Come Be My Follower - Jehovah's Witnesses Official Media Web Site

“FORTHISIWASSENTFORTH” 85
of miles throughout Palestine, seeking out people with
whom he might share the good news. He spoke to them
in their homes, in public squares, in marketplaces, and
out in the open. He spoke to them even when he was in
need of rest, food, water, or a little quiet time with his
closest friends. Even as he was dying, he continued to
share with others the good news of God’s Kingdom!
—Luke 23:39-43.
19 Third, Jesus treated the ministry as something urgent.
Remember his conversation with the Samaritan woman
at the well outside of Sychar. Jesus’ apostles apparently
did not see in that situation an urgent need to share
the good news with others. Jesus said to them: “Do you
not say that there are yet four months before the harvest
comes? Look! I say to you: Lift up your eyes and view the
fields, that they are white for harvesting.”—John 4:35.
20 Jesus drew that illustration from the season at hand.
It was evidently the month of Chislev (November/
December). The barley harvest would not come for another
four months, about the time of Passover, on Nisan
14. So farmers did not feel any urgency about the
harvest just then. It was still a long way off. But what
about the harvest of people? Ah, many were ready to
hear, to learn, to become Christ’s disciples and gain the
marvelous hope that Jehovah held out to them. It was
as if Jesus could look out over those figurative fields and
see that they were white with all the ripe grain swaying
gently in the breeze, signaling their readiness to be harvested.
The time was at hand, and the work was urgent!
Regarding this verse, one reference work notes: “Grain, when
ripe, turns from a green to a yellow, or light colour, indicating that
it is time to reap it.”
19, 20. How did Jesus illustrate the urgency of the preaching work?