A Question for the Calvinist

[Arial]

Jesus, the son of Mary, longed for it...

The Parable of the Fig Tree; the Landlord longed for the Fig Tree be cut down and Burned. But the Gardener longed to Dung the Tree for a year. God got what he longed for; to Dung the Tree. God didn't get what he longed for; he longed for fruit, he longed for the tree to be cut and burned...

The Reprobate are not more powerful than God...

This parable of Luke 13:6-9 was not told in a vacuum. It is directly connected to 13:1-5. This concerns a historical event of the tower of Siloam where the tower fell and killed 18 Galileans. The crowd was speculating about this according to an embedded belief that tragedy and misfortune were a result of divine punishment for sin. Jesus disavows that position by telling them that without repentance all are headed for judgement.

The parable of the fruitless fig tree is directed at Israel, the fact that they had not produced the fruit they were meant to produce and deserved to be cut down. The gardener and the three years would be an allusion to Christ's ministry in Israel, at the end of which, if the fruit of repentance and their purpose of taking the message, "There is one God and no other gods and only the true and living God is to be worshiped." to the pagan world (revealing to the pagans what God had revealed of himself to Israel)then they would be cut off. Which, of course is what happened, when as a nation, they rejected Christ.

It isn't about compassion, it is about the work of Christ.

 

[Arial]

I have thought sometimes a person can be more than one type of ground, or maybe some just need more watering, applied at different stages of life is the better way to think of it.

That is how I saw that parable---before I was Reformed. I can remember saying in a Bible study where that parable was being discussed. "I have at different times been each kind of soil, and back and forth."

And that would be true if that is what Jesus was addressing, but it wasn't. In verse 19 he tells us that this seed is the word of the kingdom. What the word of the gospel does when it goes out, and it is apparent that it goes out to all without discrimination, even the reprobate. It either lands on bad soil or good soil. What follows is two more parables about the kingdom of God.

So, in the parable of the sower Jesus is actually expressing both divine election and the working of God in the elect, guaranteeing fruit will be produced.

The soil is the heart. It is God who prepares the soil to receive the seed.

 

[Hazelelponi]

The soil is the heart. It is God who prepares the soil to receive the seed.

Yes. So how am I saying something different?

Did you not hear Jesus died on the cross before you were saved? I don't know how I'm saying or thinking it differently.

Or are you saying what is being discussed in the parable isn't the Gospel message going forth?

If it isn't talking about the Gospel what is it talking about that falls on everyone?

The Kingdom itself? Commands, distinctives and everything then?

 

[Arial]

Yes. So how am I saying something different?

I am simply saying that as Christians we do not start as one kind of soil, and become another type of soil, or fluctuate between types of soil. Which is what I thought you were saying. That sometimes it seems to you as though you do. If I am mistaken in what you were saying, I apologize.

 

[Hazelelponi]

I am simply saying that as Christians we do not start as one kind of soil, and become another type of soil, or fluctuate between types of soil. Which is what I thought you were saying. That sometimes it seems to you as though you do. If I am mistaken in what you were saying, I apologize.

Well, that was why I tried to clarify it better by making sure to say

"maybe some just need more watering, applied at different stages of life is the better way to think of it.'

“The seed is the word of God.”
—Luke 8:11

The reason I said what I did was because we heard the word of God and at least something that might have shared similar words as the Gospel

 

[Carbon]

The Rocky, Weedy and Trodden Soils are Reprobates...

And none of them are saved.