything works according to God’s designed plan.  So that is why I did not want to include this lesson in my series about seeds, because it can very easily be taken wrong.  I probably ended this lesson and sounded like you should give me something for the spiritual seeds that I have given to you; and that is not what I said at all.  I said that I do these lessons for free because I love being a blessing to others.  So I try to do the right things according to the word of God and you should do the same.  If you noticed this blog is called the “Agapegeek” Blog and not my name.  That means I am anonymous and you do not know me or my address to send me anything.  I do this on purpose also.  How you can bless me is to tell a friend about what you have learned and increase the traffic on my web site.  That would be one of the greatest ways that you can be a blessing to me.   If you learned anything about giving and sowing financially then you should give to your local pastor to help support your church to grow.  We have just briefly covered a much broader subject of sowing and reaping financially from the Word of God.  This is a complex subject and one that is not easily understood by many.  Many people find it very difficult to relate their money to be like a seed that can be planted into ground to grow and increase.  However, you can certainly find this concept in the Bible therefore you can personally choose to participate in it or to ignore it.  Thanks for reading my Bible Study and God Bless!