by Bill Krayer and Chris Mogensen
The kingdom of heaven is like a plant in the corner of a garden. All day long that plant can’t help but grow toward the light.
God is constantly working in the hearts and minds of our friends. Part of the reason for our conviction is found in the nature of the Gospel of the kingdom.
“All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth” (Colossians 1:6 NIV).
The word for “bearing fruit” in Colossians 1:6 is in the middle voice. The Gospel doesn’t just produce fruit (active voice). The Gospel is fruitful in and of itself. In the Gospel’s presence, fruit is constantly produced. It never runs out of its ability to produce fruit.
The word for “increasing” is auxánõ. This word means that there is constantly increasing growth. However, this growth is due to influences outside of itself.
Phototropism describes the reasons why plants move and bend toward the sun. Darwin was the first to study the phenomena. Scientists studying this noted that something was causing a literal non-stop bending action and that this action was due to the breakdown of cell walls and subsequent elongation of cells on the dark side of plants. Later discoveries attributed this to a plant hormone. And scientists couldn’t pick a more appropriate name than this same Greek word used in Colossians 1:6. They named the hormones “auxins.”
Here’s how it works in plants.
Blue light absorbed by the photoreceptors in plants stimulates auxin to move laterally, across stem and leaf, to the side of the plant, away from the light. The auxin hormone then causes H+ ions to move into those cells on the dark side of the plant, making them more acidic. The acidity disrupts hydrogen bonds in the cell walls, making them weaker. Enzymes called expansins activate to elongate those dark side cell walls. Longer cell walls on one side of the plant create unequal growth, which bends the plant towards the smaller cells on the side receiving light. Result: more energy absorbed and more growth!
Think about how it works in life.
God uses much the same process. He makes sure that truth always goes to the dark side of our thoughts and prejudices in order to cause growth there, which in effect “bends us” toward His light. The Gospel breaks down walls in our thinking. It stretches us and leans us toward the light. Do you have friends who don’t like God or the Bible or other Christians, but like you, and like spending time with you, and find that your conversations help him or her to sort out life’s confusion? That’s the auxánõ of the Gospel at work.