Exercising Authority: Seeds

Most people mentally divorce Genesis 1:26-28 from Genesis 1:29-30, but God ordered them that way on purpose. It may seem like He changed topics from people to plants, but a connection exists that few people recognize. Right after God made humanity in His image and gave them dominion, He gave them the seed-bearing plants. In fact, the five attributes that distinguish people from animals are God’s image, their authority, their dominion, their ability to speak, and their access to seeds. This detail is easy to overlook, but it reveals something important: God’s design uses seeds to exercise authority and produce results.

Jesus begins explaining the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8:11 by saying, “The seed is the word of God.” This understanding of seeds as words is in keeping with Proverbs 18:20-21, which says, “A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” You exercise your authority by speaking, and the words you speak carry that authority. When you say words, they carry death or life, and produce fruit. No wonder Jesus warned so strongly about words in Matthew 12:36-37: “For every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

As God’s image bearer, you carry His authority. He expects you to exercise it within the dominion He has given you. You exercise your authority by speaking, and the words you speak are seeds that carry productive and reproductive power. You plant those seeds by speaking with your God-given authority in your God-given dominion, and those seeds produce results on the earth. Just like God speaks and results follow, you speak and results follow. That is how you exercise your God-given authority on the earth, and accomplish all that God has set before you.