August 2025 Newsletter

Quotes of the month

Jesus didn’t call you to be Catholic, Pentecostal, Baptist, or any other denomination. He called you to be born again.

Daily Prayer & Devotional website

God is an almighty Watcher, a sleepless Guardian, a faithful Friend. Nothing can happen without His direction.

Charles Spurgeon

The path to the promised land leads through the wilderness.

Pastor Ujah Victor

If it's God's will, then it will happen. If it's not, God has a better plan. Be at peace knowing that.

Father Cedric Pisegna

If life were fair, we'd all be hanging on a cross.

J.C. Ryle 

Burn The Boat You Arrived On

by Frank Paul

And another one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, “Follow me: and let the dead bury their own dead.”    

Matthew 8:21-22

At first read, “Let the dead bury their own dead” sounds incredibly cold. This man’s father had just died, and Jesus is basically telling his disciple let it be and just come and follow me; but yet we know Jesus is not cold-hearted, and we know He would never dishonor or disobey one of His Father’s Commandments, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” So what was Jesus’ intent or teaching moment behind His instruction to a prospective follower?

When the Spanish Conquistador, Hernando Cortez, landed in Mexico in 1519 after months of sailing the ocean, he and his men were overjoyed when they finally found land; however, that joy quickly turned to fear as dozens of indigenous tribes came out of the jungle to meet them with spears and other make-shift weapons. As they retreated to the shoreline and huddled up to discuss their predicament, Cotez secretly told one of his Captains to take a couple of men and swim out to the boats they arrived on and burn them. Reluctantly, the Captain obeyed.

A while later as the men on shore were still huddled up discussing what to do next, one of them looked out on the water and saw their boats burning and alerted the others. As you can imagine, there was panic, screaming and yelling, and then reality sank in, and they were greatly dismayed.

Cortez calmly walked up to his men and said, and I am paraphrasing, You cannot return to the life you once had, you must move forward with me and together we conquer this newly found territory, or you can stay here on the shoreline and die; but either way, you cannot return home because you have no boat on which to leave.

Cortez knew that while there was still the option for escape, his men would only half-heartedly fight, but by burning the boats, he steadied the resolve of his men and commanded their full commitment to the battle. They went on to defeat their enemy and claim the substantial riches of the Aztecs.

As Christians, we must fully commit to the battle, to our newly found territory in Jesus. If we are to follow Jesus and the examples He has laid out for us in virtually every aspect of life, we must fully commit to that life, being steadfast in our approach, and not looking back (Remember what happened to Lot’s wife).

Living in the present moment, preparing intelligently for the future, and leaving the past in the past. Jesus wants us to have unconditional trust in Him and undivided attention for Him.

Whether we like to admit it or not, and usually we do not, the actual cost of discipleship will involve sacrificing our own interests and obligations and marching forward with Jesus in the new life He wants us to partake in. He willingly sacrificed His own life for you.

Jesus was fully committed.

The prospective follower who wanted to first go and bury his father was hesitating and not fully committed to change his way of life and follow Jesus. Jesus was simply saying it is time to move on. You will always have “something else” to do, but you must now let that go and embrace your new life.

There were many non-believers back in the 1^st century Galilee region that Jesus was traveling through and attempting to preach to and let everyone know of his new kingdom which He was ushering in; but quite frankly, if you were a non-believer burying another non-believer, it was the essence of “the dead burying their own dead.” They were dead to the knowledge of Jesus and the Scriptures. True life in found in Jesus alone.

Jesus was not being cold. He was making the point that the would-be follower had his priorities out of alignment and perhaps was not emotionally ready to move forward with true discipleship and was still caught in that “me first, my stuff first” mentality. That must go. Be like Joshua, who was surrounded by idolaters, and many, many people in his time worshipping other “gods.” He boldly stated in 24:15, “but as for me and my house, we will follow the Lord.”

I realize your hesitation on burning the boat of your past life and perhaps losing friends, or even loved ones, when you full steam ahead follow Jesus. It’s not popular, hell will declare war on you, and you will wind up wondering what in the heck did I do; and if you vacillate and feed the flesh, you will walk in the flesh, but if you feed the spirit, you will walk in the spirit.  You must look ahead and prepare for the future. This may seem cold, but honestly, how long do you really think you are going to live? In the span of space and time, it is not that long. Prepare for your next life now.

That preparedness does not mean casting everyone and everything you care about away; it means prioritizing your time, your effort, which battles you expend your energy on. You still care about people, but you care more about leading by example so that the people you do care about can learn from you. You be the exemplar of what life is like following Jesus; that is how we burn the boat we arrived on, by once committing to Jesus, you know He truly is your savior, move forward into that jungle of life ahead of you and conquer it; help others conquer it, and leave your past bad habits behind.

This is what Jesus is trying to teach to us in this verse, follow Me, let the past be, and let us conquer this temporal world so we can reside together in the next world, my new Kingdom I want to bring you into.

We need to have the mindset of those brave conquistadors and just move toward our fresh territory, our new life in Jesus, not be reluctant about our choice, just forge ahead and trust Jesus. The boat that you have been traveling on your whole life up to this point has burned, it is gone, and you cannot retreat. Look forward to your new life in Jesus and enjoy the road ahead.

In what language was the Bible first written?

The first human author to write down the Biblical record was Moses. He was commanded by God to take on this task. Exodus 34:27 records God’s words to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

 And what language did he use? He wrote in his native language, called Hebrew. 

Hebrew is one of a group of languages known as the Semitic languages which were spoken

 throughout that part of the world, then called Mesopotamia, located today mainly in Iraq. Their alphabet consisted of 22 letters, all consonants. (Much later they did add vowels)

Almost the entire Old Testament was written in Hebrew during the thousand years of its composition, but a few chapters in the Prophecies of Ezra and Daniel and one verse in Jeremiah were written in a language called Aramaic. This language became very popular in the ancient world and actually displaced many other languages. Aramaic even became the common language spoken in Israel during Jesus’ time, and it was likely the language He spoke day by day. Some Aramaic words were even used by the Gospel writers in the New Testament.

The New Testament, however, was written in Greek. This seems strange, since you might think it would be either Hebrew or Aramaic. However, Greek was the language of scholarship during the years of the composition of the New Testament from 50 to 100 A.D. The fact is that many Jews could not even read Hebrew anymore, and this disturbed the Jewish leaders. So around 300 B.C. a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek was undertaken, and it was completed around 200 B.C.

Gradually this Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, was widely accepted and was even used in many synagogues. It also became a wonderful missionary tool for the early Christians, for now the Greeks could read God’s Word in their own tongue.

So the New Tesatment authors wrote in Greek. They did not, however, use really high class or classical Greek, but a very common and everyday type of Greek. For many years some scholars ridiculed the Greek of the New Testament because many of its words were strange to those who read the writings of the great Greek classical authors such as Plato and Aristotle. But later many records were uncovered of ordinary people, and amazingly there were the same common terms used in everyday speech. The ridicule dried up accordingly.

The earliest copies of parts of the Hebrew Old Testament were discovered in 1947. They are part of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and actually date back to the first century B.C.  Even though they are at least 900 years older than any parts of the Bible we had before this, they are not the originals. They are copies. The originals have all been lost or destroyed.

Copying by scribes was done with great care in those days and because the text was regarded as sacred, the copyists were extremely painstaking. Today some 5,000 hand-copied documents exist of all or part of the Bible, and they agree in 98 percent of the text. No other ancient writing has this amount of underlying support with such amazing agreements to the text.

Yes, we do have what God wanted us to have. By way of translation, we now have His revelation in our own language and in 2300 other languages, too. Today we have the very Bible that comes to us from the three languages used in the original. Truly we can say, “God speaks my language, too.”

Source: Biblica, www.biblica.com

Excerpts from Charles Spurgeon’s book, “On the Power of Scripture”

He who keeps the Commandments of the Lord will become as an example that others may copy.

I pray you, therefore, walk humbly and carefully with God that He may be honored in you.

There is power in this Book that is not in any other.

Nothing ever plays on the cords of a man’s soul like the finger of God’s spirit.

Scripture reading is our spiritual mealtime.

You will get at the soul of Scripture when you can keep Jesus with you while you are reading.

The words God spoke thousands of years ago are true at this hour. Every word God has given us in this Book claims our attention because of the infinite majesty of Him who spoke it.

Let it not be said of you that you went through this life God speaking to you in His Book, and you refusing to hear.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if you meet with a man who finds fault with the Bible, you may be certain that he never read it.

God only forbids that which would injure us, and He only commands that which will be for our lasting good.

When a man has done what God bids him do, his conscience is at peace.

Good News

I just received the direct link to Amazon if you want to pick up my new book. It’s only 11 bucks. Perhaps think about sharing Jesus’ words with others by getting them a copy. I am trying to get Jesus out there for everyone. Please lend Jesus a hand, if you can. Thanks…

Just hold down control and click on the link…

https://a.co/d/hCNPXmZ

Two excellent documentaries on Prime Video

A combination of archeologists, paleontologists, geologists, atheists, and Christian scholars comb through the world delving into the actual evidence left behind of creation, and how old the earth truly is. This documentary is educational and oftentimes mind-boggling. You’ll want to take notes. It proves that Genesis is actually history and not fable. Great watch. It is called “Is Genesis History?”

A year later, this same group of scholars got together to debate if the flood really did happen as the Bible states; and if so, what happened after. Again, truly educational.

I have shared these documentaries with dozens of people, and all have been just enthralled at how much information is packed into these two hours. Well worth the watch. The second one is called “Is Genesis History – After the Flood.”

And if you want to check a great website for answers as to the validity of Genesis, you can go to www.answeringgenesis.org.

This website is packed with great info and teaching materials to further explain God’s sovereign rule over our earth.

(Disclaimer:  What you are reading is all me, with the exception of some articles I include by other Christian authors, but I always give them credit and their own byline.

 I enjoy writing and creating. So I use no AI writing assist programs, nor will I ever going forward. Thank you.)

www.thesowerofseeds.com

Editor-in-Chief: Frank Paul

frankpaul@thesowerofseeds.com

copyright@TheSeedSower2025

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